TREACHERY OF THE AUTOCRACY
On the outbreak of the war the premier was Ivan L. Goremykin, a typical autocrat, who had served under four czars, and who was now well past seventy. As though utterly unconscious of the war situation, he carried his administration on as he had done previous to the war. First of all, he began a determined campaign of persecution of the Jews, at a moment when the most violent anti-Semites would be irritated by such a course. He even went so far as to have a number of pogroms perpetrated and he spread persistent rumors that the Jews were betraying the cause of Russia, in spite of the fact that they were playing a leading part in the social organizations and were more than proportionately represented in the army. Then he instituted similar persecution among the Ruthenians and the Poles, and when Galicia was occupied by the Russian military forces Goremykin sent there a number of petty officials whom he instructed to make the inhabitants into Russians according to old methods. Then when the commander in chief, Grand Duke Nicholas, issued his manifesto promising the Poles liberty, the Goremykin ministry completely ignored the promise. And finally, a number of political refugees, who had returned from abroad to offer their services, either in the army or in the social organizations, were imprisoned or sent to Siberia.
Even the reactionaries who had previously supported all that the Government stood for were indignant. This feeling became most manifest in the Duma. In 1914 the Duma had been a reactionary body, the majority of the deputies being in favor of trusting entirely to the Government. In August, 1915, a most astonishing thing happened, the Duma, with a large majority, which included Conservatives, Liberals and Radicals alike, drew up a demand for a series of reforms, including the institution of a cabinet responsible to the people through itself. Another demand was for a general amnesty for all political prisoners.This was the famous Progressive Bloc. Goremykin refused even to discuss the program. Instead, he hurried to the czar to get his signature to a decree proroguing the Duma, in which he succeeded. The result was that the whole population rose in threatening revolution, and this time the threat was not from the revolutionary elements. Even former leaders of the Black Hundreds were among the protestants. It was then that Rodzianko, the president of the Duma, addressed a letter to the premier, placing the responsibility of Russia's recent defeats squarely on him and added: "You are obviously too old to possess the vigor to deal with so difficult a situation. Be man enough to resign and make way for some younger and more capable man." Then Goremykin resigned.
But the change was for the worse, rather than for the better, for the next premier was a close friend and associate of Rasputin, a younger man, to be sure, and more capable, but whose capabilities were to be turned in the wrong direction. Boris Sturmer, a German by blood and sympathies, former governor of Tver, one of the blackest of reactionaries, was appointed to fill the vacant premiership.
Sturmer, where his predecessor had perhaps been merely incompetent, now set about consciously to make a separate peace with Germany, and this object he hardly took the trouble to hide. Through the censorship he suppressed the loyal press and encouraged a number of papers which openly denounced Russia's allies and demanded a separate peace with the kaiser. Then he sent agents to Switzerland, there to confer with representatives of the German Government, so openly that it was known all over Russia, even among the peasants, that a separate peace was being prepared.[Back to Contents]
PARTY INTRIGUES
Again the popular protest checked the machinations of the dark forces. Then Sturmer turned deliberately to suppress the democratic organizations. Early in 1916 he issued an order forbidding any of these societies, which were keeping the armies in the field, from holding meetings. Next the headquarters of all these organizations were placed in charge of the police. And then came the removal from the Cabinet of Sazonov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the one man in whose loyalty to Russia the people had confidence. Sazonov had always been a keen admirer of the British and the French, and was in close touch with the embassies of these countries in Petrograd. To the Russians he had seemed at least some sort of a guarantee against being surprised with a sudden separate peace. Nor can there be any doubt that he was a serious obstacle in the way of the dark forces in their efforts to bring about their object. Sazonov's removal acquired still deeper significance when it was announced that Sturmer himself would take charge of foreign affairs, business of which he had absolutely no experience.
Of a deep significance, though this was not obvious at the time, was the appointment of Alexander D. Protopopoff as Minister of the Interior. This was the man who was finally to kick aside the last wedge shoring up the tottering walls of the Russian autocracy.
Protopopoff, who had for the first time entered politics in 1908, being a cloth manufacturer of Simbirsk, was in that year elected a deputy to the Duma by the moderate Octobrists, a conservative body which usually sided with the Government. But when the Octobrists joined the Progressive Bloc against the Government, Protopopoff had shown himself quite radical and supported it. Quite unexpectedly, by the resignation of a vice president of the Duma, he rose to prominence by being electedto the vacant office. In the summer of 1916 he was one of a delegation which visited England, France, and Italy. On his return to Russia, through Stockholm, he there met and held a conversation with a German agent, but at the time, though the matter was taken up by the Duma for investigation, he managed to exonerate himself. But, as became known, the incident caused him to attract the attention of Rasputin, and he and the court favorite came together and to an understanding. The result was his appointment to the cabinet.
At first it was hoped that Protopopoff would prove the sign of surrender of the autocracy; that a liberal element was to be introduced into the administration through him. But the new minister showed himself in close harmony with Sturmer, and presently this last hope was destroyed.
With Protopopoff a new idea was introduced into the Government. It was he undoubtedly who conceived the idea of staging a revolution in Russia, of creating or precipitating a premature uprising, as had been done so successfully in 1905, but for a different purpose. The idea now was to create such internal disorders as to give the Government a pretext for making separate peace with the Central Powers. This might deceive everybody; the revolutionary elements, which would be used as the medium for the disorder, and the liberals and conservatives who were now strongly anti-Government. In the midst of the turmoil the separate peace could be effected; then the soldiers could be recalled from the front and used in suppressing the revolution, a task that could be easily accomplished with the vast number of men under arms. As was later to be demonstrated, the dark forces did not reckon with the psychological changes which the army was also undergoing.
Mysterious placards now began to appear in the factories and munition shops calling on the workingmen to go out on strike and organize demonstrations. Police agents, disguised as workingmen, went into the industrial plants and began to preach revolution. It was easy enough to utilize Socialist philosophy for this purpose. Why should the workers of Russia fight the workers of Germany, when their interests wereidentical? Why should they shed their blood for the ruling classes, when the ruling classes were the only ones who could gain through the war? The German Socialists were even then rising against their masters; the Russian Socialists were urged to do likewise and so join their German comrades in paving the way to the cooperative commonwealth.
Fortunately the Social Democratic party had already issued a detailed manifesto explaining why the Russian Socialists should stand by the war. The genuine leaders of the Socialists should[TN] the labor organizations realized immediately the policy which the dark forces were initiating. For once they came together with the liberals and even with the conservative elements, and prepared to combat this underhanded propaganda. Placards were posted and proclamations were issued by the real leaders denouncing the impostors and explaining their tactics. This underground fight among the laboring classes was of long duration, however. In instituting this policy the dark forces were indeed playing with the fire which was eventually to consume them.
Throughout the war the food supply had been very bad, not on account of any real scarcity of foodstuffs, but because of the inefficient handling of the inadequate transportation facilities. In some localities provisions rotted in the warehouses while in the large cities the people were starving, on the verge of famine. Instead of handling the food situation as the other belligerent countries were doing, Sturmer encouraged a group of dishonest financiers to acquire control of the food supplies, thereby making big financial profits himself. This greediness on his part was, however, to cause his own downfall before that of his associates. A traitor to his country, he was also a thief.[Back to Contents]
THE WORK OF TRAITORS
Such were the tactics the dark forces had fully adopted in the fall of 1916, only a few months before the revolution. They deliberately set about disorganizing the machinery of the nation to facilitate a Russian defeat. As has been proved, they did not stop short of actual treachery in the military field. The failure of the Rumanian defense was the result of actual betrayal by those higher even than the generals in the field. The Germans and Austrians had known every detail of the campaign plans of the Rumanians and the Russian army supporting them, and this information they had obtained directly from Petrograd.
Had it not been for the fact that the whole nation was awaiting the opening of the Duma to take place on November 14, 1916, it is more than probable that the revolution would have taken place in the fall of 1916 instead of four months later. It would then, however, have been a far bloodier event, for then the disintegration of the autocracy had not yet reached such a complete stage as it did in the following spring, and it might have offered a far more serious, perhaps a successful, resistance. But the last hope of the people was in the Duma, and they awaited its session in that spirit.
The Duma convened on the date set, and then was witnessed the remarkable spectacle of the conservative members denouncing the Government with the fiery oratory of Socialist agitators. The president himself, Michael Rodzianko, who hitherto had always been a stanch supporter of the autocracy, being a prosperous landowner and the father of two officers in a crack regiment, arraigned Sturmer as once he had arraigned the revolutionary agitators. But it was left to Professor Paul Milukov, the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, to create the sensation of the meeting. He not only denounced Sturmer as a politician, but he produced the evidence which proved beyonda doubt that Sturmer was receiving bribes from the food speculators; the specific case he brought up showed that Sturmer, through his secretary, had offered to shield certain bankers under indictment for a substantial consideration. Sturmer immediately took steps to dissolve the Duma. But the czar, whose signature he needed, was at the front. For the moment he was delayed.
During this interval another sensation occurred. General Shuvaiev, Minister of War, and Admiral Grigorovitch, Minister of Marine, appeared in the Duma, and declared themselves on the side of the Duma and the people. This settled the fate of Sturmer. On his way to the front to procure the signature of the czar to the proclamation dissolving the Duma he was handed his dismissal.
His successor was Alexander Trepov, also an old-time bureaucrat, but known not to be affiliated with the dark forces. It was hoped that he would conciliate the angry people. But Trepov never played an important part in later developments; the fight was now between the Duma and the people on the one hand and the Minister of the Interior, Protopopoff, on the other. This battle now began in earnest and was destined to be fought out to a bitter finish.
With a brazen fearlessness which must be credited to him, Protopopoff now arraigned himself openly against the whole nation and the Duma, with only the few hundreds of individuals constituting the dark forces behind him. But these sinister forces included Rasputin, the all-powerful, the czarina, and, unconscious though he himself may have been of the part he played, the czar himself.
Protopopoff now began persecuting the members and the leaders of the social forces as though they were the veriest street agitators for Socialism. Next he endeavored to have Paul Milukov assassinated, but the assassin repented at the last moment and revealed the plot. Then he gathered together former members of the Black Hundreds and recruited them into the police force and trained them in machine-gun practice. And finally he renewed the energy with which hehad begun to organize revolutionary disorders among the workers.
All Russia was against him, even to the great majority of the members of the Imperial family. His own mother had warned the czar that disaster threatened him. As early as December, 1916, the Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch had held a long interview with the czar in which he had openly denounced the czarina and Rasputin in such strong terms that when he had finished, having realized he had gone extremely far, he remarked:
"And now you may call in your Cossacks and have them kill me and bury me in the garden." In reply the czar only smiled and offered the grand duke a light for the cigarette which he had been fingering in his nervous rage. It was by a member of the Imperial family that the first vital blow was struck at the dark forces. In the early morning hours of December 30, 1916, a dramatic climax was precipitated.
It was then that a group of men drove up in two motor cars to the residence of Prince Felix Yusupov, a member of the Imperial family through his having married a cousin of the czar. Among the men in the two cars were Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch, ex-Minister of the Interior, A. N. Khvostov, also an ex-Minister of the Interior, and Vladimir Purishkevitch, at one time a notorious leader of Black Hundred organizations, but since the beginning of the war an active worker in the social organizations and a deputy in the Duma, where he formed one of the Progressive Bloc.
A few minutes later the policeman on duty in the neighborhood heard shots within the house and cries of distress. On making an investigation he obtained no satisfaction, nor did he dare to continue his inquiry on account of the high rank of the owner of the house. Again the men came out of the house and carried between them a large bundle resembling a human form, which they hustled into one of the automobiles and rode off.
Next morning blood spots were found in the street where the motor cars had stood. Then a hole was discovered in the ice covering the river Neva, beside which were found two bloodygoloshes. Further search revealed a human body, which proved to be the corpse of no less a person than the notorious monk Rasputin himself.[Back to Contents]
THREATENING OF THE STORM
Thus was Rasputin finally removed from his sphere of evil influence by men who before the war had been of the very inner circles of the autocracy, but who had gradually undergone a great change of opinion. They believed that even the autocracy itself was only secondary in importance to Russia herself, and they had taken it upon themselves, after doing all in their power to circumvent the traitors through legitimate means, to remove the archconspirator as such creatures usually were removed in the days when they were more common. Rasputin had been lured to the house of Prince Felix and there killed.
It was said that the czarina was hysterical for days after the sensational news had swept over all Russia and Protopopoff fainted upon being informed of the death of his dark ally and master. The czar, who was at headquarters at the front, hurried home to Tsarskoe Selo. And then, as though to insult the nation, the dead mujik was buried with such pomp as was accorded only to members of the Imperial family, the emperor and Protopopoff being among the pallbearers.
The people treated the event as though it were a great military victory, rejoicing unrestrainedly. The premier, Trepov, who though a mere figurehead, was still loyal to Russia and secretly an enemy of Rasputin and Protopopoff, allowed all the details of the assassination to be published in the papers, even to the names of those concerned in the actual killing. These latter were of too high a rank to be punished, besides which popular sentiment stood solidly behind them. Trepov himself did not prosecute them because of his sympathy with their deed.
Now that Rasputin, the undoubted leader and master mind of the dark forces was dead, there was universal hope that the pro-German conspiracy was killed with him. But the machine he had built up for his own protection and medium through which to accomplish his ends was too well organized to be broken even by his removal. Into Rasputin's place stepped Protopopoff. He maintained his hold over the czar by means of spiritualistic séances in which he pretended to have communication with the spirit of the dead monk. The conspiracy continued unabated, only now Protopopoff worked with the fury of desperation. And so the crisis soon came to a head.
All Russia, save for the small palace group, was against him. At the new year reception held in the palace he was most severely humiliated by Rodzianko, the president of the Duma, who, when Protopopoff approached him with extended hand, swung his back to him, causing a sensation all over the country. At another time, when he entered the rooms of the aristocratic club in Petrograd, of which he was a member, all the other members present walked out. Yet he had the courage of his evil convictions; with the desperate fury of a tortured bull in the ring he faced all his enemies and continued on his path, the whole nation against him.
Trepov, who had shown his sympathy for the executioners of Rasputin, was removed. So were the Ministers of War and Marine, who had declared themselves for the people. Black reactionaries and pro-Germans were placed in their posts. Then he began arresting all the labor leaders who were agitating against strikes and demonstrations and in favor of prosecuting the war, leaving his own hirelings, who were preaching strikes and revolution, to continue their efforts unharmed. This was about the most obviously significant act he had yet committed. Then the food-supply trains arriving daily in Petrograd were deliberately halted in the provinces and the population drifted on to the verge of actual famine.
Then Protopopoff's efforts, in the early days of March, 1917, began to bear fruit. In spite of the warnings of the few loyal labor leaders still at liberty, the workers began to grumble andto talk revolt. Their stomachs were empty. On February 27, 1917, when the Duma went into session again, 300,000 workingmen had gone out on strike in Petrograd. The air was charged with electricity. Everybody realized that the critical moment was approaching: the final battle between the dark forces and the people.
On March 1, 1917, the only two leaders of the labor organizations which supported the Duma issued an appeal exhorting the workers to return to work.
And this appeal in favor of order and law was censored by the Government.
Further proof of the treachery of Protopopoff were not needed; this was the most convincing which had yet appeared.
During the first week of March, 1917, the unrest among the populace continued growing, and the Duma and the labor leaders felt themselves regarding the situation helplessly. Small riots occurred and martial law was immediately declared. Food was so scarce that even the wealthy were starving.
But Protopopoff had made one mistake: he was also starving the troops garrisoning Petrograd.
On March 9, 1917, the street railways ceased running on account of a strike of the street railway men. The streets were full of excited crowds, though as yet no violence had been committed. Cossacks and soldiers also patrolled the thoroughfares, while squads of police were on the housetops, covering the street corners with machine guns. Protopopoff wanted revolution, but he did not mean to allow it to succeed. All he wanted was a few days of violent disorder, a prolonged Red Sunday, during which a separate peace with Germany and Austria might be proclaimed.
But the violence did not break out so soon as he desired. The strike was spreading; by the 10th it had become practically universal. But meanwhile the workingmen were quietly organizing. Electing delegates, they formed the Council of Workingmen's Deputies, which immediately took over the control of their movements. It was this fact which caused what might have been a blind uprising of desperate people to assume thecharacter of an organized revolution. On this date the Duma, which had been in continual session, broke off relations with the Government with a resolution stating that "with such a Government the Duma forever severs its connections." In response to this act the czar issued a decree ordering the dissolution of the Duma.
On the following day, Sunday the 11th, the members of the Duma unanimously decided to ignore the decree of the czar and to hold what was to prove the first session of the Duma as the representative body of the Russian democracy.
Meanwhile the street demonstrations continued, augmented by those workers who had not yet gone out on strike and were simply out on their weekly day of rest. A proclamation had been issued by the military authorities forbidding gatherings, adding that the severest measures would be resorted to in breaking them up. But no notice was taken of this order. The Cossacks were riding through the crowded streets, but, in sharp contrast to their behavior of former times, they took great care not to jostle the people even, guiding their horses carefully among the moving people.[Back to Contents]
REVOLUTION
The first actual violence was begun by the police, who opened fire on the crowds in certain sections of the city from the housetops with their machine guns. A number of demonstrators were killed and wounded, but still the disorders did not yet become general. Where the police opened fire the more resolute elements of the crowds rushed in to attack them and killed them. And now came Protopopoff's pretext for ordering the soldiers to fire and to begin such a massacre as had squelched the premature uprising on Red Sunday twelve years before.
It was at this point that one of the most vital arrangements of Protopopoff's scheme snapped.
There were 35,000 soldiers in Petrograd at this time, more than sufficient to suppress any uprising. Neither Protopopoff nor the most radical members of the Duma doubted that the soldiers would obey the orders of their officers, and shoot down the crowds on the streets. When had Russian soldiers ever refused to suppress demonstrations of the people? "The revolution is on," cried Milukov, "but it will be drowned in blood!" In this supposition both sides were to prove greatly mistaken.
The Russian army of March, 1917, was a very different organization from the Russian army of March, 1914. First of all, it was now composed of men who three years before had been part of the Russian people. The regular professional army, the standing establishment, which had been the support of the autocracy, had been practically drowned in the vast influx of recruits. Furthermore, the old, well-trained regiments constituting the regular army had been decimated in the fierce battles along the Russian front, some of them being annihilated. They had been eliminated. Of still more importance there had been a change in the minds of the highest army leaders themselves. Whatever might have been their attitude toward the autocracy and the people in the days of old, like their colleagues, the civilian reactionaries, they had seen the autocracy and the social organizations contrasted; they were profoundly patriotic and they realized what Rasputin and his dark forces had stood for, what Protopopoff stood for; they had personally, most of them, pleaded with the czar to clean the court of the sinister pro-German influences—with absolutely no success. They realized that the country must choose between the autocracy as it was and a government of the people if Prussianism was to be defeated, and they did not hesitate in their choice.
Among these army leaders, who had undergone such a change of psychology, was no less a person than the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch himself, who had been removed from his command of the armies facing the Austro-Germans and transferred to the minor field of operations against Turkey,only because he had protested against the influence of an illiterate Siberian mujik.
With very few exceptions, the army leaders, from the commander in chief down to the regimental commanders, stood arrayed on the side of the Duma. So clever an intriguer as Protopopoff should have realized this.
One of the first regiments to be called out to fire on the people after the first encounters between the machine-gun squads of the police and the demonstrators was the famous Volynski Regiment, notorious in Russian revolutionary history. Never had it failed its masters. A noncommissioned officer of this crack regiment, Kirpitchnikov, immediately made the round of the soldiers and the other noncommissioned officers. They organized a committee which approached the officers. The latter, with the single exception of the colonel, stood with the committee. When the order came to fire on the people, they shot the colonel, formed, shouldered their pieces, and marched out on the streets as the first organized body of soldiers to fight for the awakening Russian democracy.
Persuading several other guard regiments to join them, they attacked Protopopoff's police squads. This event occurred at 5 o'clock in the afternoon of the 11th, and marked the beginning of the actual revolution. The fighting begun by the mutinied soldiers now became general. One by one other regiments were called out, but with very few exceptions all refused to fire on the people and joined the revolutionists. Then the Cossacks came over in a body. As twilight approached the firing in the streets became general and continuous.
Meanwhile Michael Rodzianko, president of the Duma, made one more effort to avert the great crisis. The czar, having been assured by Protopopoff several days previous that all danger was over and the situation well in hand, had gone to army headquarters at the front. To him Rodzianko sent a telegram worded as follows:
"The situation is extremely serious. Anarchy threatens in the capital, transportation of provisions is completely disorganized, and fighting has begun in the streets. It is of vital importancethat a new cabinet be formed by some person enjoying the confidence of the people. Each moment of delay adds to the disaster. May the responsibility for a great national calamity not fall upon your head."
To this telegram the czar made no answer.[Back to Contents]
THE CULMINATION
Meanwhile the deputies sat in session, helpless, regarding the situation with growing alarm. After all, the majority were naturally conservatives and feared revolution. As a matter of fact, they allowed themselves to lose grip of the situation.
As has already been said, the uprising was not a blind force giving vent to elemental feeling, but a thoroughly organized revolutionary movement. The old revolutionary forces had awakened in time to take control of the developing situation. It was the leaders of the Social Democrats, the Social Revolutionists, the successors of the old-time Nihilists and the labor leaders, who were proving themselves masters of the situation. The Duma sat quiet, inert, and so lost its opportunity. It hated the dark forces on the one hand, it feared the revolution on the other, and at the critical moment helped neither. What saved it from being completely discredited was the fact that a number of the revolutionary leaders, such as Alexander Kerensky and Tcheidze, both Socialists, were also deputies in the Duma, and, being of well-balanced minds, realized that they must have the support of those elements which the Duma represented to succeed. The real center of government of the new democracy, then rising out of the birth pangs of the nation, was the Council of Workingmen's Deputies.
This organization on the part of the active revolution was largely completed during the night of the 11th, even while heavyfiring swept up and down the streets of the city. When Monday morning dawned the various radical and labor leaders had knit themselves together in the Council of Workingmen's Deputies and were in control of the revolutionary forces through a great number of subcommittees. An intelligent plan of campaign for the actual military or fighting operations had been drawn up and was followed with an efficiency that would have done credit to organized troops. Undoubtedly the officers of the mutinied regiments who had gone over to the side of the people helped, but the revolutionary commanders did not for a moment allow them to take control of the situation. The red flag of International Socialism was raised that Monday morning as the emblem of the new régime, and to the present moment it continues flying.
The dominating brain, the vital moral force, behind the revolution was Alexander Kerensky, the young Socialist lawyer.
On Monday morning the revolutionary column headed by a regiment of the mutineers delivered an attack on the Arsenal, after dispersing the police groups in the neighborhood. The commandant, General Matusov, proved loyal to Protopopoff and offered resistance, but after some sharp fighting the garrison was overcome and Matusov killed. The capture of the Arsenal gave the revolutionists possession of a supply of rifles, small arms, machine guns, and ammunition more than ample to equip all their fighting forces. The artillery depot was also taken, and now the revolutionary soldiers, most of them students and workingmen, organized into flying detachments which scoured the city in automobiles and hunted down the police as though they were wild animals. The jails and prisons too were broken into and all the political prisoners liberated. And so fell the notorious Peter and Paul Fortress, the Bastille of Russia, in which some of the finest minds of the Russian revolutionary movement, both men and women, had been done to death with horrible torture. In the confusion some criminals also escaped, but in spite of their presence in the fighting crowds, there was very little looting or disorder, such as invariably attends violent uprisings. Schlusselburg Prison, another monument to martyredadvocates of freedom, also fell. Then, headed by one of the old revolutionists, just released from a long imprisonment, the people turned on the most hated of all the old institutions, the headquarters of the secret police. This building was stormed, its defenders killed and then burned to its foundations, together with all its records. Everywhere the revolutionary forces were successful, meeting comparatively little resistance.
Meanwhile the Duma continued inactive, except that Rodzianko sent a second telegram to the czar and also a telegram to each of the prominent army commanders, begging them to make their personal appeals to the czar, that he might be persuaded to take some action which would at least save him his throne nominally.
"The last hour has struck," wired the Duma president. "To-morrow will be too late if you wish to save your throne and dynasty."
And again the czar, misled by a false adviser, refused to heed. Various accounts would seem to indicate that he was drunk at the time.
By this time 25,000 soldiers of the garrison had joined Kerensky's revolutionary army under the red flag. Then came a committee from these soldiers to the doors of the Duma with the demand:
"We have risen and helped the people overturn the autocracy. Down with czarism! Where do you stand?"
President Rodzianko, speaking for the Duma, showed them his telegrams demanding a ministry of the czar responsible to the people, and said that they stood for a constitutional democracy. The soldiers were satisfied. Then soldiers began arriving at the Taurida Palace, the meeting place of the Duma, to acknowledge their recognition of its authority. This was done under the influence of deputies Kerensky, Tcheidze, and Skobelev, all Socialists, who felt the need of having the cohesion of the Duma to the revolution. At about this time the newly appointed premier, Golitzin, who had succeeded Trepov, telephoned his resignation to the Duma. The other members of the cabinet had disappeared.
That afternoon the Duma appointed a committee of twelve members, representing all parties, which should represent its authority and should assist the revolutionary organizers in maintaining order. These latter held a separate meeting in another room of the palace and issued an appeal to the populace to refrain from excesses. An election of deputies to the Council of Workingmen's Deputies was then called for that evening, the name of the council being now changed to the Council of Workingmen and Soldiers' Deputies.[Back to Contents]
THE NEW GOVERNMENT
By this time the firing in the streets had died down. Desultory fighting still continued in the outskirts of the city between patrols of the revolutionary forces and policemen, but by evening calm once more settled down over the city. The autocracy was dead; the revolution had been won. The dead and wounded had been collected and the latter were being cared for. The dead amounted to slightly less than two hundred.
The two committees—the one representing the Duma and the one representing the red radicals—were in joint session all that night working with a harmony that would have seemed incredible only a week before. On the following morning they issued two proclamations. The first simply appealed to the people to remain calm and commit no excesses. The other announced the establishment of a new government for Russia, which should be based on universal suffrage. Then the Duma committee issued a special appeal to army officers to support the new régime. All day delegations from various organizations of both social and military life of the capital appeared before the doors of the Duma to offer allegiance, and again and again Milukov and Kerensky, each the popular hero of their separate elements, theone of the liberal middle classes and the other of the radical working classes, were called out to deliver addresses to crowds of enthusiastic people. Despite their differences of opinion, these two and their fellows worked together with an ideal harmony, each supporting the other with his constituency. Perhaps no greater anomaly was ever presented in history than the spectacle of Rodzianko, ultraconservative, and Kerensky, radical Socialist, each addressing a large crowd, the one in one courtyard the other in another courtyard, exhorting their audiences to stand shoulder to shoulder for a common purpose. Nothing but the knowledge that on the morrow the Prussians might be thundering at the gates of the city could have produced such harmony of action between two such differing types.
Another picturesque incident of the actual revolution occurred when the Imperial Guards at the palace revolted and, having disposed of their commanders, sent a committee in to arrest the czarina, who was attending her children, all of whom were ill with the measles.
"Do not hurt me or my children," she appealed, "I am only a poor Sister of Charity." A guard was left over her while the main body of the regiment went over to Taurida Palace to place itself at the disposal of the Provisional Government.
Meanwhile other notorious members of the dark forces were apprehended. Ex-Premier Boris von Sturmer, the traitor whom Milukov had denounced as a thief, and who had since his downfall been a member of the court camarilla, was arrested and put in a cell lately occupied by a political prisoner. Next came the metropolitan of the church, Pitirim, an appointee of Rasputin, a feeble old man in a white cap and a black cassock, tottering in the midst of a crowd of laughing and jesting soldiers and workingmen, showing him, however, no other violence than with their tongues. One by one all the members of the old régime were brought in, or they came of themselves. Finally the archconspirator, Protopopoff himself, was the only one of note still at large. For two days his whereabouts remained unknown. As developed later, he was hiding in the house of a relative.
On the evening of the 13th an old man in civilian dress appeared before the main doorway of the Duma headquarters. A civilian guard, a student, stood there.
"I am Protopopoff," said the man to the astonished guard; "I have come to surrender myself to the Duma and to recognize its authority. Take me to the right person."
The guard shouted the ex-minister's name in his excitement and a crowd quickly gathered. Even the perennial good humor of a Russian crowd forsook this gathering and it began to assume the aspect of a Western vigilance committee. There were angry shouts; the archtraitor, Protopopoff, was before them in person. But before actual violence could be offered the old man, Kerensky, the Socialist leader, leaped into the crowd and allayed the excitement, thus saving Protopopoff's life.
Another strange feature of the day's events was the appearance of Grand Duke Cyril on the balcony of his own house, uttering a revolutionary speech to the crowds on the pavement below. He declared himself unequivocally for the new government, wherever it might lead, and appealed to the people to support it. Meanwhile the Duma committee sent telegrams to all the commanders along the various fronts and to the admirals of the Baltic and Black Sea fleets, stating the bare facts and asking their adhesion to the Provisional Government. From all came ready professions of loyalty and adhesion. Similar telegrams were sent to all the towns and cities throughout the provinces. And all the country responded similarly. With very little violence the old régime was upset all over Russia and local councils elected to work in harmony with and under the authority of the Provisional Government in Petrograd. The French and British ambassadors too hastened to inform the president of the Duma that their respective governments recognized its authority and were prepared to enter into diplomatic relations with the Duma committee.
On the 14th the streets of Petrograd had assumed their normal quiet, if not their normal appearance, for it was somewhat unusual not to observe a single policeman in sight. Every member of the police was either in prison, in the hospital, ordead. The maintenance of order was given over to a civilian police, or city militia, under the command of Professor Yurevitch, the first time in Russian history that a college professor had ever undertaken such a function. On this day the garrison of the fortress of Kronstadt and the sailors of the fleet stationed there mutinied, killed their commanders and came over to the cause of the revolution. That evening the Duma committee issued a proclamation worded as follows:
"Citizens! The wonderful event has transpired! Old Russia is dead. The Committee of Safety of the Duma and the Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' Deputies are bringing back order into the city and the country.... The most pressing need now is food supplies for the people and the army. Assist with bread and your labor."
Until now since the last of the fighting the control of affairs had been in the hands of the two committees, one representing the radical revolutionists and the other the middle class and aristocratic Duma. Each committee appealed to its constituency to respect the authority of the other.
During all of the next morning, the 15th, the two committees were in continuous joint session, planning the formation of a cabinet or set of officers for the Provisional Government. Early in the afternoon this labor was concluded and the members of the new government were announced. Prince George Lvov, he who had organized the Zemstvo Union and served so efficiently as its president, was Premier and Minister of the Interior. Though an aristocrat of the bluest blood, he was extremely liberal in his views. Never had he been an autocrat, even in sympathy. Paul Milukov, the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, was Minister of Foreign Relations. He represented the middle-class liberals or progressives, constituting what in this country would be called the business men and professional class, as Lvov represented the broad-minded country gentry. Alexander Kerensky, the radical Socialist, an old member of the Social Revolutionists, the organization of many assassinations, was named Minister of Justice. Less fanatical and more balanced than many of his associates, he represented the connectinglink between the two sharply contrasting elements which constituted the new government. To him the red flag of International Socialism meant more than the flag of national patriotism, but he, as some of his associates did not, realized that national patriotism must not be destroyed until the spirit of international brotherhood was an established fact; that world federation must rest first on national unity. He proved then, though still a man in his early thirties, the dominant figure of the situation, a position which he has retained to an increasing degree ever since.
The other members of the new cabinet were: M. A. I. Gutchkov, chairman of the War Industries Committee, Minister of War and Marine. In earlier life he had been a soldier of fortune, having fought under many flags, for many causes, including that of the Boers in South Africa. In politics he was conservative. Andrei Shingarev, a Constitutional Democrat, was made Minister of Agriculture, an important post, for under his charge came the complicated problem of food supply, to be solved by means of a transportation all too inadequate in its lack of rolling stock to supply both army and people together. A physician by profession, he was also an expert on finance. Neither Rodzianko, president of the Duma, nor Tcheidze, the president of the Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' Deputies, was represented in the cabinet, though both had taken important and leading parts in the revolution and the organization following.
The policy agreed upon was a compromise between the two elements in the new government. The Duma party could not yet face the possibility of a pure republic, and desired a constitutional monarchy under the czar, reducing him to a mere figurehead, to be sure. The radicals wanted a clear-cut democracy. Between them, by mutual compromise, they agreed that the czar should be deposed and his brother Grand Duke Michael should be proclaimed regent, with the Czarevitch Alexis as heir apparent. The new constitution, which was to be as liberal as the most progressive in the world, must, it was decided, be worked out in detail by a national congress or constituentassembly which should be elected by universal suffrage as soon as possible. The more important and pressing task before the nation, it was realized by both elements, was the organization of transportation that both the people and the army might be supplied with food and that munitions and other military supplies might be sent to the front. The armies of two great empires were still to be defeated before there could be any detailed discussion of forms of government.[Back to Contents]
THE CZAR ABDICATES
Meanwhile where was the czar? As yet not a word had been heard from him. He seemed to have been lost in the confusion. And as a matter of fact he was as though he were the lost soul of the dead autocracy wandering about in space, mournfully looking for some spot on which he might alight.
As has already been stated, Nicholas was at the general headquarters of General Alexiev, the commander in chief, when the crisis was precipitated in Petrograd. With him were a number of his personal toadies, among them Baron Fredericks, the Court Minister, said to have been responsible for most of the evil influences during past years. Another of his companions was General Voyeykov.
The two telegrams from Rodzianko had been received, but it seems probable that they had been intercepted by either one of these two attendants. At any rate, they must have counteracted whatever influence the telegrams might have had on the weak-willed man's decisions. General Alexiev, too, in response to Rodzianko's telegram to himself had attempted to bring the czar to a realization of the seriousness of the situation. Nevertheless he did nothing. Of the many personal pictures of the czar which have been painted by those who have known himpersonally one stands out predominantly: a little man with a weak face, twirling his mustache with one hand and alternately looking out of the window or fixing the speaker with a semi-vacant stare.
Nicholas stood so when Alexiev explained to him the situation in the capital and then pleaded with him to grasp his last opportunity. But this last opportunity he allowed to slip by. Undoubtedly he could then have saved himself. Had he been a man of broad intelligence he might have come forward and averted the rising storm by granting even less than the autocracy of Germany has conceded to the German masses. Thus he might have emerged more firmly fixed in his high position than ever before. There are those who assert that Nicholas is mentally defective. Certainly the facts bear them out.
Finally there came an urgent appeal from his wife to return to Tsarskoe Selo, and this, a purely domestic matter, he understood. Together with his suite he started on a train, his escort under the command of General Tsabel. All had been drinking heavily, and when finally the news of the uprising came through in full detail, they were all inclined to minimize the importance of what had happened. On the morning of the 14th General Voyeykov briefly summarized the situation to the czar, then added that General Ivanov, the one commander at the front who still remained faithful to the autocracy, was advancing on Petrograd with a regiment of picked men and he would soon restore order. General Tsabel overheard this conversation. He thereupon showed a telegram which he had just received from Petrograd in which he was ordered to bring the czar's train direct to the city instead of to Tsarskoe Selo.
"How dare they give such orders!" demanded Nicholas.
"This order," replied General Tsabel, "is backed by sixty thousand officers and soldiers, who have gone over to the revolutionists."
Nicholas was now finally impressed by actual fact.
"Very well," he said, suddenly, "if it must be so, it must. I will go to my estate in Livadia and spend the rest of my days among my flowers."
But even that was not a final decision. On approaching Petrograd and Tsarskoe Selo the news came through that the garrison at the latter place had gone over to the revolutionists. The czar now insisted that he would go to Moscow, which he believed still remained loyal. But presently there came a telegram announcing that the Moscow garrison had also revolted.
All day the train rolled back and forth from point to point, with no destination in view, the czar and his suite hoping to find some break in the wall about them. At Dno General Ivanov joined the party and advised the czar to go to the army. It was later said that he and General Voyeykov suggested that the Russian lines be thrown open at Minsk and the Germans be allowed to come in to suppress the revolution. To his credit be it said, however, that Nicholas refused to consider this last resort.
He next went to Pskov, the headquarters of General Russky, in command of the army nearest to Petrograd, hoping to persuade that commander to send a large enough force to Petrograd to suppress the revolution. At 8 o'clock in the evening he arrived. But Russky, together with all the other army leaders, including the Grand Duke Nicholas, who had conferred together by means of telegrams, had decided to support the Duma.
At 2 o'clock next morning, on the 15th, the czar met Russky. The latter explained to him his position, and then called up Rodzianko by telephone. Rodzianko told Russky that the Duma and the Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' Deputies had mutually agreed that the czar must abdicate and two deputies—Gutchkov, the War Minister, and Shulgin—were on their way to demand a document to this effect from Nicholas. Before seeing the czar again Russky communicated with all the commanders and explained the new situation, namely, that the czar must be eliminated entirely. All replied immediately that they agreed to this as the best course. Then Russky went to the czar again and told him there was no other way open to him, he must vacate his throne. The czar agreed and went to his private apartment on the train to prepare the document.
At 8 o'clock that evening the two deputies from the Provisional Government arrived and were taken directly to the czar. They immediately explained to the fallen monarch the full details of the situation in Petrograd. The one incident that seemed to make an impression on him was the defection of his own body guard.
"What shall I do, then?" demanded Nicholas finally.
"Abdicate," replied Gutchkov briefly.
It will be remembered that the Provisional Government had decided that it would demand of the czar that he abdicate in favor of his son and of his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, as regent.
"I have already signed my abdication," said Nicholas, "but on account of his health I have decided that I cannot part with my son. Therefore I wish to abdicate in favor of Michael."
The two deputies asked leave to consult together for a few minutes over this change. Finally they agreed to this form of abdication. The czar then withdrew and presently returned with the document. The two deputies read it through, approved it, shook hands with Nicholas Romanoff, no longer czar, and returned to Petrograd.
Still unrestrained in regard to his freedom of action, Nicholas went to Moghiliev, the general headquarters, to bid his staff farewell, but his reception there was cool at least; nobody took the slightest notice of him, no more than if he had been some minor subaltern officer. Then his mother, the Dowager Empress Marie, appeared and in the evening he dined with her in her private car.
Meanwhile public opinion in Petrograd had begun to make itself strongly felt in regard to the outward form of the future Russian Government. Many organizations passed resolutions and street demonstrations took place, all protesting against a monarchical form of government. Before the Provisional Government needed to take any special action in response to this expression of popular sentiment, Grand Duke Michael, the new czar, hastened to abdicate in his turn. Favoring the principle of democracy, he added, he was not willing to assume the responsibilitiesof such a high office without the formal assent of the Russian people expressed by an election "based on the principle of universal, direct, equal, and secret suffrage." Finally, he urged the people to give their loyal support to the Provisional Government, until such a time as an election could be held.
Czar Nicholas abdicated on March 15, 1917. His brother, Czar Michael, abdicated within twenty-four hours.[Back to Contents]
FIRST ACTS OF THE NEW RÉGIME
The Provisional Government then made no further steps toward filling the vacant throne and Russia remained a republic.
Then on the following day came a telegram from General Alexiev, stating that the people of Moghiliev were growing impatient over the freedom allowed ex-Czar Nicholas and requested the Provisional Government to have him removed from headquarters. Alexiev did not wish him wandering about headquarters.
Four deputies were dispatched to Moghiliev to arrest the ex-emperor. The four were received with a popular demonstration of enthusiasm, which contrasted sharply with the coldness with which Nicholas had been received. Nicholas was in his mother's train when the four deputies arrived. He immediately emerged, crossed the platform and stood before the four representatives of the new republic like a school child about to be punished; with one hand he came to a salute, recognizing their authority; with the other he twirled his mustache.
He was shown his carriage and quietly placed under guard. The deputies took places in another carriage, and then the train steamed out of the station with Nicholas a prisoner. Arriving at the palace at Tsarskoe Selo, Nicholas was taken over by thecommandant and marched through the gates of his old residence. And so he disappeared completely from Russian public life.
Meanwhile the czarina had also been arrested and confined to her suite of rooms in the palace. All the telephone and telegraph wires were cut. Most of the palace servants were dismissed and all the doors except three were locked and barred. A battalion of soldiers now mounted guard over him who had made more political prisoners than any other man in the world.
Now began the troubled career of the new Russian republic. The Council of Workingmen and Soldiers, under whose direct supervision the fighting forces of the old régime had been overcome and the revolution organized, and which represented just those elements which the Duma did not represent on account of the restrictive election laws, felt its right to exist beside the Duma, possessing at least an equal authority. Thus the new governing forces started under very peculiar conditions, with a double head. The Council immediately issued a proclamation inviting the communities all over Russia to elect local councils, which might send their delegates to Petrograd to associate themselves with the deputies elected by the workingmen and soldiers of the capital.
Another of the first acts of the Provisional Government was to order the liberation of all the political prisoners of the old régime, especially those in Siberia, and to invite all exiles abroad to return home. The return of some of these political exiles roused quite as much enthusiasm and popular demonstration as had the overthrow of the autocracy itself. The progress of Catherine Breshkovskaya, the "grandmother of the Russian revolution," from Siberia to Petrograd was almost like the progress of a conquering general. She had been one of the original Nihilists in the seventies and since then had spent most of her life in Siberia. All Petrograd turned out to welcome the popular heroine, now a feeble old woman, and she was officially received at the railroad station by Kerensky and other members of the Government in the old Imperial waiting rooms, where formerly only members of the Imperial family had been permitted to enter. Outside in the streets surged crowds offur-capped people as far as the eye could reach, waving red banners and revolutionary emblems. Now and again a roar of voices chanting the Marseillaise would sweep back and forth over the throngs. Within the station the walls were banked with flowers and festooned with red bunting and inscriptions addressed to the returning heroine. However, this incident occurred later, already a great deal had been accomplished.
The emancipation of the Jews had been one of first acts of the new cabinet. All restrictions were removed and the Jews were recognized as Russian citizens, and as such to be distinguished from all other citizens in no way. Then the constitution of Finland was restored and its full autonomy recognized. The same recognition was granted all the other minor nationalities. Next the death penalty was abolished, and finally the Provisional Government declared itself in favor of the equal suffrage of women with men, a principle which is innate in the revolutionary movement of Russia, to which as many women as men have sacrificed themselves. The vast possessions of the ex-czar and most of his munificent income were confiscated. At the same time the grand dukes and other members of the Imperial family voluntarily gave up their landed possessions and at the same time expressed their loyalty to the new order.[Back to Contents]
SOCIALISM SUPREME
Within the church the same overturning of old authorities took place. The new procurator caused to be thrown out the gilded emblems of the autocracy, and priests known to be in sympathy with the revolution were elevated to the offices vacated by the reactionaries. Most of the vast landed estates of the church were confiscated, and the church was relegated to a position in which it could no longer interfere in matters of state. Probably a majority of the radicals would have liked toabolish the church altogether, but even they must have realized that the great body of Russia's population, the peasantry, had not yet arrived at this state of mind, corrupt though they knew the institution to be.
For some weeks while these reforms, in which the vast majority of the people believed, were being promulgated the most enthusiastic harmony prevailed between the two elements constituting the Provisional Government. But those realizing the wide gulf lying between these two elements, the constitutionalists and the revolutionary radicals, were every day expecting the inevitable dissensions to arise. Eventually they came. They would have come much sooner had it not been for the fact that the nation was at war.
The friction which presently began between the two contrasting elements sharing the power of government has undoubtedly been much magnified and distorted by the press in Great Britain and this country, not through malicious intent, but through ignorance of the aims of one of these elements and of Russian character. The two elements in question are, of course, found in all countries, and the dissensions in Petrograd probably caused more bitterness in other countries between these opposing elements than existed in Russia itself. The conservative press of England and America exaggerated to absurdity the program and aims of the radical forces in Russia, while the Socialist press of these same countries was equally unreliable in its partisanship, and would have had its readers believe Prince Lvov and Milukov hardly any improvement on Protopopoff, a view in which it would not have been supported by the most radical Russians. For the true story of this period we must wait yet a while until dispassionate witnesses have had time to present their experiences and observations in permanent form.
Nevertheless, there seems to be no doubt that the wine of freedom did rise to the heads of the ultraradicals, and the Russian radical's ideas often do approach the borders of absurdity. Having obtained democracy in civil life, the extremists among the deputies of the Workingmen's and Soldier's Councilwished to extend it in full to the army. Though this army was face to face with the best organized military machine in the world, they demanded the resignation of all the officers, that their places might be filled by the votes of the common soldiers. This rank absurdity the commanders on the front naturally resisted, and it was not allowed to come into practice, but the spirit behind the suggestion did begin to permeate the ignorant, peasants of the rank and file and caused endless demoralization. Animated by the same spirit, many of the workingmen in the factories supplying the army grew restless under the discipline of work and struck for impossible wages. They had always thought that under a Socialist system they would have little work and plenty to eat. Now the social revolution had been accomplished, and these improvements did not materialize. If more disorder and fighting were needed to bring them about, they would supply these deficiencies.
What added to this spirit was the arrival in Russia, early in April, 1917, of the extreme radical Socialist, Lenine. He is generally credited in this country with being an agent of Germany, but men of his type are not easily subsidized, nor would it have been necessary for the Germans to do so. Utterly idealistic, a wild fanatic, unpractical to the point of being unbalanced, he represented that wing of radicalism which lives in Utopias and will give no consideration to things as they are. They preach the doctrine of the brotherhood of man with the same bitterness that many religious sects preach the salvation of the soul. Lenine began his propaganda, together with thirty or more of his followers who arrived with him. They preached an immediate separate peace with Germany and Austria; it was not to the interest of the Russian working classes to fight the Teuton working classes when both were slaves under the same masters, the capitalists of the world. Let the Germans fight their capitalists and the Russians theirs. And even if the Germans did conquer Russia, what did it matter? They would not prove any worse masters than the Russian capitalists. All the working classes of the world should unite and attack the capitalists simultaneously, etc. Undoubtedly Lenine made some impressionon the more ignorant workingmen of Petrograd and soldiers of the army, but his significance has been much overestimated in this country. In Russia his influence corresponds somewhat to the influence of Emma Goldman in this country: their followers are more noisy than numerous.[Back to Contents]