Chapter 6
in which Russia gets a new leader of popular protest: his name is Georgy Gapon
A NIGHTMARE AFTER CHRISTMAS
On Christmas Day, 25 December 1904,* Georgy Gapon’s trade union arranges fairs throughout the capital. Workers bring their families along to the festivities, but among them the talk is serious. They intend to help a group of colleagues who have been dismissed from the Putilov factory (unlawfully in their eyes). However, they are concerned less by the plight of their comrades than by the public condemnation they will face if they do not make a stand. Gapon’s organization has a dubious reputation in revolutionary circles, where it is accused of working for the regime. Gapon’s trade unionists do not wish to be branded as cowards and stool pigeons. They are shamed into becoming ever-more radicalized.
On 27 December, the “Gaponites” hold a general meeting at which they propose to write a petition and call a strike in support of the dismissed workers. Gapon is against the idea. He knows full well that a general strike will put an end to his career, if not to the movement, for his benefactors will not forgive him for an outburst of real protest. However, the moment gets the better of the ambitious priest. As the head of the organization, he must be seen to take the lead: “You want to up the stakes? Go on then!” he says with his heart, not his head.†
The strike begins at the Putilov factory on 3 January 1905, when thirteen thousand people put down their tools. The plant director comes out to see the workers and suggests that they all sit down for a friendly chat to sort things out. The workers reply that they want to be represented by Father Gapon. The director, whose name is Smirnov, refuses, saying that Gapon is “the enemy of the workers and is leading them to ruin.” In response, one of the activists rushes at him with a knife. The director only just manages to escape harm.
A rally starts outside the factory building, and Gapon, standing on a cart, reads out a list of demands, which includes restoring the laid-off workers, establishing an eight-hour working day, scrapping overtime, improving ventilation on the factory floor, increasing wages, and legalizing the trade union movement.
In the evening Gapon receives a call from Saint Petersburg Governor Fullon, who says that Witte has promised that the dismissed workers will be reinstated. Still, Gapon persuades the governor to let the negotiations continue and secures an assurance that no one will be arrested.
But Smirnov refuses to accept the workers’ demands and the talks break up. He does not have much choice, since he himself is a hired manager and under pressure from the factory shareholders. The factory is a major supplier of the Russian military, and its owners are demanding that all arms contracts are fulfilled on schedule. For their part, the shareholders are under pressure from the government. The result is more strikes. On 5 January other factories join in, swelling the total to twenty-five thousand people.
A SHOT ON THE NEVA
The year 1905 begins with a symbolic event. On 2 January Grand Duke Sergei, who has just left his post as Moscow’s governor-general, leaves the old capital for the imperial residence Tsarskoye Selo outside Saint Petersburg. It is customary for all city officials to see him off at the station. The train has not yet departed when a young man approaches the Moscow police chief Dmitry Trepov and shoots at him three times. Alarmed, the grand duke rushes out of his carriage, but Trepov is unharmed. Three shots, three misses. No one can imagine that in just two weeks’ time the bullet-dodging Trepov will become the most influential person in Russia, or that the real threat is in fact hanging over the grand duke.
On 6 January, the Epiphany, Emperor Nicholas II, together with senior members of the clergy, is standing inside a pavilion on the frozen Neva River, watching the ceremonial blessing of the water. After the ritual, cannons begin to fire from the direction of the Peter and Paul Fortress, opposite the Winter Palace. One of them, it turns out, is loaded with live ammunition. Several windows in the Winter Palace are shattered. The tsar and his retinue are safe; the only injured man is a policeman, whose surname, ironically, is Romanov.
Everyone, including Nicholas himself, is sure that this was an assassination attempt, and within a few hours rumors have spread throughout the city that revolutionaries have tried to kill the tsar. An investigation begins, headed by Grand Duke Sergei. The general’s wife Alexandra Bogdanovich notes in detail all the gossip about when the next attempt on the tsar’s life is apparently set to take place. The word on the street is that anarchists have arrived from Switzerland. Some say they plan to assassinate the imperial couple and Pobedonostsev. Others think the targets are Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, Grand Duke Sergei, and Grand Duke Alexei.
The startled tsar leaves Saint Petersburg for Tsarskoye Selo the same day. Were it not for these rumors, Nicholas would have stayed in the city and subsequent events would have unfolded differently. But he decides to take cover, and in doing so he effectively vacates the Winter Palace for good. The main residence of the Russian emperors, commissioned by Empress Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great, is no longer the seat of the royal house. The next head of state to reside at the Winter Palace will be Alexander Kerensky, the leader of the Provisional Government in 1917.
The gossip in Bogdanovich’s diary is not far from the truth. As Boris Savinkov recalls, three groups from the Socialist-Revolutionary (SR) militant organization have indeed arrived from Switzerland, one in Saint Petersburg. Moreover, one of the female militants has successfully infiltrated high society and is due to present the tsar with flowers at an imperial ball. Without waiting for confirmation from the SR central committee, the Saint Petersburg group decides to act. Only at the last moment is the ball cancelled, forcing the militants to select new targets: Justice Minister Muravyov and Grand Duke Vladimir. By January, the tsar is effectively safe. The immediate threat to his life has passed.
Everyone is so caught up by it all that little attention is paid to the workers’ strike. The authorities ignore Gapon’s demands, with Finance Minister Kokovtsov describing them as “illegal and generally infeasible.” The director of the Putilov factory, Smirnov, says that he cannot fulfill any of them, because it would ruin the shareholders. Given the disastrous state of affairs in the Far East, his bosses are jittery enough as it is.
Twenty-four hours after it began, the strike numbers a hundred and fifty thousand members. Gapon already feels like a hero, and is accompanied everywhere by fans and up to twenty volunteer guards and correspondents, including some from abroad. He delivers speech after speech to various gatherings. On 6 January, he recalls that he spoke the same fiery rhetoric twenty to thirty times.
The underground revolutionary newspapers abroad have no sense of the febrile atmosphere, and continue to write disparagingly of Gapon. But in Saint Petersburg it is clear to everyone that he is in charge. He is the focus for all the capital’s oppositionists and politically active members of the public: the SRs and liberals from the Union of Liberation coalesce around him. In a matter of weeks Gapon is the head of the largest organization in Saint Petersburg. Among his new associates is Pinhas Rutenberg, a twenty-seven-year-old Socialist-Revolutionary and former workshop manager at the Putilov factory. He accompanies Gapon everywhere and assists with writing and editing his speeches.
With the factory refusing to fulfill the workers’ demands, Gapon adds some that are overtly political: the convocation of a constituent assembly of representatives of the entire Russian people to be elected by universal, equal, direct, and secret ballot; equality for all estates and creeds; civil liberties; and the release of political prisoners. The proposals do not come from Gapon himself, but rather the political activists who are now thronging around him.
On the same day of Epiphany, 6 January, Gapon decides to write a petition to the tsar and present it to the Winter Palace as part of a mass demonstration. It is a bold move. Although petitions are commonplace, no one before has ever tried to gather thousands of protesters in the capital.*
Gapon writes a draft to the tsar, and Rutenberg edits it.
This remarkable document is fully consistent with the belief of Nicholas II and his entourage in the people’s love for the tsar, which is obstructed by a “wall” of bureaucrats and intellectuals. “We have been enslaved by Your officials … a bureaucratic government made up of embezzlers and thieves,” begins Gapon.† He continues: “Do not refuse assistance to Your people, but lead them out of the grave of deprivation, poverty and ignorance. Knock down the wall between You and Your people, and let them rule the country with You. Your will is to make the people happy, but happiness is denied by the bureaucracy.”
The loyalist mantra states a revolutionary demand, something that even the recent zemstvo congress baulked at: the creation of a constituent assembly: “The people must be represented and self-governing. Let there be free and equal electoral rights for all.”
For safety reasons, Gapon decides not to spend the night of 6-7 January at home. “For one final time I gazed upon the painting Christ in the Desert [by Ivan Kramskoy] and upon the furniture made for me by pupils at the orphanage,” he describes this sentimental moment. “Trampled by grief, yet full of resolution and determination, I left my dwelling never to cast eyes over it again.” Consciously or not, Gapon is comparing himself with the protagonist of the painting on his wall. Having heard from female admirers that he “looks like Jesus,” Gapon is beginning to feel like a messiah.
On 7 January the now one hundred and eighty thousand striking workers seize Saint Petersburg’s Warsaw and Baltic railway stations, paralyzing the capital. Gapon’s petition is read out at all branches of his organization, and workers put their signatures to it (more than one hundred thousand, according to Gapon himself). Everyone awaits Sunday 9 January as if it were the second coming or the end of the world. The authorities take a long time to react. Both the police and the governor consider Gapon as one of their own and not a troublemaker, so they do not attach much significance to the strike until the very last moment.
Only in the morning of 7 January is Gapon summoned to the Ministry of Justice. He arrives accompanied by assistants.
“Tell me frankly, what is all this about?” asks Justice Minister Nikolai Muravyov, a former prosecutor at the trial of the assassins of Alexander II. Before replying, Gapon asks for a promise that he will not be arrested, which is granted.
“The country,” Gapon later recalls his own words, “is experiencing a deep political and economic crisis. The workers can suffer no more. I ask that you write a letter to His Majesty and request that he appear before the people. We guarantee his safety. Fall to his feet if need be, and beg him for his own sake to receive our delegation. Russia will be eternally grateful to you for doing so.”
Muravyov’s mien changes. He rises from the table and, indicating that the meeting is over, utters the words: “I shall perform my duty.” Gapon takes this to mean just one thing: he will go to the tsar and advise him to open fire on the demonstrators.
Gapon is sure that public disorder is unavoidable. That evening he visits all eleven branches of the union, where, in an unwise attempt to avert bloodshed, he tells the workers that they must march on to the Winter Palace in the company of their wives and children, adding that if the tsar does not want to listen to them or greets them with bullets, then he is no longer their sovereign.
It is difficult to say whether the organizers of the procession were in fact expecting bloodshed, but the petition certainly suggests that they were. It begins thus: “Sire, we are exhausted! Our patience has reached its limit. The terrible moment has come when death is better than to continue our insufferable torture.” And it ends in a similar vein: “If You do not respond to our plea, we shall die here in this square, in front of Your palace. We have nowhere else to go.”
On the night of 7–8 January, high on adrenalin, Gapon meets with professional revolutionaries, Socialist-Revolutionaries, and Social Democrats, and draws up another plan. Unlike the tens of thousands of workers, he knows that Nicholas II is not in the capital. He wants to wait for the tsar to arrive from Tsarskoye Selo and meet with him on Palace Square (outside the Winter Palace). Together with a group of negotiators, the plan is to issue two demands: an amnesty for political prisoners and the convocation of an all-land assembly. If Nicholas II agrees to the demands, Gapon will approach the crowd holding aloft a white handkerchief and “a great public holiday will commence.” If not, says Gapon, he will throw up a red handkerchief to let the people know that they have no tsar, and the people’s revolt will begin. Until that happens, the socialists are not to lay a finger on Nicholas or provoke the crowd.
On the last day before the demonstration, Gapon rushes around the city non-stop, giving dozens of speeches, urging everyone to go out into the street. He even states in an interview with a British journalist that, if the demands are not met, the telegraph office will be seized. He asks for these words not to be printed.
TROOPS IN THE CITY
On 8 January Interior Minister Mirsky gathers his deputies, together with the police chief Lopukhin, Finance Minister Kokovtsov, Justice Minister Muravyov, and Saint Petersburg Governor Fullon, at the Mariinsky Palace. Muravyov proposes to arrest Gapon, but Mirsky and Fullon are opposed, saying that it will only make matters worse. Mirsky suggests that a small group of workers’ representatives be allowed onto Palace Square, and asks if it would be better to evacuate the tsar from Tsarskoye Selo to Gatchina Palace, further south. With nothing decided, the meeting breaks up, whereupon Mirsky and Lopukhin go to see the emperor.
They find Nicholas in a calm state of mind. The hope is that everything will soon blow over. After the trip to Tsarskoye Selo, the worn-out Mirsky holds another meeting on the deployment of troops in the capital. In attendance is Grand Duke Vladimir, art connoisseur, president of the Imperial Academy of Arts, and part-time commander of the Saint Petersburg Military District. He says that additional troops have been dispatched to the capital from Peterhof, Pskov, and Revel (today’s Tallinn).
The question of how to pacify the protesters is not discussed. There is unanimity on this front. The ministers are sure that if the workers do indeed take to the streets, they will disperse of their own accord on seeing the police cordons. No special orders are given, since everything will be done according to the military regulations: the troops will be armed with live ammunition, sabers, and whips in order to restore order, should the need arise. How else to pacify the demonstrators? Rubber bullets and water cannons have not yet been invented.
Writer Maxim Gorky meets his friend Savva Morozov to ask what the business community thinks. Morozov is pessimistic and repeats rumors that he has heard from his Saint Petersburg colleagues: “It is possible that tomorrow Grand Duke Vladimir will be in charge of the city and newspaper editorial offices will be violently raided. Members of the intelligentsia will probably be arrested.” Just in case, Morozov gives Gorky his Browning pistol.
A few hours later Morozov receives new information that the authorities have decided not to let the workers near the palace to stop them from “organizing carnage,” for which purpose the army has been brought in from the provinces. Gorky hurries to the editorial office of the literary magazine Son of the Fatherland and urgently demands that a “delegation of intellectuals” go to Prince Mirsky with a request not to use force.
Gorky goes himself in the company of seven professors and lawyers. The interior minister does not receive them. Instead, a member of staff inquires in whose name the venerable delegation has been sent. “I could explain ‘in whose name’ we are here, but I fear that you would not understand. The name is completely unknown here. It is the name of the Russian people,” replies Gorky. They eventually see the head of the gendarmes, Deputy Interior Ministry Rydzevsky (with whom all talks fail) and finally Sergei Witte. But Witte washes his hands of all involvement: “I am powerless to assist in your endeavor.”
In the end, Prince Mirsky decides to arrest Gapon and to post notices around the city banning gatherings and processions. The printing presses are on strike, so the notices are thinly spread. What’s more, the posters urging workers to march on the Winter Palace are not removed, making some feel that the authorities are not actually opposed to the procession.
Gapon avoids arrest for the time being. A high-ranking police officer named Rydzevsky explains to the head of the tsar’s chief of staff that Gapon has moved to a workers’ district and it would be dangerous to send the police there at night. “Do you want me to have the lives of ten people on my conscience for the sake of one wretched priest?” he says. The arrest is rescheduled for the morning.
In the evening of 8 January Prince Shervashidze, the husband of Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna and the stepfather of Nicholas II, is on his way to the theatre. He is approached by a journalist acquaintance called Filippov, who has just spoken to Gapon and conveys a request from the latter to the influential prince: the people must not be met with violence and they must be given an opportunity to see the emperor. Shervashidze chuckles in response. He is sure that there will be no procession. The workers will not go anywhere in such weather—the temperature in Saint Petersburg is minus fifteen degrees Celsius.
The night before what will become known as Bloody Sunday, Gapon and his closest associates appoint successors in case worst comes to worst, and take memento photographs of themselves. In his memoirs Gapon writes that there was no plan in the event of a clash with the imperial troops. In the morning, he asks the workers to take icons and processional banners from churches. The local priests do not want to hand them over, so the workers take them by force. Gapon, the new Christ in their eyes, needs them more. The procession starts at 10 a.m., and half an hour later the workers reach the soldiers’ barricades.
According to Gapon’s memoirs, a detachment of Cossacks cuts into the crowd brandishing sabers, after which the troops open fire without warning. Gapon survives by falling to the ground during each salvo. Others are dying or fleeing. According to legend, he cries out: “God is no more, the tsar is no more!” (Gapon himself does not mention using such a theatrical phrase). He writes that “someone took me by the hand and led me into a side street a few paces away from the carnage.” It is Rutenberg. He pulls out a pair of scissors and cuts Gapon’s hair to disguise him (the workers later share the hair among themselves). Gapon is given a “ragged coat and hat” to complete his transformation.
The whole city is a battlefield. In total six columns are converging on Palace Square, three from the north and three from the south. At 11:30 a.m. the southwest column led by Gapon comes under fire at the Narva Triumphal Gate, five hundred meters south of the Winter Palace. At about midday the three northern columns—from the direction of Vasilievsky Island and two districts known as Vyborg Side and Petersburg Side—are attacked. The “Petersburg” column reaches Trinity Bridge (i.e., the heart of the city). To the right is the Peter and Paul Fortress, where all the Russian emperors* are buried, and to the left stands a mansion built for the former mistress of Nicholas II, the ballerina Matilda Kschessinskaya.†
This is where the shooting described by Gorky takes place.
Half an hour later the “Vyborg” column advances from Finland Station past Kschessinskaya’s mansion, before being dispersed with whips, not bullets. Twelve years later the same topography will be exploited by Vladimir Lenin, who, on arriving at Finland Station, proceeds along the same route to Kschessinskaya’s mansion, now abandoned by its owner. Lenin will occupy that very building, which, on 9 January 1905, has just witnessed the shooting of the first victims of the Russian revolution.
The worst of the slaughter, however, happens around the Imperial Academy of Arts on University Embankment almost opposite the Winter Palace, where the column from Vasilievsky Island is advancing. Here the soldiers meet resistance from university students and revolutionary activists. The column is not dispersed, and instead manages to seize an arms depot and build a barricade. Symbolically, the fiercest fighting takes place right by the walls of the academy, which is headed by Grand Duke Vladimir, who also doubles up as commander of the Saint Petersburg Military District. It was he who ordered troops to the capital in the first place.
“I will never forget the restrained, majestic, unarmed crowd heading towards the cavalry and rifle attack. What a terrible sight,” writes Valentin Serov, who observed the scene in horror from a window of the academy. The forty-year-old court painter has produced dozens of portraits of the imperial family and is well versed in politics. He understands what is unfolding outside his window. A few days later he announces his resignation from the Imperial Academy of Arts because he no longer wants to be part of the same institution as Grand Duke Vladimir. He does not paint any more portraits of the Romanovs from that moment on.
The battle on Vasilievsky Island continues for two days. Only in the evening of 10 January do the authorities finally crush the resistance of the armed students.
The columns advancing from the southeast down Shlisselburg Tract have more luck. The officers dare not open fire on the unarmed marchers because they have not received instructions to do so. Meanwhile, the commander at the Neva Gate has complied with the order not to let people pass overland, but for some reason he is not responsible for guarding the river. Realizing that they are safe on the ice, the crowd walks over the frozen waterway to Nevsky Prospect and Palace Square. Back on land the troops again open fire, shooting at people near Kazan Cathedral and on the bridge across the Moika River, as well as around Palace Square itself and the Admiralty.
There is no precise data on the number of casualties. According to official figures, one hundred and thirty people lie dead and about three hundred are wounded. Gapon writes that the number of dead is between six hundred and nine hundred. Abroad, Peter Struve’s newspaper Liberation reports some twelve hundred victims.
Rumors soon spread that the government has hidden most of the corpses and ordered them not to be handed over to relatives. Public funerals are prohibited; the massacred are buried at night, in secret, in mass graves.
Rutenberg takes the shell-shocked Gapon to the home of Savva Morozov, where Gapon now shaves off his beard. Dressed as a university student, Gapon heads for Gorky’s apartment.*
Gorky is distraught at the sight of massacred, abandoned corpses. But instead of being cowed, the writer is stirred by the horror. Having put the exhausted priest to bed in a room in his apartment, he pens a letter to his ex-wife Ekaterina Peshkova in Nizhny Novgorod: “So, my dear, the Russian revolution has started. I offer you my hearty congratulations. We are not daunted by the dead. History will be repainted in the color of blood. Tomorrow will see even more drama and heroism, though, of course, not much can be done with one’s bare hands.”
That night sees a meeting of the Free Economic Society, effectively a continuation of the intelligentsia’s “liberal banquets,” only this time several thousand people are packed into the hall. All the capital’s leading intellectuals are there, including Zinaida Gippius, her husband Dmitry Merezhkovsky, the religious thinker Dmitry Filosofov, and a guest from Moscow, the young poet Boris Bugaev (pen name Andrei Bely). “You can imagine the commotion that ensued. All were outraged. How could they open fire on an unarmed crowd? Purely out of blind fear of any peaceful gathering, without understanding the nub of the matter,” writes Gippius in her diary.
Having caught a few hours’ sleep, Gapon arrives with Gorky and Rutenberg. The writer stands on the podium, reads out Gapon’s petition, and gives the floor to “his representative,” without introducing him by name. The clean-shaven and newly attired Gapon says that this is “not a time for speeches, but for action. The workers have shown that they are prepared to die, but unarmed they have no chance against bayonets and revolvers. Now it is your turn to help them,” he says to the hall. Even if the audience recognizes him, they do not show it. Gapon, Rutenberg, and several others next discuss how to get hold of weapons and organize a popular uprising, while Gorky keeps a watchful eye over the entrance to the building. The participants at the meeting write an appeal to the officers of the Imperial Guard, which is signed by 459 people. A few days later, when the roundups begin, the incriminating list of signatures is burnt.
Later that same evening Gapon writes another appeal, this time to both the soldiers and the officers, condemning those responsible for killing his “innocent brothers” and blessing members of the military willing to help the people achieve freedom.
The liberal finance minister and future prime minister Vladimir Kokovtsov remembers the day largely as one of delays. In his memoirs he describes in detail how two visiting ladies overstay their welcome in his office because “people are being shot in the streets.” In the evening he is late for a dinner appointment because his coach is held up at every turn. In any case, he has to wait a dreadfully long time for supper because his dining partner—the head of the prison service—has been delayed by protesters pelting stones at his carriage.
“What a difficult day! There were serious disturbances in Saint Petersburg due to the workers’ desire to march on the Winter Palace. The troops had to open fire in various parts of the city. There are many dead and wounded. Lord, how painful and dispiriting! Mamá came to us from the city for morning mass. We had breakfast,” writes Nicholas II in his diary in the evening of 9 January. The characteristic telegraphic style suggests insensitivity, but more likely he is bewildered. During the day, he has not received anyone or taken any decisions.
Nor are they taken by anyone else in authority. Only on Tuesday 11 January does the minister of the court, Count Fredericks, visit the emperor with a weekly report and request that the chief of staff, General Mosolov, ascertain whether the security forces are coping with the disorder. Mosolov goes on foot to Governor Fullon, who says that the police are overwhelmed because new hotbeds of unrest are popping up everywhere. Moreover, the army is not helping in any constructive sense, and there is reason to fear that “some of the instigators will now head for Tsarskoye Selo.”
The commander of the army, for his part, radiates calm. Relieving himself of any blame, he reports to Mosolov that he gave no instructions to his officers, who acted purely according to the military regulations, adding that there is no reason to doubt their loyalty.
Speaking over the phone to Fredericks, who is waiting to be received by Nicholas at Tsarskoye Selo, Mosolov informs him that the situation is febrile and that even at Tsarskoye Selo the tsar is not safe. Fredericks says that he must advise the tsar to take precautions, whereupon Mosolov suddenly recalls a domestic conversation he had that morning with a relative.
Earlier that day, 11 January, Mosolov was paid a visit by his brother-in-law from Moscow. Aware of the situation in Saint Petersburg, his brother-in-law is harshly critical of the police. There is no need, he opines, to use violence against the crowd—that only increases the anger and desire to resist. A far more effective tactic would be to split the crowd up and drive each part into a cul-de-sac. There, they can be processed: the hardcore arrested, the periphery released. That’s how it’s done in Moscow, he says, with never a drop of blood spilt.
The brother-in-law, a certain Dmitry Trepov, knows what he is talking about. He has just resigned from his post as chief of the Moscow police with the intention of heading to the capital.
Mosolov shouts down the phone line that Nicholas should appoint Trepov as the capital’s new governor-general, for he will suppress the uprising in no time. Half an hour later Fredericks summons Trepov to Tsarskoye Selo and, by evening that same day, the now Governor General Trepov moves into his new residence at the Winter Palace. He will soon be known by the epithet “dictator,” a common term at the time to describe someone who dictates his will to the emperor.
Prince Mirsky finally retires and his powers are transferred to the team of Grand Duke Sergei, Mirsky’s main adversary, who demands tougher action from Nicholas II. The new head of the Interior Ministry is Grand Duke Sergei’s assistant, Alexander Bulygin, although he is overshadowed in the policing stakes by the tsar’s new right-hand man, Trepov. The latter is given carte blanche to implement drastic measures.
On 14 January, the emperor writes to his mother: “For me, Trepov is irreplaceable, a kind of secretary. He is experienced, clever and circumspect in his advice. I give him Witte’s dense reports and he filters everything quickly and concisely. It’s a secret [that Trepov reads them], of course!”
Most official accounts of the early days after 9 January are written many years after the event, but even so the paranoia gripping the ministerial corridors is palpable. Officials do not believe that the multitudinous procession was a grassroots phenomenon and led by one man, Father Gapon. Everyone is sure that it was a vast, well-planned conspiracy involving members of the government.* The title of schemer-in-chief belongs to Witte, and many ministers suspect that he knew about everything in advance. Finance Minister Kokovtsov, for instance, writes that there is no way that Witte could not have known: first, he had his own agents; second, Mirsky consulted him on all matters; and third, the “interim government” had been to see him and urged him to take measures (by “interim government” Kokovtsov means the delegation of intellectuals led by Gorky).
Despite his criticism of the police, Trepov is also more inclined to believe in conspiracy theories than in across-the-board sloppiness: one of the first orders he issues is the immediate arrest of all “conspirators” and all members of the “interim government”—the same people who tried to prevent bloodshed the day before it happened.
When Grand Duke Sergei returns to Moscow after the New Year holidays, the city’s siloviki persuade him and his family to move from Alexandra Palace in Neskuchny Garden to the Kremlin. Moscow workers are on strike in the vicinity of the palace, so at 11 p.m. the Grand Duke pulls the children out of bed and goes to the Kremlin.
The palace they move to has not been heated or ventilated for a long time. “A humid, icy chill hung in the air,” writes the grand duke’s niece Maria. Even the stoic grand duke complains in his diary about the “biting cold.” The next day, on learning about the appointment of his trusted assistant Trepov as Saint Petersburg’s new governor-general, Sergei adds to his diary: “I fear for him.”
In the meantime, the revolutionaries Boris Savinkov and Ivan Kalyaev have been preparing an assassination attempt on Grand Duke Sergei for a month. They initially planned to kill him on Tverskaya Street as his carriage pulled out of the drive of his residence; then they switched to Neskuchny Garden, before finally focusing on the Kremlin itself. They believe that they can identify Sergei’s carriage by its lanterns, but later discover that his wife travels with exactly the same lanterns. So as not to get the wrong victim, they have to remember the faces of the coachmen, which means the hit must take place in daylight.
Savinkov is putting the finishing touches to the plans when he receives an unexpected visit from Pinhas Rutenberg, a former course mate at university. He talks about his role in the events of 9 January. He wants to take Gapon abroad and needs fake passports, which Savinkov helps to secure.
A FINANCIAL ILLITERATE
On 11 January, despite the ongoing unrest in the Saint Petersburg, Gorky boards a train for Riga, where his beloved actress, Maria Andreyeva, is dying. His letter on Bloody Sunday to his first wife also contained the words: “The day after tomorrow I will go to Riga—my friend is dangerously ill. M.F. [Maria Feodorovna Andreyeva] has peritonitis. Savva and the doctor say it could be fatal. Yet all personal sorrows and failures are meaningless at this time of Russia’s awakening.” Savva Morozov, Andreyeva’s previous lover, whom she rejected for Gorky, keeps vigil at her hospital bed, which is why he is not in Saint Petersburg during the disturbances, and his house is empty (and Gorky’s got a key) when Gapon goes there for a change of clothes.
Andreyeva had left the Moscow Art Theatre the year before. She moved first to Staraya Russa near Novgorod, and then to Riga. It is on stage in Riga around the time of Bloody Sunday that the pregnant Andreyeva has an accident. During a rehearsal, she falls through a trap door. She loses her child and contracts peritonitis. “My dearest, my darling, I’ll be there tomorrow. Hold on. There is no earlier train. Be strong. Wait for me. I love you with all my heart. Alexei,” Gorky telegraphs her on 10 January.
However, when he arrives in Riga, Gorky is immediately arrested as a conspirator and member of the “interim government,” and promptly taken back to Saint Petersburg. “Idiots! They should have arrested all the people,” Gorky’s friend, the writer Leonid Andreyev, writes to Andreyeva. “It’s terrible it’s happened during your illness. Alexei has gone to prison with a heavy heart. But do not worry. His punishment should not be too severe. The times of Chernyshevsky* are over.” But soon Leonid Andreyev himself is arrested for holding a meeting of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in his apartment.
Inside the Peter and Paul Fortress, Gorky is mad with anxiety about the health of “Marusia” [Maria]. Meanwhile, an important yet apocryphal conversation takes place between her and Savva Morozov. Allegedly, the thirty-six-year-old Maria says that she can feel the approach of death, at which the forty-two-year-old Savva replies that he has no doubt that she will outlive him. The actress says that she does not want to, because without Morozov there will be no one to take care of her. Morozov says that he will take care of her even after his death by giving her a life insurance policy.
“Morozov considered me financially illiterate and feared that I would die under a fence somewhere,” recalls Andreyeva. “He thought my relatives would try to fleece me, so he made sure that his life insurance policy, worth 100,000 roubles,† would go straight to me. Mental illness runs in the Morozov family, and he is sure that he will succumb to it.”
Despite all the concern, Andreyeva slowly recovers. Morozov takes her to Saint Petersburg and departs himself for Moscow, since his factory is affected by the unrest. But first he makes Maria promise to “call him if he can be of any assistance” and he will immediately return.
In his damp cell Gorky suffers a violent coughing fit. The medical diagnosis is hemoptysis. His official wife, Ekaterina Peshkova, takes care of the writer. When the authorities agree to release him on bail, it turns out that the wealthy Gorky cannot afford it. So Peshkova goes to Morozov for money. Gorky is released a month after his arrest, on 14 February, whereupon he and Andreyeva leave for Majorenhof (today’s Jurmala in Latvia).
GAPON FLEES
On 12 January, the smooth-shaven Gapon attired in an old-fashioned suit, a “magnificent coat,” and wearing pince-nez arrives at Tsarskoye Selo Station. The route to his destination, a suburban estate, is deliberately circuitous to throw off any potential trail. Rutenberg is due to meet him there with a forged passport. To calm his nerves during the wait, Gapon does a bit of cross-country skiing, but it does not help. A week later Rutenberg still hasn’t appeared, so Gapon decides to make a dash across the border without papers.
It is probably the right option, for the police have his description. They are looking for a man of “middle height, a gypsy type, swarthy, cropped hair, recently shaved beard, crooked nose, darting eyes, Malorussian [Ukrainian] accent.”
Gapon joins a group of smugglers. “Russia’s entire western border was crisscrossed by professional smugglers and fugitives making deals with the border guards,” he writes in his memoirs, addressed primarily to foreign audiences. “Jews, Poles, Lithuanians and others were driven by despair and turmoil to leave Russia mainly for America.”
On the way, Gapon almost dies of suffocation while spending a night in a house heated with a chimneyless stove. At the border he has another lucky escape: a border guard spots him and gives chase, but falls over in the snow. The former priest manages to crawl under a barbed-wire fence into German territory. From there, he makes his way to Switzerland, where he describes himself for the first time as a “free man in a free country.”
Anti-Gapon Trepov comes up with the idea that the “Gaponite” workers should be countered with laborers of their own. He arranges a meeting between Nicholas II and a group of “correct workers.”* The text of the tsar’s words at the meeting is printed in official newspapers the next day. It ends with the words: “I have faith in the honest feelings of the working people and in their unshakable devotion to Me.† Therefore, I forgive them their guilt.” The words anger many supposedly devoted workers: first the tsar opens fire on them, and then forgives them for having been shot at. Another paragraph from the royal speech is edited out. It reads: “What will you do with your free time if you work no more than eight hours a day? I, the Tsar, work nine hours a day. My work is more stressful. You work only for yourselves, but I work for all the people. If you have free time, you will engage in politics. That I will not allow. Your only purpose is work.”
Although the investigation finds no signs of pre-planned slaughter in Saint Petersburg, some fingers point at foreign masterminds.‡ The Russian Orthodox Church is the first to voice its opinion: “The Russian people, Orthodox since time immemorial, stand for Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland. They are being incited by malicious enemies of the Fatherland, domestic and foreign.” The Holy Synod officially defrocks Gapon.
The next day several newspapers, including Suvorin’s New Time, print a sensational scoop that the Japanese government has allegedly financed the unrest in Russia to the tune of 18 million roubles.§ The information is not, in today’s terminology, fake news. The Japanese really have allocated funds to destabilize Russia (by financing, for instance, the recent opposition conference in Paris). But they have no links to Gapon and Bloody Sunday. Even the Japanese could not conceive of such an audacious operation.
DEATH IN THE KREMLIN
On 2 February Grand Duke Sergei, the former Moscow governor-general, is taking his wife Ella and their adopted children, fourteen-year-old Maria and thirteen-year-old Dmitry, to the Bolshoi Theatre. Chaliapin is singing, Rachmaninoff conducting.
Savinkov knows in advance that Sergei will be at the theatre for a charity event in support of the Red Cross, which is patronized by Ella, the grand duchess. Before the performance, the terrorists occupy positions around the theatre: one bomber stands on Voskresenskaya [Resurrection] Square (today’s Revolution Square), and the other on Manezhnaya Square. They know that Sergei will go to the theatre via the Kremlin’s Nikolsky Gate, so he is sure to pass one of them. Savinkov sits down on a bench in Alexander Garden in front of the Kremlin and waits for the sound of an explosion.
The coach turns onto Voskresenskaya Square, right towards Kaliayev, the first bomber. He recognizes the coachman and rushes to intercept the carriage. The terrorist’s arm is already raised when suddenly he spots Grand Duchess Elizabeth and her little niece and nephew. He cannot go through with it. The carriage wends its way to the Bolshoi Theatre.
Kaliayev goes to Savinkov in Alexander Garden: “I think I did the right thing. How can we kill children?” Savinkov recalls his words. Savinkov replies that far from condemning his actions, he applauds them. But Kaliayev’s resolve soon returns. He says that if the organization sanctions the killing of the grand duke together with his family, he will do it that very night after the performance at the Bolshoi. Savinkov says it will not be necessary.
“The performance that evening was magnificent. Chaliapin was at the peak of his powers,” recalls Maria. “The hall sparkled with jewels and uniforms. There were no thoughts of misfortune.” Incidentally, it is the first and last time that Chaliapin will play the role of Eugene Onegin in Tchaikovsky’s opera based on Pushkin’s poem.
Two days later Grand Duke Sergei, after lunch at the usual time, leaves the Kremlin in an open carriage. He kisses his niece Maria, who asks him to buy her a mandolin. He ponders the request and tells her to wait until evening. The girl goes to see her mathematics tutor; the grand duke heads out.
At that same moment, Savinkov and Kaliayev are on Red Square. The latter wants to make up for the failed attempt near the Bolshoi Theatre and assures his friend that he can cope with the task all by himself: “I cannot fail. If the grand duke comes, I will kill him. Rest assured.”
They embrace and say their goodbyes. Kaliayev goes to Nikolsky Gate; Savinkov enters the Kremlin through Spassky Gate and heads up the hill to the Alexander II monument, offering a fine view of the grand duke’s home. Without waiting for the grand duke to come out, he goes to meet his accomplice, the superbly named twenty-four-year-old Dora Brilliant.* She has assembled the bomb that Kaliayev is about to throw.
The fourteen-year-old Grand Duchess Maria is with her mathematics tutor in a classroom overlooking the Kremlin’s Cathedral Square and Ivan the Great Bell Tower.
“Suddenly a terrible explosion shook the air and rattled the window frames,” Maria recalls. “Thoughts raced through my mind. Has one of the Kremlin’s old towers collapsed? Has an avalanche of snow fallen off the roof? And where’s my uncle? Dmitry came running from his classroom. We looked at each other, not daring to express our thoughts aloud. A flock of crows was swirling frantically over the tower, and then disappeared. The square began to come to life.”
Throwing a cloak over her shoulders, Grand Duchess Ella runs out of the house to the site of the explosion. “The minutes were indescribably excruciating,” Maria writes. “The area was swarming with people, but still no one reported to us the dreadful news that we did not doubt would come.”
Her Aunt Ella arrives at the scene. Pieces of her deceased husband are strewn everywhere. She picks them up one by one and puts them on an army stretcher that has been brought from nearby. Soldiers from the barracks opposite cover the remains with their greatcoats. They hoist the stretcher onto their shoulders and take the body to Chudov Monastery, which adjoins the palace of the late Grand Duke Sergei.
Ivan Kaliayev, who threw the bomb, is slightly wounded by the explosion. Dazed and deafened, he picks up his hat and is about to walk off when he is grabbed. “What are you doing?” he cries. “I’m not going to run. I’ve done my job. Down with the wretched tsar, down with the wretched government, long live freedom!”
The children are taken to a church. “My aunt was kneeling by the stretcher. Her bright dress looked ridiculous among the modestly clothed people around her.… The service finished. People got up from their knees. I saw my aunt coming towards us. Her face was white—a terrible frozen mask of pain.”
Grand Duchess Elizabeth does not cry. But for some reason Dora Brilliant is sobbing on the shoulder of Savinkov: “We killed him.… I killed him.… I …” “Who?” Savinkov asks, thinking that she is talking about the soon-to-be-hanged Kaliayev. “The grand duke,” she replies.
That evening Ella goes to visit the wounded coachman. So as not to upset him, she does not change into black, but remains in the same bright blue dress. With sleeves and fingernails stained with blood, she assures the injured coachman that everything is all right and that the grand duke survived. The coachman dies later that night.
AT ANY COST
“Terrible, terrible,” repeats General Trepov at his royal chambers inside the Winter Palace when he is informed of the death of Grand Duke Sergei. It is also his first meeting with the new head of the secret police, Alexander Gerasimov.
“I have learned that a new terrorist group is operating in Saint Petersburg,” he says to the newcomer, who has come from Kharkov. “It recently arrived from abroad. Preparations are being made for an assassination attempt on Grand Duke Vladimir, on me and on who knows who else. Listen: your first task is to eliminate this group. You must get these people at any cost. Do you understand? At any cost!”
Arriving for work, Gerasimov realizes that Saint Petersburg’s legendary security department—the powerful secret police—which the entire country fears, is in chaos. There is no information at all about who is preparing the rumored assassinations. Gerasimov takes a bold decision: he informs all potential targets that they must not leave their homes until he is on top of the terrorists. Trepov, Grand Duke Vladimir, president of the Imperial Academy of Arts and commander of the Saint Petersburg Military District, and even the emperor himself obey. They place themselves under voluntary house arrest—for a few months.
Three days later Ella goes to visit her husband’s assassin, Ivan Kaliayev. They meet at the police station, in the presence of the governor and a police officer. Kaliayev has been brought specially from the detention facility where he is being kept.
“Who are you?” asks Kaliayev.
“The wife of the one you killed,” answers the grand duchess. “Tell me, why did you kill him?”
“The ones who instructed me to do it know the reasons. It is the result of the current regime,” replies the terrorist.
“Knowing the kind heart of the deceased, I forgive you,” she says, and asks the governor and officer to leave. She spends about twenty minutes alone with the arrested killer.
“We looked at each other,” says Kaliayev himself after the meeting, “with a certain mystical feeling. Mortals both of us, I survived by chance, while she still lived because I consciously avoided bloodshed. Looking at her face, I could not help but notice signs of gratitude, if not to me, then to fate, for having spared her life.”
“She asked me to take her icon and said she would pray for me. For me, it was a symbol of her gratitude and repentance for the crimes of the grand duke. I said that my conscience was clear. I told her I was sorry for her grief, but had acted knowingly, and if I had a thousand lives, I would sacrifice all of them for the cause. The grand duchess got up to leave. I also stood up. I repeated I was sorry, but that I had done my duty and would bear the consequences. I said farewell, for we would not see each other again.”
What Kaliayev and the grand duchess actually talked about is unknown. She did not tell even her children about it. The newspapers write that Kaliayev allegedly wept on his knees and asked for forgiveness. On hearing this, he writes a long indignant letter to the grand duchess: “I am fully aware of my mistake. I should not have been so kind as to engage in conversation with you. You have turned out to be unworthy of my generosity.”
Kaliayev returns the icon together with the letter. However, his correspondence is not conveyed to Ella. A week later Kaliayev asks for a second meeting, but she refuses.
The trial of Kaliayev begins on 5 April. The bomber delivers a speech that makes his party comrades proud: “I am not a defendant. I am your captive. We are two warring parties. You represent the imperial government, the hired servants of capital and violence. I am one of the people’s avengers, a socialist and a revolutionary. We are separated by piles of corpses, countless broken human beings and a sea of blood and tears. You have declared war on the people, we accept the challenge.”
He then utters a speech addressed to the murdered grand duke, blaming him for the Khodynka tragedy and explaining that “since the grand duke was not accountable to the law, the militant organization’s duty was to make him accountable to the people.” Kaliayev is sentenced to death. His appeal is rejected. Nicholas II asks the Ministry of Justice to extract a plea for mercy from the convicted man, who refuses. On 10 May, Kaliayev is hanged at Schlisselburg Fortress outside Saint Petersburg.
ON TOUR IN EUROPE
Gapon makes his way to Geneva in early February. He stumbles upon a Russian émigré library, where he asks for the address of Plekhanov. All Russian revolutionaries know it by heart: 6, Rue de Candolle. They also know that the celebrity Marxist spends most evenings drinking beer in a nearby tavern. On presenting himself, at first Gapon is not allowed in. Only when he discloses his name does Plekhanov agree to meet.
Soon he is the center of care and attention. He is given a place to stay with the revolutionary Leo Deutsch and supplied with books on socialism to prepare the defrocked priest for life as a Marxist. Gapon acknowledges himself that he feels like a Social Democrat. But then, suddenly, the long-lost Rutenberg shows up, also on the run from Russia. The Socialist-Revolutionary (SR) Rutenberg extracts his ally from the clutches of the Mensheviks. Plekhanov is offended and breaks off contact with Gapon.
Rutenberg introduces Gapon to his friends “Babushka” Breshkovskaya, Viktor Chernov, and Yevgeny Azef. They all want to get close to the celebrated priest. Gapon himself fancies the idea of uniting all the Russian revolutionary parties under his leadership, as he had done with the Saint Petersburg workers’ union. He already knows that Plekhanov despises Lenin and is extremely distrustful of the SRs. Gapon senses that only he can lead the Russian émigrés to revolution.
In Gapon’s own words, Russian Geneva is bewitched by him—all except Azef. The antipathy is mutual. Gapon does not like the rude and authoritarian Azef, who places his own leadership qualities above Gapon’s. “He bosses everyone around and they meekly comply,” recalls Gapon. “He is deaf to criticism. We do indeed dislike each other.”
Azef is particularly appalled by Gapon’s idea to create a new militant organization, which, in his capacity as “Agent Raskin,” he immediately reports to Saint Petersburg.
Gapon enjoys learning how to fire a gun (unusually so for an ex-priest) and ride a horse, but is not too interested in reading the classics of Marxism. True to his idea of uniting all Russian oppositionists, he seeks an appointment with the leader of the Bolshevik faction, a certain Vladimir Lenin. On the eve of the meeting, according to the memoirs of Nadezhda Krupskaya, Lenin’s wife, her husband spends the whole evening pacing around the living room in eager anticipation. Gapon’s reputation precedes him, and he impresses Lenin with his fiery talk. Lenin advises his new friend: “Father, don’t listen to flattery. Read more and learn. Otherwise you’ll end up you know where,” he says, pointing to the ground.
Rutenberg takes Gapon to Paris, where the “organizer of 9 January” is awaited by leading French politicians, including Jean Jaurès, the head of the United Socialist Party, and the future Prime Minister George Clemenceau. The attention of Western luminaries turns Gapon’s head. He sees his picture on the front pages of newspapers and is offered a huge fee for his memoirs. This is only the beginning, he thinks.
PANIC IN CHINA
In the Far East, meanwhile, the fighting continues around Mukden (present-day Shenyang), the capital of Manchuria and the largest city in northeastern China. It is the birthplace of China’s ruling Qing dynasty and presently a Russian outpost in the Far East. Governor-General Alekseyev likes to stroll among the mausoleums of the Chinese emperors. Commander-in-Chief Kuropatkin, for his part, is more concerned about military matters.
The battle of attrition around Shenyang lasts for a month. After a heroic effort, Kuropatkin orders his troops to retreat from the advancing Japanese. In doing so, three army corps are cut off from the main force, and panic sets in. Both armies are depleted. Japanese losses are at least twice as high as Russia’s, yet on 10 March 1905 it is the Russian army that withdraws from the city.
“It was our last, but greatest defeat,” writes Witte. “I do not recall such a colossal defeat on land as that suffered by the Russian army at Mukden.”
Captain Denikin is highly critical, believing that “the whole operation would have been different if just a few people on the command ladder had been replaced in good time.” General Kuropatkin, the darling of the press for the past two years, is now in disgrace. Nicholas II dismisses him as commander-in-chief.
The Mukden defeat poleaxes the whole of Russian society. The regime seems to be coming apart at the seams. It faces a stark choice: reform or die.
Meanwhile, the Japanese army is also at the breaking point. It has been victorious in every battle thus far, but the casualties have been debilitating. At Mukden, the Japanese have lost more than seventy thousand men. It is very much in Tokyo’s interests to end the war as soon as possible. Russia’s weakness lies in the fact that its main forces are far from the front line. If Russia were to hang in and deploy fresh units from Europe, Japan would eventually succumb.
The question occupying the Japanese General Staff is how to get the Russian authorities to surrender. It is then that Japanese intelligence suggests sponsoring the revolution, for the Russian regime is still shell-shocked by Bloody Sunday. Japan’s former military attaché Akashi Motojiro tries to make contact with the revolutionaries, and does so through the Finnish separatist Konni Zilliacus. The next goal is to find and finance someone to catalyze the people’s revolution. There is only one option: Georgy Gapon.
The events of 9 January have deeply affected Savva Morozov, even though he was in Riga at the time. The tycoon begins to develop his own reform plan and writes a report entitled “On the causes of the strike movement. Demands for the introduction of democratic freedoms,” which he plans to submit to the government on behalf of big business.
In the report, Morozov argues that the strikes are not just economic, but political. The backwardness of the Russian state is hindering the country’s industrial development. Consequently, systemic reform is not the whim of a group of rabble-rousers, but the driving force of national prosperity.
To increase Russia’s global competitiveness, Morozov proposes making all citizens equal before the law, guaranteeing the inviolability of the individual and the home, introducing freedom of speech and of the press, providing universal compulsory schooling, and drafting laws with the participation of representatives elected by all classes of the population.
Morozov meets with Witte, who snootily advises him not to meddle in politics: “See to your business interests, and do not get mixed up in the revolution. Take my advice and pass it on to your colleagues.” Morozov departs in silence.
A couple of days later the tycoon hurries to Moscow: strikes have broken out at his own production facilities. Savva, who has not had a hands-on role in the business for many years, is out of touch with the workers. Arriving at the factory, he goes to meet the strikers. The large hall where they gather is packed to the rafters: people are sitting on the windowsills and stairs. Morozov listens carefully to the workers’ demands and tells them that he will convey them to the governing board (which is headed by his mother). “What board?!” shouts the outraged crowd. “We don’t care about that. You’re the boss. You sort it out!” Morozov is taken aback and, according to his wife’s memoirs, leaves early and drives off in his carriage.
Morozov is unable to persuade the governing board to satisfy the workers’ demands. His mother, the de jure head of the family company, is categorically opposed to any politically motivated change. She forbids her son to offer concessions to the workers and threatens to remove him from the business altogether. On 17 March the board re-elects his mother, Maria Feodorovna Morozova, as managing director and Savva as her deputy. The decision is also taken to send troops to the factory to suppress the unrest. Morozov’s mother places the blame squarely on his shoulders: “Look at the mess you’ve made. This isn’t England, you know. Workers in Russia need to be afraid. That’s what they’re used to.”
On 25 February, the so-far peaceful strikes turn violent. The workers attack the recently stationed troops, who open fire. As a result, four people are taken to hospital in a serious condition. The newspaper Spark publishes an article on the “monstrous exploitation and abuse of workers by Savva Morozov.” Morozov, who financed Spark for several years, plunges into depression.
The forty-year-old Savva Morozov finds himself isolated. He has a poor relationship with his family, who considers him a mad socialist, while the Bolsheviks are only interested in his money, as indeed are Stanislavsky and Nemirovich. He does not even have the Moscow Art Theatre to fall back upon, since he left it in 1904 after Andreyeva’s departure.
His closest friends, Gorky and Andreyeva, have moved away, first to Jurmala and then to Crimea to treat Gorky’s tuberculosis. Gorky has been released from prison on bail pending trial. He plans to use the courtroom as a platform from which to rant about the injustices of the world.
On 15 April, at the insistence of his mother and his wife, Savva seeks medical treatment. He is diagnosed with a nervous disorder, exacerbated by overexcitement, anxiety, insomnia, and depression.
“Savva’s mother and wife have declared him insane and want him confined to hospital. I thought about visiting, but was sure they wouldn’t let me see him. Such a strong person, but not invincible,” writes Maria Andreyeva.
However, Savva is not confined to hospital, but sent for treatment to Europe. On 17 April, he and his wife Zinaida, accompanied by a doctor, depart for Berlin.
“TO THE RUINED WALLS OF BEAUTIFUL PALACES!”
On 5 March the tsar, his family, and the beau monde gather at Tauride Palace in Saint Petersburg. The palace, which a year later will host the first assembly of the State Duma, is hosting an exhibition of Russian portraits painted from 1805 to 1905. Despite the recent January massacre and the defeat at Mukden, high society is seemingly oblivious to it all.
The exhibits have been assembled by the thirty-two-year-old Sergei Diaghilev, who has spent the past year traversing the old estates around Moscow and Saint Petersburg and selecting more than four thousand paintings from their private collections. “The collection should remain permanently at Tauride Palace. It is the finest example of portraiture in Europe,” the painter Borisov-Musatov writes to fellow artist Valentin Serov. “It would make Diaghilev’s already historic name immortal.”
The exhibition is so successful that even his enemies grudgingly praise Diaghilev. His Moscow friends and acquaintances, including those who disapprove of his dictatorial ways, hold a feast in his honor at the Metropol Hotel. It is attended by Moscow’s leading lights, among them Valentin Serov, Savva Mamontov (now bankrupt), the merchant dynasty heir and collector of impressionist works Sergei Shchukin, the young poet and publisher Valery Bryusov, and the architect Fyodor Shekhtel.
They discuss art and politics. All of a sudden, Diaghilev rises to his feet and proposes a toast that might be described as a stump speech had it come from someone less apolitical. But even having spent the past year rummaging through eighteenth-century paintings, Diaghilev cannot be oblivious to what is happening in the country or fail to have an opinion.
The Tauride Palace exhibition, he says, marks the end of a dazzling era. Traveling around Russia’s boarded-up estates and dilapidated yet “fearsomely splendid” palaces in search of exhibits, Diaghilev understood that he is witnessing a great turning point in history: “We are condemned to die so that a new culture may live, which will take what remains of our old wisdom.”
The speech, which echoes the world-weariness of The Cherry Orchard, is published by Bryusov a few days later in his magazine Vesy. Yet Diaghilev is more optimistic than Chekhov. For Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard marked the end of his life, while for Diaghilev the Tauride Palace exhibition is merely his last project in Russia, although that evening at the Metropol he does not know it.
“We are witness to a seminal historical moment—the birth of an unknown culture that will ultimately sweep us aside. Without fear or disbelief, I raise a glass to the ruined walls of beautiful palaces and the laws of the new aesthetic.” The Moscow intelligentsia applauds.
Back in March, Azef reports to the police that Georgy Gapon allegedly received 50,000 roubles* to organize a conference for all Russian revolutionary parties abroad. The source of the funding is unknown, but Gapon gladly takes on the assignment and sends out invitations to potential participants. The example of the French socialists is very much on everyone’s mind: in 1899 all the French socialist parties merged into one under the leadership of Jean Jaurès. Moreover, in 1904 the Socialist International (a.k.a., the Second International) called for the unification of all socialist parties of Europe. Thus, Gapon, now Russia’s leading oppositionist, is following not only his dream, but also the global trend.
However, Russia’s socialists are not so straightforward. The SRs generally support the idea of unification, but the party leader Mikhail Gotz does not. He believes that all other revolutionaries should simply join his party, since the assassinations of Plehve and Grand Duke Sergei have turned the SRs into the most influential revolutionary organization. Georgy Plekhanov does not want to unite under Gapon’s leadership. He has been disillusioned with the former priest even since the latter switched camps to the SRs.
The only party leader in favor from day one is Vladimir Lenin. On the eve of the unification conference, the leader of the Bolsheviks publicly expresses support for Gapon and the hope that the former priest will join his party in the foreseeable future.
The congress begins on 2 April, attended by representatives of eleven of the eighteen parties invited. The leading figures are the presiding Gapon, Viktor Chernov, and “Babushka” Yekaterina Breshko-Breshkovkaya of the SRs, and Vladimir Lenin of the Bolsheviks. Other participants include opposition parties representing various minorities of the Russian Empire: Poles, Finns, Jews, Georgians, Armenians, Latvians, and Belarusians. On the very first day of the congress, Lenin opposes the uneven makeup of the participants: too few Social Democrats, too many potential allies of the SRs, in his opinion. He theatrically walks out of the hall.*
Gapon is upset by the gesture. Yet his disillusionment with the Social Democrats does not extend to Lenin himself. In a letter to his comrades in Saint Petersburg, he describes them as follows: the Social Democrats have no unified spirit, and their generals (except for Comrade Lenin) are mostly “Talmudists, Pharisees [hypocrites] and liars who masturbate words and phrases full of self-importance.”
The congress continues without the Social Democrats: only the Socialist-Revolutionaries and ethnic minority parties remain. The main topic is now the ethnic question. The delegates discuss the transformation of Russia into a federation, which annoys Gapon: “Everyone is talking about the rights of outlying regions but not of Russia herself. It will end in Russia being torn apart,” he interjects. Gapon intervenes once again by offering to give the Jews their own territory inside the Russian Empire. It is 1905, and Gapon is still unfamiliar with the ideas of the leader of the Zionist movement. The idea of creating a Jewish autonomous region in Russia will return twenty-nine years later.
In May Gapon briefly joins the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, but then withdraws. He departs for a tour of Europe, traveling first to Geneva and on to London, where he receives an offer to publish his memoirs. He is joined by his common-law wife and former pupil Sasha Uzdaleva. For the book, he is promised a fee of 10,000 roubles* —a huge sum that will free him from political allegiance and allow him to become a properly independent activist. The writing, of course, will not be done by Gapon himself. He hires a journalist to take extensive interviews and rework them into a narrative.
PORTRAIT OVER THE ENTRANCE TO THE BUFFET
Also in Europe, following his doctor’s instructions, are Savva Morozov and his wife Zinaida, who go first Berlin, then Vichy, then Cannes.
On 11 May, in Vichy, Morozov receives an unexpected visit from the head of the Bolsheviks’ militant organization, Leonid Krasin, who finds the tycoon depressed. Morozov keeps the meeting a secret from everyone, including his wife, and uses the encounter to make another timely contribution to the party coffers.†
Formally, Leonid Krasin holds the same position in the Social Democratic Party as Azef in the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (i.e., head of combat operations). A well-educated engineer who does not hide in underground circles, Krasin is at once Azef’s double and antithesis. He is charming, sociable, and friends with people like Gorky and Andreyeva—the opposite of the sullen Azef. Another difference is that Azef plots political assassinations, while the militant wing of the RSDLP does not engage in murder, but “fundraising,” which often means looting.
The next day, 12 May, Morozov and his wife move to Cannes, where Savva’s mood seems to be improving. But the appearance is deceptive, for it is there in Cannes, on 13 May 1905, in a room at the Royal Hotel, that Savva Morozov’s body is found. He died from a gunshot to the heart and left lung, says the medical report.
Although the memoirs of Savva’s contemporaries make no such suggestion, a century later Morozov’s great-grandchildren will allege that the businessman was murdered by Leonid Krasin. In the twenty-first century, the theory is quite widespread.
The body is taken to Moscow and buried only two weeks later on 29 May at Rogozhskoe Cemetery—the main resting place for Old Believers in Moscow. This is significant, for it means that the family was able to convince the Old Believer community that it was not suicide; otherwise he could not have been buried there. Yet still no one speaks of murder—neither his family, nor the authorities. No further investigation is carried out following the initial probe by the French police.
Forty years later Zinaida Morozova writes in her memoirs that suicide was common among the third generation of merchants—the grandsons of the first free peasant entrepreneurs. The heirs of the Zhuravlev, Tarasov, and Gribov merchant dynasties “all shot themselves on the same day, perhaps the same hour, out of boredom,” she writes.
Andreyeva arrives from Finland, where she is now living with Gorky at a country dacha, but she catches cold and cannot attend the funeral ceremony. A month later she claims the insurance policy left to her by Morozov. His widow Zinaida sues to have the sum returned, but Andreyeva (or, more accurately, Krasin, her legal representative) wins in court. Most of the money, 60,000 roubles,* ends up going to the Social Democratic Party.
“RUSSIA HAS GONE MAD”
Despite the fact that the “dictator” Trepov has been given carte blanche by Nicholas II, the Saint Petersburg authorities are still torn apart by controversy. Finance Minister Kokovtsov recalls that Bloody Sunday very nearly derailed talks with the French government for a loan that Russia desperately needed to continue the war with Japan. Kokovtsov and Witte arrange a personal meeting between the tsar and a French banker. Nicholas handles the task admirably. He calms the banker’s nerves by promising to carry out political reform and assuring that Admiral Rozhestvensky’s Baltic Fleet will swing the war in Russia’s favor. The money is practically in his pocket, he thinks.
That evening, Empress Alexandra brings her husband a decree drafted by a member of her entourage. It says that the strike movement will be harshly suppressed, making no mention of any reform. The only minister who knows about it in advance is Pobedonostsev. He says that the text is so good that not a single word should be changed. The tsar signs the decree without looking at it. Finance Minister Kokovtsov is shocked, for it means the French could withdraw the loan. As a counterweight, in typical fashion, Nicholas signs a second decree on the very next day that completely contradicts the first, promising to set up a new legislative body.
On 14 May, the long-awaited news arrives that the Baltic Fleet is approaching Japanese waters. In his memoirs, Witte repeatedly cites the tsar’s phrase: “Seraphim of Sarov has predicted that a peace agreement will be signed in Tokyo and only the yids and intelligentsia can think otherwise.” It is hard to say if Nicholas II was alone in his miscalculation. In hindsight, of course, all officials claim that they foresaw the annihilation. Captain Denikin, who fought in the war, writes that the military bowed to public and media pressure. The decision to send the fleet “12,000 miles around the world to a place with no military base” Denikin describes as “reckless.”
During the six months that Rozhestvensky’s vessels have been at sea, Port Arthur has fallen. In other words, the whole purpose of the campaign—to break through the blockade of the port—is now irrelevant. When Nicholas II sets the new goal “to seize control of the Sea of Japan,” Rozhestvensky decides to break through to Vladivostok. There are three points of entry to the sea. The admiral chooses the Tsushima Strait. It is there that the Japanese fleet is lying in wait, presumably tipped off by intelligence reports.
The battle (or rather, massacre) of the Tsushima Strait lasts for two days. Of Russia’s thirty-eight ships, only three break through to Vladivostok and one “runs away” to Madagascar; the remaining thirty-four are sunk or interned. Japan loses only two small torpedo boats.
After the Tsushima debacle, the tsar’s uncle and commander of the fleet, Grand Duke Alexei, resigns. He has already been hissed and jeered at in the streets for months, and the windows of his palace are regularly smashed with stones. However, at a meeting with the tsar, many military leaders say that the war must continue, arguing that Japan is still weaker than Russia.
With the domestic situation becoming ever-more explosive, Nicholas appoints Dmitry Trepov as deputy head of the Interior Ministry, in addition to his position as governor-general of Saint Petersburg.
The military defeat makes a huge impression on society, which is accustomed to viewing the Russian state as an implacable, all-powerful machine that grinds up everything in its path. Yet it turns out that it cannot even beat a “bunch of monkeys,” as the enemy was called by semi-official propaganda a year previously.
Witte, a firm believer in Russia’s military might, writes that his country “has gone mad.” With Russia now seen as all bark and no bite, “the whole picture changed. Russia’s enemies, both internal and external, suddenly came out of hiding.”
Interestingly, even the “reformer” Witte uses the phrase “internal enemies”—Saint Petersburg now seems like a besieged fortress, not unlike Mukden on the other side of the world.*
GO BACK AND CRY
April 17th sees the publication of a new law on religious tolerance, abolishing the degrading restrictions on Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, and Old Believers. It is also no longer a criminal offence to leave the Orthodox Church. Moscow’s merchant class rejoices. Their religion (officially known as Old Belief) is, at long last, lawful, meaning they are no longer second-class citizens.
Conservatives, on the other hand, see the law as another in a list of defeats, the latest after Tsushima. Another potential blow is the bill to set up a new legislative body, currently being drafted. Three names are under consideration: the Zemsky Sobor, the Sovereign Council, and the State Duma. The tsar chooses the latter. Post-Tsushima, recalls Moscow Governor Vladimir Dzhunkovsky, the convocation of a new nationwide representative assembly is the most pressing issue of the day.
There is intense debate among ministers over the issue of whether illiterates should be allowed into the Duma. Most are in favor, because illiterate former peasants are devoted to the tsar: there should be as many of them as possible to shore up support for the regime, it is argued. Finance Minister Kokovtsov is against, saying that “enthusiasm for the regime is no use if they cannot read what they are being asked to consider.” Ultimately, Nicholas II takes the side of the illiterate. There is one more proposal: to ban Jews from the elections. Witte is vigorously against the motion; finally, Jews are allowed to vote.
BORSCH AND VODKA
The disturbances spread across the country, but for some reason the censors do not ban the press from reporting them. Suvorin’s New Time features a special section under the heading “Unrest.”
Maria Andreyeva, in a letter to her sister, expresses concern that the latter is in Saint Petersburg with her children. Yet no city in Russia is safe at the present time. Curiously, the “revolutionary” Andreyeva describes the situation in the same terms as the monarchist Alexandra Bogdanovich: “It’s dreadful what’s happening in Odessa! It breaks the heart to see so many lives ruined. It’s not so much a political tragedy as a human one.”
The general strike in Odessa has been ongoing for about a month. Cossack regiments are eventually sent in, but still the unrest carries on until June and beyond. Earlier in the month a Black Sea Fleet vessel performing maneuvers off the coast of Odessa sends a boat to the shore to stock up on food. Everyone in the city is on strike, so fresh goods are not easy to come by. The ship’s cook buys stale meat crawling with maggots. He takes it back to his vessel, the Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky, and promptly uses the meat to make borsch. The revolutionaries, incidentally, have been agitating among sailors in the region, yet the one ship they do not count on is the Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky—its crew is weak and apolitical.
On 14 June, the sailors aboard the ship receive their daily ration of vodka, dried bread, and borsch. On seeing maggots wriggling around in the soup, they go on strike. Only one young sailor, obviously hungry, slops it down.
On learning about the mutiny, the captain consults with the ship’s doctor, who inspects the soup and declares it fit for consumption. The captain lines up the sailors—with those willing to eat the soup standing on the right and those who are not on the left. Giving them one last chance, he summons the ship’s security service to make a note of the names of the mutineers. At this point, many try to move from the left to the right, but the captain orders them to be arrested and shot for insubordination. A tarpaulin is brought out, indicating that the cleanliness of the deck is more important than human life.
So begins the most famous uprising of the 1905 revolution, glorified twenty years later by Sergei Eisenstein in his classic silent film The Battleship Potemkin (using the shortened version of the ship’s name). Within minutes the sailors kill the captain and all the officers, and then go after anyone who has taken cover on board the vessel. The ship’s cook and doctor are murdered, as are some young sailors who have jumped overboard to escape, including the one who ate the offending soup.
During the period 16–25 June, the battleship roams around the Black Sea, periodically opening fire on Odessa. Vessels sent to intercept it fail to do so. Finally, on 25 June, the ship runs out of fresh water and food, causing arguments on board. The sailors decide to head for Constanta on the coast of Romania to claim asylum. Back on terra firma and having avoided arrest, the crew disperses across Europe. One of the ringleaders of the mutiny, the “chairman of the ship’s committee” Afanasy Matyushenko, travels to Geneva, where he dreams of joining up with the “damned priest” (as Gapon is known in various circles). The battleship itself is towed back to Sevastopol on 29 June.
“Europe, England and America are eager to hear my words and my opinion,” boasts Gapon to his old friend, Pinhas Rutenberg, when the latter comes to visit him in London. The former priest even says that local workers are planning to put up a monument to him in his lifetime. Gapon feels like an ancient prophet in the days before organized religion: “Nicholas II faces the same fate as [Charles I or Louis XVI]. Those of his dynasty who manage to escape the horrors of the impending revolution will soon seek refuge in the West.” So ends his book of memoirs published in London in summer 1905.
Even the patriarch of “Russian London,” the anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin, falls under Gapon’s spell, writing an article about the Russian Workers’ Union, which Gapon wants to revive. Peter Struve, the editor of Liberation, also seeks a meeting with him.
It is in London that Gapon draws up a plan to return to Saint Petersburg and start a revolution. The idea is to collect donations from wealthy Europeans and Americans, buy weapons, put them on board a boat, sail down the Gulf of Finland, equip members of the Russian Workers’ Union, and stage a rerun of 9 January, only this time the now-armed workers will march on the Winter Palace and seize power. “In what way is the Romanov dynasty superior to the would-be Gapon dynasty?” a friend paraphrases the fiery former priest. “Russia is ready for a manly peasant tsar. I am just a pure-blooded peasant.”
Gapon writes to his comrades in Saint Petersburg who survived 9 January, asking them to put the trade union back together. The organization has since been reduced to a few dozen people. The operation to return to Saint Petersburg is planned in London at the apartment of the fifty-five-year-old Nikolai Tchaikovsky, an SR émigré with three decades of revolutionary experience. Responsibility for collecting “foreign donations” is assigned to the Finnish separatist Konni Zilliacus and for purchasing weapons to Yevgeny Azef. Neither the underground veteran Tchaikovsky, nor the younger Gapon (nor anyone else for that matter) suspects that they are dealing with two agents: one working for Japanese intelligence, the other for the Russian secret police.
Zilliacus does indeed raise funds. He tells Gapon that the money was donated by an American billionaire, yet there is no real need to be evasive, since Gapon and his fellow revolutionaries do not care about its provenance. They would just shrug if they knew that the revolution was being funded by the Japanese General Staff.
Lenin catches wind of the impending revolution and tries to join Gapon’s project. In early July, when Gapon visits Geneva, the Bolshevik leader takes him to a pub and asks for the Bolsheviks to be part of the conspiracy. Gapon agrees to admit Nikolai Burenin to his circle as Lenin’s representative. Lenin, once opposed to any kind of unification, is now desperate not to be left out. The Bolsheviks even urge Maxim Gorky to persuade Gapon to cooperate with them. In mid-August Gorky duly writes his very first letter to Lenin. True, Lenin is not the addressee, but an intermediary postman—he is to hand the letter to Gapon. Gorky is very excited about Gapon’s plan to smuggle arms into Saint Petersburg and provoke another uprising.
“Strength in unity, comrade!” Gorky writes to Gapon. “We don’t need a party that is detached like the intelligentsia. We need a party overflowing with workers.” Gorky ends the letter by suggesting that the Social Democrats play a major role in the seizure of Saint Petersburg, since Gapon’s union is not strong enough.
ON TOUR IN AMERICA
In late June 1905, a month after Tsushima, US President Theodore Roosevelt proposes peace talks between Russia and Japan. Nicholas II sends Sergei Witte to the negotiations with the parting words that he desires peace, but will not cede a single square inch of land or pay a single kopeck of war reparations. But (adds Navy Minister Alexei Birilev) “it might be possible to give up some of what we ourselves stole when times were more favorable.”
According to the most experienced commander in the imperial family, Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, Russia can win back the Liaodong Peninsula and the peninsula of Korea, but it will take another year and cost a billion roubles.* It also has to be a ground operation, since the sea option is closed off. What’s more, it will have to be funded by printing money. The state coffers are empty (according to Witte), and no one is prepared to grant the Russian government a loan.
In late July Witte travels to the United States via Paris in his role as peacemaker: “For some reason, the European powers had a high opinion of me back then. They all thought I was the man to make peace.”
On the way, he formulates his negotiating tactics: “Given the huge role of the press in America, it’s important to communicate with its representatives.” In other words, the plan is to play to the crowd. On board the transatlantic steamer he gives an interview to The Times, and then, having disembarked, holds a large press conference. He is photographed with everyone and willingly signs autographs. Every time he steps off a train, he makes sure to shake hands with the driver. He wears his democratism on his sleeve, and it pays off. The newspapers write that the Russian tsar’s representative is “more straight forward and more accessible than President Roosevelt.” Lastly, Witte demands that the talks be open to journalists. It is a bluff, of course. He knows full well that the Japanese will object, but for him it is another victory in the information war.
BEFORE: THE RISE OF JOHN GRAFTON
In late August, while Witte is glad-handing in America, Gapon is busy uniting all the forces of the underground opposition and plotting his assault on Saint Petersburg. The plan involves the Socialist-Revolutionary militant organization led by Azef, the Bolshevik militant organization led by Krasin, Gapon’s own Russian Workers’ Union, and even Peter Struve’s liberal Union of Liberation.
Gapon goes to Stockholm, from where he plans to enter Finland and rendezvous with a boat that Azef and Tchaikovsky will load with arms. Azef has reported the purchase of the weapons to his handlers in Saint Petersburg, but in small doses. The Russian police do not know that “Agent Raskin” is the actual head of the SR militant organization, believing him to be a revolutionary pawn. So as not to upset the apple cart, Azef greatly understates the extent of his knowledge.
In London, the conspirators purchase the 315-ton steamship John Grafton, which they resell to a fictitious business. Reaching the coast of Finland, the John Grafton heads for a fjord near Helsinki, where the weapons are unloaded, after which Gapon’s now twelve-thousand-strong army of workers is to advance on Saint Petersburg.
Having unloaded the John Grafton, Azef is supposed to head for the capital to lead the armed uprising, but at the crucial moment he disappears. The other conspirators think that he has been arrested, or, sensing a tail, has decided to lie low. Savinkov recalls that Azef was in the habit of going AWOL, always explaining afterwards that he had been forced to take cover from the police.
On 3 August, a second misfire occurs when Pinhas Rutenberg, Gapon’s trusty right-hand man, is arrested. Yet the operation continues. Due to the depleted ranks of the Socialist-Revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks take the lead: they dig pits to store the weapons, including a secret cache under a slab at Saint Petersburg’s Volkov Cemetery.*
But not all the arms get through. The John Grafton docks once again, this time not far from Vyborg, but for some reason no one comes at the appointed hour to collect the weapons. After waiting a few days, the vessel returns to Copenhagen.
Gapon himself is not involved in the arms smuggling phase of the operation. He is too important a figure for such a mundane role. His task is to raise morale. In mid-August Konni Zilliacus hires a yacht on which Gapon sets sail for Finland: “St. Petersburg needs a spark. Don’t be afraid of victims. It’s no loss if 500 workers are sacrificed. They will have achieved freedom for all,” says the Finnish separatist Zilliacus.
But Gapon “can see through these Swedes and Finns” (or so he thinks) and realizes that they are exploiting him for their own separatist ambitions. “I will not sacrifice a single Russian worker for the sake of their bourgeois schemes,” he says.
AFTER: THE AMERICANS CRY
Sailing only a few dozen kilometers from Gapon’s yacht is another, rather more luxurious vessel. On holiday aboard the imperial Standard, Nicholas II and family are awaiting the outcome of the peace talks in America.
The talks between the Russian and Japanese delegations are held in the small coastal town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where Witte feels like an actor on stage—even his hotel room looks out over the street, so that journalists and passers-by can take pictures of the “Russian prime minister” on his balcony. The all-smiling Witte does not object.
Witte immodestly recalls that it was his openness that swung US public opinion from sympathy for Japan to empathy for Russia. The same change occurs in President Roosevelt. Witte’s memories of his trip to Roosevelt’s country house are insightful. He is amazed by the president’s Spartan breakfast—no tablecloth, no wine (“just icy water”). Even more surprising is Roosevelt’s admission that he does not want to be re-elected to the presidency, but would rather become dean of Harvard University. Witte even goes to Harvard out of curiosity.
Another strong impression upon Witte is made by Russia’s émigré Jews. At the train station in Boston, a crowd gathers to talk to the Russian minister. They tell Witte that even though they detest the tsarist regime, they miss Mother Russia and will pray for its success in the negotiations.
The most contentious issue is Sakhalin Island. Half of it is already de facto occupied by the Japanese, so Nicholas II telegrams Witte, agreeing to cede the territory. At the same time, there is a flurry of correspondence between the Japanese representative, Foreign Minister Komura Jutaro, and his superiors in Tokyo. The foreign minister does not want to accept Witte’s offer, but to claim more substantial war reparations. But he is pressured by Roosevelt—not out of love for Russia, but simply because the latter wants the negotiations to succeed. As a result, the Japanese emperor orders his minister to sign the treaty.
Witte enjoys his time in America and wants to travel around the country, as suggested by Russia’s ambassador to Washington. However, according to Witte, Nicholas II pours cold water on the idea, fearing that his representative is becoming too popular.
Witte also writes that during the talks he felt unwell (allegedly from the low-quality American food) and kept himself in working order through “very strict dieting and intense massages with cocaine paste.” Back home, on 17 September Witte travels to the Gulf of Finland, where Nicholas and family are resting aboard the Standard. Pleased with the outcome of the negotiations, he bestows upon Witte the title of count. The now Count Witte is touched, saying that he is glad that the tsar has not been influenced by all the anti-Witte gossip. “I never believed such slander,” replies Nicholas II.
BEFORE: THE END OF JOHN GRAFTON
Meanwhile, the John Grafton returns to Finland from Copenhagen and this time delivers its cargo. On this occasion, the unloading is performed by the more reliable Finns, although the weapons do not make it to the cemetery just yet. But that is now a secondary matter. On 7 September, during its third voyage, the John Grafton runs aground in the Gulf of Bothnia, the northernmost arm of the Baltic Sea.
The boat, loaded with even more weapons, is immobile on the rocks, and the crew can do nothing except wait for backup from Copenhagen. Spotting the disaster, coastguards come to the rescue. They offer assistance, which is turned down. But the crew senses danger.
The crew eventually abandons the John Grafton, blows it up with dynamite, and sails to Sweden in the ship’s lifeboats. The following day the police inspect the scene. The vessel is not totally destroyed and not even entirely sunk. The weapons are duly found.
“It’s a nasty business,” says Nicholas II on learning that his yacht was in the vicinity of the floating arsenal. The emperor is lucky on this occasion. Were it not for the John Grafton’s inexperienced crew, the armed uprising scheduled for autumn 1905 could have been nastier still.
History books will say that the arms smuggling operation was a gamble, doomed to failure from the start. Yet the preparations involved all the Russian revolutionary parties (which quickly distanced themselves in the aftermath). No one thought of the operation as a gamble until the John Grafton ran aground. And if the weapons had reached their destination, the Russian monarchy would certainly not have survived the upheaval of 1905.
* Pre-revolutionary Russia used the Julian calendar.
† This is a very typical scene—one hundred years later organizers of almost all protest actions will split into radicals (those in favor of more decisive and offensive actions) and moderates (those in favor of waiting and negotiating with authorities). Leaders who are ready to aggravate the situation will be compared to Georgy Gapon—even though initially Gapon stuck to a different tactic. For example, Alexei Navalny in the early twenty-first century is often called “the new Gapon.”
* Some describe Gapon as the world’s first human rights activist. Mahatma Gandhi (influenced by Tolstoy) preached non-violent resistance and peaceful demonstrations in the 1920s, and Martin Luther King, Jr. made them mainstream in the 1960s. But the pioneer was Gapon, even though his peace march was not altogether peaceful.
† This is an almost exact match to Alexei Navalny’s phrasing “party of crooks and thieves,” which united the Russian protesting public in 2011.
* Peter the Great founded the Russian Empire in 1721 and introduced the European title of emperor; previous Russian tsars (who were not emperors) are buried in Moscow.
† A biopic of her life in 2017 caused scandal in Russian religious circles, for by that time Nicholas II was a saint.
* This address, 20 Vosstaniya (Uprising) Street (then called Znamenskaya [Apparition] Street), is right next door to Vladimir Putin’s childhood home on Baskov Lane, where he grew up half a century after the events described.
* A typical situation for the early twenty-first century. For example, in winter 2011-2012 after the rally for fair elections at Bolotnaya Square many senior officials will not be able to believe that protests were spontaneous—among themselves they will be earnestly discussing that there was a carefully planned operation involving some Presidential Administration officials (for instance, Vladislav Surkov).
* The philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky was exiled to Siberia for political activism for twenty years (1864–1883).
† About $1,318,333 in 2017.
* In the early twenty-first century, pseudo-public organizations are created to simulate civil engagement, although their real purpose is to approve the actions of authorities. It is a very important feature of Russian political system. One such institution is the Civic Chamber, created in 2005. It is supposed to simulate the discussion about key issues, but it acts under close supervision of the Presidential Administration. Such fictitious public organizations became especially popular during the time when Vyacheslav Volodin was in charge of domestic policy. After he left for the Duma (Russian parliament) this method remained popular. Thus, on 12 June 2017, at the time of an anti-corruption demonstration, in the center of Moscow with numerous teenage participants, Vladimir Putin received the “proper” school pupils, gave them passports, and was photographed with them in his office.
† Nicholas refers to himself with a capital letter.
‡ Any protest activity in Russia in the early twenty-first century gets accused of having “foreign sponsors” and of being funded by the State Department of the USA. Quite often such accusations are made by Russian Orthodox Church members. For instance, patriarch Kirill and Tikhon Shevkunov, father superior of the Sretensky Monastery, are among the most vocal advocates of the theory that Russian opposition is commissioned by the West.
§ About $237,300,000 in 2017.
* Brilliant in Russian means “diamond.”
* About $659,167 in 2017.
* Russian non-systemic opposition parties tried to unite their efforts in the early twenty-first century as well, but failed due to personal ambitions of their leaders. Later, almost all of them left politics. They lost all their popularity after having become marginalised political groups.
* About $659,167 in 2017.
† This meeting is mentioned in the memoirs of both Gorky and Krasin himself. Since Zinaida writes that Morozov did not receive Krasin, the meeting was most likely a secret.
* About $791,000 in 2017.
* Seeing Russia as a besieged fortress is still popular in the early twenty-first century. This idea captured the minds of the political elite at least twice: 100 and 110 years after the Tsushima tragedy. In 2004 and 2014, after two Ukrainian revolutions, many Russian officials have gotten carried away by the theory that Russia is surrounded by enemies who are planning a revolution with the help of planted influence agents (opposition activists). Such times of acute government paranoia haven’t lasted for long: their concerns that there is a global anti-Russian conspiracy haven’t come true. However, prejudice against opposition remains.
* About $13,183,333,333 in 2017.
* By a quirk of fate, all of Lenin’s relatives will end up buried here, and in the post-communist 1990s the question of moving Lenin’s body to this cemetery is a political hot potato.
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