Chapter 11
in which Grigory Rasputin becomes the most powerful kleptocrat and the most hated pacifist in Russia
AN ICON WITH A BELL
Once Nicholas has departed for the front, the mode of governance completely changes. Alexandra convinces her husband that she and Rasputin are his only reliable advisors. The fact that she has lost touch with her husband’s relatives is not a misfortune in her view, but an asset. She has in her possession a miraculous icon with a bell (presented by Dr. Philippe), which she believes will ward off evil-doers. That is why, Alexandra is sure, the tsar’s relatives are shying away from her—they are frightened by the icon. “It is not my will—it is God who wants your poor wife to be your helper,” she writes to her husband.
Alexandra does not travel to the capital, so government ministers make the trip to Tsarskoye Selo. She receives them regularly and takes pride in it. Rasputin calls her the “new Catherine the Great”—a comparison that greatly flatters the empress: “Not since the time of Catherine has the Russian empress had such power,” she writes. In letters to her husband, she complains that she is burdened by the responsibility, but Nicholas understands that his wife enjoys being in charge. He thanks her for taking control of the country while he is at the front.
In almost everything Alexandra is guided by Rasputin. Never for a moment does she doubt the advice of “God’s man.” He, in turn, openly flaunts his influence. The staff turnover rises rapidly as Rasputin advises her to replace this or that minister. The empress, for her part, conveys the advice to her husband since “a country whose sovereign is guided by ‘God’s man’ cannot perish.”
Almost all of Rasputin’s requests are fulfilled—albeit with some delay, since the tsar does not like sudden changes. As a rule, his wife has to write to him three or four times for any particular piece of advice to be implemented.
At the same time, the rumors swirling around Rasputin monstrously exaggerate his role. To the metropolitan intelligentsia, he is the devil incarnate—a fiend who holds drunken orgies at Tsarskoye Selo while the naive tsar is at the High Command. “Grisha [Grigory] rules and drinks and fucks the lady-in-waiting and Feodorovna,” writes Zinaida Gippius in her diary on 24 November 1915. It is not true, of course. Since both the empress and her friend Vyrubova genuinely consider Rasputin to be a saint, there can be no sexual subtext to their relationship.
NEW YEAR SURPRISE
Despite Rasputin’s influence, almost all the ministers in the tsarist government write in their memoirs that they hardly notice his interference, apart from a handful of isolated cases, such as the appointment in 1915 of a new interior minister, church minister, and metropolitan archbishop of Petrograd. It is not long, however, before Rasputin starts casting around for a new prime minister.
The empress has a soft spot for the incumbent prime minister, Ivan Goremykin, but he is seventy-six years old and, it is said, decrepit. That does not bother Alexandra, for she values his loyalty, yet at the same time she wants to find someone with more backbone who will take the fight to the opposition and the State Duma and restore order. Alexandra believes that the elderly prime minister is to blame for the activation of civil society, because he lacks the strength to tighten the screws.
On being dismissed (not for the first time), the apathetic head of the government is delighted that the torment is over. On the previous occasion, he happily gave way to Stolypin; this time he is replaced by the sixty-eight-year-old Boris Stürmer, Stolypin’s former opponent, whom Rasputin recommends as a disciplinarian: “Grigory rates him highly, which is very important,” the empress writes to her husband.
Stürmer (whose German surname means “storm-trooper”) comes from a family of Russified Germans, for which reason he is overly keen to demonstrate his Orthodox credentials.
Rasputin expects Stürmer to be obedient. The preacher has in fact built his own system of power: about once a week he visits the Peter and Paul Fortress, where he holds secret meetings with Prime Minister Stürmer and the newly appointed Metropolitan Pitirim. However, according to Stürmer’s assistant, the former secret police agent Manasevich-Manuilov, Rasputin soon suspects that the prime minister is becoming too independent. During a meeting at the fortress, he gives him a dressing-down: “How dare you oppose the will of our mother [Alexandra]!” he cries, and proceeds to explain to those present that “the little old man should be put on a lead; otherwise he might break his neck.”
TO KILL RASPUTIN
Stürmer does not take offense at Rasputin, unlike the latter’s other protégé, the new interior minister, Alexei Khvostov (nicknamed “Fatty” by Rasputin and the empress). Khvostov is just forty-three years old and very ambitious. He himself wants to head the government, but Rasputin mocks his prime ministerial pretensions: “Fatty wants too much,” he says. Khvostov is incensed by the way Rasputin manages state affairs and belittles members of the government in public. The interior minister summons his deputy, the police chief Stepan Beletsky, responsible for Rasputin’s security, and orders him to kill the preacher.
The head of the imperial guard, General Spiridovich, has his own theory: the ambitious Khvostov intends to get rid of all rivals, including Rasputin and Beletsky. Khvostov’s plan is supposedly to get his deputy to do the dirty work (or blame him if it goes wrong), take the glory as the country’s deliverer from Rasputin, and become the next prime minister, and a popular one at that.
Beletsky, realizing the danger of the errand, procrastinates: he promises Khvostov to arrange an assassination attempt, but in fact does nothing. A few weeks later, on discovering that Beletsky has been idle, Khvostov comes up with another plan that involves Rasputin’s now bitter foe, the former monk Iliodor.
Sergei Trufanov (the real name of the defrocked Iliodor) now lives in Norway. Before fleeing Russia, he met with Maxim Gorky and shared his plan to write a revelatory book about Rasputin. Gorky is delighted: “Iliodor’s book about Rasputin will be very timely and greatly informative for the public. I will arrange its publication abroad,” he writes to a friend. In 1915 Trufanov does indeed write a book called The Holy Devil.
The former Iliodor is known as Rasputin’s number one enemy, so he is the man to kill the preacher, believes Interior Minister Khvostov. He sends an assistant to Oslo (then called Christiania), where Iliodor lives, to put the proposal to him. On his way back, however, Khvostov’s envoy is detained at the Russian border on the orders of Deputy Interior Minister Beletsky. After a short interrogation in Petrograd, he confesses everything and hands Beletsky a letter from Iliodor addressed to Khvostov.
The Interior Ministry deprives Rasputin of his security. Sensing that he is being targeted, he takes his grievances to Vyrubova. She tearfully complains about it to Empress Alexandra, who does the same to her husband: “He [Rasputin] is fraught. He is afraid to go anywhere for fear that he will be killed.”
A SPY IS BORN
“Nothing can stop me. It’s my call whether Grishka [Grigory] gets to go to a brothel or is thrown under a train,” boasts the interior minister in conversation with the head of the tsar’s personal guard, Spiridovich. “Didn’t you know, general? Grishka’s a German spy!” he adds, throwing a pile of police agent reports on the table in front of him. “I could not believe my ears or eyes. This chubby, rosy-faced man with foolish, cheery eyes did not seem like a minister, but a highwayman,” recalls Spiridovich. He decides not to mention this conversation to the tsar.
Nicholas, for his part, decides not to fire Interior Minister Khvostov. On 27 February 1916, he visits Tsarskoye Selo for a Sunday service at Saint Fyodor’s Cathedral. To mark the first week of Lent, the entire imperial family receives Holy Communion whereas Rasputin stays in the altar. After the service, Rasputin is taken to the palace, where he congratulates the royals, drinks tea with them, and talks about how Khvostov wanted him killed. Rasputin knows this from the aide who was sent to meet with Iliodor.
Nicholas II calms Rasputin, saying that Khvostov is as good as dismissed, before departing for the front without even speaking to Khvostov. “I despair that through Gr[igory] we recommended Khv[ostov] to you,” the empress writes to her husband. “The devil himself took possession of him, there’s no other way to describe it.”
Two days later Khvostov delivers a report to the tsar, who pretends that nothing has happened. Khvostov returns to Petrograd in a sanguine mood, but soon learns of his resignation from the papers. He rushes back to Nicholas, but the tsar does not receive him.
The whole sordid affair ends unexpectedly. Former Deputy Interior Minister Beletsky tells what has happened to a journalist acquaintance, who immediately publishes an “interview with Senator Beletsky” without even asking the latter’s permission. Russian society has never before seen such revelations. Beletsky resigns. Stürmer sets up an investigative commission, which sits on its hands, for it would be unseemly to admit that the interior minister dabbled in contract killings.
Khvostov remains a State Duma member. He insists to his Duma colleagues that Rasputin is a German spy, asserting that he just wanted to expose him but was thwarted in the attempt.
The label of German spy sticks surprisingly readily to Rasputin. Only yesterday he was a Khlyst, but today he is an agent of Berlin. General Spiridovich investigates Khvostov’s claims and finds them to be pure bluff, backed up by no evidence whatsoever.
Nevertheless, the rumors multiply, and Rasputin does little to dampen them. For one thing, Rasputin is an anti-war pacifist. He has always described the war as evil, saying that the people dying on both sides of the conflict are essentially the same. He frequently implores the empress to ask her husband to avoid senseless casualties and look after the soldiers.
The war is the dividing line in Russian civil society, an issue that breaks up families. Anyone who is not jingoistic is branded a traitor and a defeatist.
Rasputin also preaches compassion for minorities. He pleads on behalf of German prisoners of war (which pleases the German-born Alexandra). He offers patronage to sectarians and schismatics (like Tolstoy once did). Lastly, Rasputin has extensive connections among the Jewish bankers of Petrograd—the role of Rasputin’s secretary is performed by the merchant Aron Simanovich, while a frequent drinking companion of the preacher is the banker Dmitry Rubinshtein. Jewish bankers in Petrograd are widely suspected of being in league with the Germans.
No one considers Rasputin to be a genuine preacher of humanism. His religious tolerance is put down to the fact that he is a Khlyst, and his concern for the Jews by the fact that he is in their pockets (which is partly true, Jewish bankers thank Rasputin for his support with gifts, such as a new sable fur coat). Meanwhile, his charity towards German prisoners of war is a clear sign of espionage, it is said.
FAREWELL, ISTANBUL
At the beginning of January 1916, the Gallipoli Campaign, a joint Anglo-French operation to seize Istanbul, comes to an end.
Germany and Turkey, the main opponents of the Triple Entente, have blocked both the Baltic and Black Seas, meaning that the only port city through which Russia can link up with its allied countries is the distant Arkhangelsk on the White Sea.
The Allies try to break through the blockade. Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, plans an operation in the Dardanelles to take control of the straits and carve a passage to Russia. The battle lasts almost a year, during which Britain loses around thirty-four thousand men, France ten thousand, Australia nine thousand, and New Zealand three thousand. For the latter two countries, these are the most serious military losses in their entire history. In December 1915 Britain decides to evacuate from Turkey, and the Allies admit collective defeat. The British are unable to take control of the Mediterranean straits, open up the shortest sea route to Russia, and knock the Ottomans out of the war. Churchill resigns as Britain’s navy minister.
One of the leaders of the defense of the Dardanelles is Mustafa Kemal (the future Ataturk). The triumph makes him a national hero and paves his way to becoming the first president of the Turkish Republic.
The failure of the Dardanelles operation is a blow for Russian society. For many inhabitants of the Russian Empire, the whole point of fighting in the First World War is to seize Istanbul and the Bosporus. After the defeat at Gallipoli, people start to question the war effort: “Everywhere I hear the same thing: ‘What’s the point of fighting if Constantinople is lost?’” writes the French ambassador Maurice Paléologue in his diary in January 1916, after the evacuation of Allied forces from Turkey.
In Petrograd, parallels between the two obsolete empires of Russia and Turkey are drawn. Turkey looks in better shape: its young military nationalists have taken power, introduced a constitution, and have now won a decisive battle.
Similar comparisons are made by Empress Alexandra. For her, the leader of the Russian “Young Turks” Guchkov is enemy number one. During the British evacuation, Guchkov falls ill with serious post-flu complications. “Let him depart for the next world. My wish is not sinful, for it is for your sake and for the whole of Russia,” she writes to her husband on 4 January.
Guchkov is not the only ailing politician. In 1916, many suddenly develop serious health problems that prevent them from operating at full capacity. One is Pavel Ryabushinsky. In early 1916, his tuberculosis worsens. According to the police, who keep watch over the businessman and liberal politician, “his weakness and constant bleeding from the throat prevent him from leaving Moscow.” As a result, Ryabushinsky is forced to cease all political and public activity. Only in March is he able to leave for Crimea, where he stays almost until the end of the year.
Duma member Alexander Kerensky suffers from a similar problem—renal tuberculosis. His condition takes a long time to be diagnosed, whereupon his tubercular kidney is removed. Recuperating in Finland, he does not take part in the Duma for seven months.
The imperial couple, meanwhile, are addicted to tranquilizers (which were quite rudimentary at the time). The tsar is more apathetic than ever. Rumors circulate that his wife sends him powders made by a Buryat healer called Dr. Badmaev, prepared using hashish. Alexandra confesses to a friend that she is “literally soaked in veronal” —a psychotropic drug, the first barbiturate, which in the early twentieth century is used as a sleeping pill. It becomes addictive after two weeks of use and has many side effects, including weakness and headaches. The symptoms are even known as “veronalism.” The drug often leads to depression and nightmares, while withdrawal results in irritability, panic attacks, and convulsions.
Over the course of 1916, ill health becomes a major factor in Russian politics, resulting in a mass insanity at the end of summer.
ON THE OFFENSIVE
Guchkov survives, but the empress does what she can to get rid of his ally, War Minister Alexei Polivanov. She impresses upon her husband that he is a conspirator, a traitor, and a “Young Turk.”
In early March Nicholas II acts on his wife’s advice and dismisses Polivanov. As a result of cleansing the top brass of “Young Turks,” the new commander of the Southwestern Front is General Alexei Brusilov, who replaces Ivanov. He tells the tsar that the army is in excellent shape and will be ready for a new offensive by 1 May.
At a war council meeting, Brusilov’s initiative is approved, despite the fact that the commanders-in-chief of the Northern and Central Fronts, Generals Evert and Kuropatkin, say that they cannot vouch for its success.
The Brusilov Offensive commences on 22 May. General Evert’s Western Front is due to advance immediately afterwards, but Evert asks to postpone his offensive until June 5 because of bad weather.
“My dearest darling! Our Friend [Rasputin] sends a blessing to all the Orthodox soldiery,” the empress writes to her husband on 4 June. “He entreats us not to advance too far north … for we will suffer great harm. He says it as a caution.”
The next day the tsar replies: “My dear! I thank you tenderly for your dear letter.… A few days ago, Alekseyev and I decided not to advance to the north, but to focus all our forces further south. But, please, do not tell anyone about this, not even our Friend.”
Come 5 June, Evert does not advance, and instead regroups. Brusilov is mad at Chief-of-Staff Alekseyev: “I was afraid of being abandoned, and that is what has happened. The enemy will direct troops against me from all sides, and I will be forced to halt.”
Alekseyev reports that Evert’s decision has been approved by Nicholas II and “cannot be reversed because the emperor’s decision is final.” Brusilov believes that Nicholas has nothing to do with it, “since in military matters he is an infant.”
The Brusilov Offensive begins successfully. On 7 June, his armies take Lutsk (city in modern Ukraine). The breakthrough is greeted enthusiastically by Russian society. The commander-in-chief is inundated with telegrams from peasants, workers, aristocrats, clergymen, and even intellectuals. He is very touched by a personal note from Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich, but the tsar’s congratulations, on the contrary, seem very dry and formal.
Brusilov is even less enamored of Alexandra. She receives him during a visit to the High Command shortly before the offensive. She greets him coldly, giving him an icon of Saint Nicholas the Miracle Worker. It is not long before the enamel image of the saint’s face is erased, leaving only a silver plate. “Amazed, some superstitious people suspected that the saint was embarrassed by such an insincere blessing,” recalls Brusilov.
POLITICAL TOURISM
The soldiers suspect Empress Alexandra of being a German spy, but they hate former War Minister Sukhomlinov even more. The sixty-six-year-old general is already accused of fraud and embezzlement, and the Duma adds high treason to the list of charges. Not everyone believes that Sukhomlinov is a traitor, but almost all rejoice at such an unprecedented achievement of civil society. A criminal case is brought against him and he will answer to the law—something that has never happened before in the history of Russia.*
The State Duma seems to be riding a wave. For the first time, the “progressive bloc” feels like a real political force. Pavel Milyukov recalls that during this period he is called the “leader of the Duma,” the “leader of the opposition,” and the “leader of the progressive bloc.”
On 16 April, a Duma delegation embarks on a two-month trip abroad. The parliamentarians want to introduce themselves to future negotiating partners. The delegation is headed by the deputy chairman of the Duma, the Octobrist Alexander Protopopov, and the group includes the Kadets Milyukov and Shingarev, and a dozen other parliamentarians. In Britain, they meet with King George V, members of parliament, and the writers H.G. Wells and Arthur Conan Doyle. After that, they travel to France, Italy, Norway, and Sweden. Milyukov and Protopopov are warmly received everywhere thanks to their excellent knowledge of languages, liberal ideas, and promise not to permit the signing of a separate peace.
In late May news breaks that the British cruiser HMS Hampshire has been blown up by a German mine in the Baltic Sea, killing the secretary of state for war, Horatio Kitchener, who was sailing to Russia. The general’s visit had not been announced in advance, and Petrograd is whispering that the Germans were tipped off by a top official, allowing them to target Kitchener’s vessel.
On the way back to Russia, in Stockholm, Protopopov decides to amuse himself. “Are there any interesting Germans in this city?” he asks, wishing to prolong his political tour. A German businessman by the name of Warburg is found. They drink and talk about global politics, Germany and Russia, war and peace. The next day Protopopov recalls the conversation and notes down a summary of it. Returning to Petrograd, he goes to see Milyukov and reads out Warburg’s ideas from his notebook, which include the annexation of Lithuania and Courland (today’s Latvia) to Germany, a revision of the borders of Lorraine, the return of all colonies, the redivision of Poland into two parts: Russian and Austrian, and the restoration of Belgium’s independence—all as part of a separate peace. Milyukov advises Protopopov not to tell anyone about his conversation with the German, but the latter does the exact opposite. A month later, as a result of this random conversation in Stockholm, Protopopov is accused by some, including Milyukov, of having held secret negotiations with a German agent.
On 20 June, the day when the Duma delegation returns from its sojourn abroad, Prime Minister Stürmer announces a postponement of the next sitting of the Duma—the session is rescheduled for 1 November.
THE AMERICAN MIRACLE
Back in January 1916 Sergei Diaghilev and his troupe board a steamer in Bordeaux on tour to America. Everyone is incredibly nervous, especially Diaghilev, who is afraid of water. Ever since a fortune-teller predicted that he would “die on the water,” he has been afraid of drowning. But needs must. Europe is being torn apart by war, and the tour to America is a life-saving opportunity for the Ballets Russes, which has been inactive for six months.
The negotiations with the Americans are not easy: they want to see Nijinsky, but Diaghilev has not been in touch with his former star for two and a half years. Nijinsky is presently under house arrest in Budapest (as an enemy of Austria-Hungary). But for the sake of the American tour, Diaghilev starts to arrange Nijinsky’s release—after all, the Metropolitan Opera in New York has paid him a 45,000-dollar advance.* This rescues Diaghilev from bankruptcy and finances his company’s rehearsals and upkeep for the whole of 1915. By the end of the year, the money is running out, and Diaghilev, terrified, sets off across the Atlantic. On the ship, he locks himself in his cabin, and sends his servant Vasily to say prayers on the deck to ward off trouble. Diaghilev’s fears are not entirely unfounded: the war is being fought at sea as well, and passenger steamers are often the accidental targets of German U-boats and underwater mines. Sinkings are regularly reported in the newspapers, horrifying Diaghilev.
However, the crossing is uneventful. Diaghilev takes a liking to New York, saying in one of his first interviews that he has long admired Broadway and its art. After his troupe’s first performances in New York, they head for the American outback: Chicago, Milwaukee, Atlantic City, Kansas City, and elsewhere.
The tour is never far from scandal (often initiated by Diaghilev himself). He dismisses his leading ballerina, Ksenia Makletsova, replacing her with the US resident Lydia Lopokova (who would later become the wife of economist John Keynes). Makletsova tries to sue and demands that Diaghilev be arrested. On top of that, the conservative American public is outraged by the openly erotic scenes in Scheherazade and The Afternoon of a Faun. The most shocking part is not the sexual overtones of the dances, but the fact that the male dancers, made up to look black, are embracing white women. Under public pressure, the controversial scenes are cut from both ballets.
Throughout the tour, Diaghilev continues to seek the release of Nijinsky—at the very least in time for the tour finale at the Metropolitan Opera. The US State Department and the US Embassy in Vienna intercede on behalf of the dancer, who is finally allowed out in March.
Nijinsky arrives in New York on 4 April and sees Diaghilev for the first time in three years. The meeting is acrimonious. Nijinsky does not want to go on stage until Diaghilev pays him what he is owed for past performances. The dispute is eventually settled when Diaghilev agrees to hand over 24,000 dollars. On 12 April, Nijinsky dances his trademark role in Petrushka on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.
The New York leg runs for over three weeks and is very successful. An invitation is extended to return in the autumn. Diaghilev accepts, but proposes that Nijinsky should manage the new tour. Diaghilev himself returns to Europe with his troupe for performances in Spain. The way back is just as nerve-wracking. Diaghilev panics, while Vasily prays.
A SECRET SLAUGHTER
Brusilov’s offensive is a national triumph. After the endless setbacks of 1915, there is a renewed surge in optimism and patriotism. The admiration for Brusilov is matched only by the contempt for General Kuropatkin, whose name is already a byword for the humiliating defeat in the Russo-Japanese War, but who is now accused of indecisiveness in not having come to Brusilov’s aid. All other news recedes into the background, including an uprising in Central Asia—today’s Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan.
In June, Prime Minister Stürmer drafts a conscription order for the entire male population of Turkestan (Central Asia) aged nineteen to forty-three to perform front-line duties—the plan is for around two hundred thousand locals to dig trenches. According to Russian law, non-Russian inhabitants of the empire (as the entire Muslim population of Central Asia is categorized) are not subject to compulsory military service. But the new order changes everything.
It causes a wave of protests: the transfer of all the region’s adult men to the front effectively dooms the remaining women, children, and elderly to starvation. The problem is aggravated by the fact that the publication of the decree coincides with the start of the cotton-picking season. Moreover, Russia’s Muslims do not want to fight against the caliph—the sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The tipping point is the abuse of office by petty officials: since local residents have no documents, their age is determined by a quick inspection, meaning that people can be given whatever age they want by paying a bribe.
The first unrest begins in the Tajik city of Khujand—it is a “women’s revolt.” Local women throw themselves at the feet of the Cossack soldiers, begging them not to take their men. The insurrection gains traction in the Samarkand region, and then spreads to the so-called Semirechye (Seven Rivers) region—now in the southeast of Kazakhstan and the north of Kyrgyzstan, the territory around Almaty and Bishkek, former capital of Kazakhstan and capital of Kyrgyzstan, respectively. There are many Russians living there, and what ensues is effectively a civil war: the Kirghiz butcher the Russians, and the Russians try to exterminate the Kirghiz.
On 17 July 1916, martial law is declared across the whole of Central Asia, and Kuropatkin is sent in to quell the uprising—just six months after his appointment as commander-in-chief of the Northwestern Front. Despite being opposed to the call-up of local residents, he is the one tasked with crushing the insurgency.
At any other time the uprising in Central Asia would have provoked a major international reaction, far greater than the Lena Massacre or the Chisinau Pogrom. But it is eclipsed by the First World War. During the crackdown, up to sixty thousand people are killed; the exact number is unknown.
The region is soon paid a visit by Alexander Kerensky on a fact-finding mission on behalf of the State Duma. Kerensky has only just returned to active politics following his illness. Eager to resume his Duma role, he willingly travels to Central Asia.
Initially, Kerensky sees no signs of a pre-planned uprising: no weapons have been brought in. Clearly, it was a spontaneous, elemental outbreak of anger by a local population driven to despair. In Kerensky’s view, the talk of a “pan-Islamic revolt” or “German agents” is nonsense. “It will be very difficult for us now to speak about ‘the Turkish atrocities in Armenia’ or ‘the German atrocities in Belgium’ when the world has never seen anything like what has just happened in the mountains of Semirechie,” Kerensky reports to the Duma on 13 December. Cries of “Shame!” are heard from the left and “Lies!” from the right.
POLAND AND THE MARK OF THE DEVIL
In late June 1916, Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov visits Nicholas II at the High Command, bearing a ready draft of the new Polish constitution. He is adamant that the document must be signed forthwith, since the Kingdom of Poland is now occupied by Germany. The only way for Russia to curry favor with the restless Poles is to grant them their own constitution with a view to presenting Russia as the guarantor of a freer and more prosperous Poland. The fact that Poland could ultimately become an independent country does not worry Sazonov. On the contrary, he considers the inclusion of Poland into the Russian Empire to have been a historic mistake—Poland is a cancerous growth inside the Russian state, and Russia will only benefit from having it surgically removed.
To increase the pressure on the tsar, Sazonov shows the draft constitution to Chief-of-Staff Alekseyev, who supports the idea and offers himself to present it to the tsar. Nicholas II complacently approves the document and asks that it be submitted to the government for further discussion. In fulfillment of the tsar’s request, Sazonov hands the document to Stürmer and, in anticipation of the Duma discussion, goes on a short vacation to Finland.
While he is showing the draft constitution to the tsar, Sazanov has no idea that he is already doomed. Grigory Rasputin believes that the foreign minister is “marked by the devil,” while Empress Alexandra says that his “cowardice before Europe will be the death of Russia.”
While on vacation, Sazonov learns that the Council of Ministers has rejected the draft constitution of Poland, that he himself has been fired and that Prime Minister Stürmer is now, additionally, the foreign minister.
TWO CONSPIRACY THEORIES
After the initial success, the Brusilov Offensive peters out. The commander-in-chief continues to commit Russia’s best units to the operation, but the front line fails to advance any further. He expects the two fronts to the north of him to join the offensive, but they hardly budge. It is not just indecision on the part of the respective commanders-in-chief: the Western and Northwestern Fronts face powerful German resistance with a well-entrenched defensive line. Brusilov knows that breaching it will be a far harder task than breaking through the Austrian defense. The High Command believes that the Austrian line is the weak link, and so redeploys additional units from the north to help Brusilov.
But Brusilov’s successes come to end. The armies of the Southwestern Front advancing on Kovel (in the northwest of modern Ukraine) suffer huge losses. The German and Austrian troops put up fierce resistance. The Russian army loses about half a million men killed, wounded, or captured. The army elite—the Imperial Guard—perishes in the “Kovel meat grinder.” Rasputin blames Brusilov personally. He advises the empress to tell her husband that General Brusilov should preserve his soldiers and not continue the offensive to the Carpathians: “The losses will be too great.”
There is no more good news from the front. In July, on the crest of optimism prompted by the Brusilov Offensive, Romania enters the war on the side of the Entente. But the Romanian army proves to be a weak fighting force and is completely decimated by August.
Russian society is in the throes of disappointment. Brusilov is still considered a hero, but Evert is accused of cowardice and even treason. The only explanation considered by the chattering classes is that the operation was subverted by the “German party”: Empress Alexandra, Stürmer, and Rasputin thwarted Brusilov’s victory by not allowing the rest of the army to assist him.
However, this conspiracy theory is soon counterbalanced by another. In the summer, Vyrubova goes on vacation to Crimea, where she makes the acquaintance of the gakhan, the spiritual leader of one of the local ethnic groups, the Karaites. He makes a strong impression on Vyrubova, primarily because he shares her opinion that a conspiracy is being hatched against the empress. According to the gakhan, the instigator is the British ambassador to Russia. Vyrubova is so astonished that she invites him to visit Tsarskoye Selo to share his theory with the empress. As a result, the idea of a British-led conspiracy takes root among Alexandra’s entourage, and by autumn 1916 the Russian elite is split into two unequal parts: one (Duma members and sympathizers) suspects the other (the empress’s entourage and the government) of involvement in a German conspiracy; while the latter suspect the former of complicity in a British conspiracy. Alexandra, naturally believing her entourage, demands that her husband write to his cousin George V and take up the matter with the British ambassador, George Buchanan.
THE NEW LORD OF THE BLACK SEA
In July, the new commander-in-chief of the Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Alexander Kolchak, arrives in Sevastopol. His first move is to send warships to mine the Bosphorus so as to prevent the Turkish-German fleet from entering the Black Sea. His predecessor considered this venture a near impossible task, but Kolchak copes admirably. As a result, Turkish and German ships are “jammed” in the Bosporus. Thereafter, Kolchak lays the groundwork for an even more ambitious objective—the seizure of the Black Sea straits and Istanbul, which was only recently considered a lost cause.
The slogan “Raise a cross over Hagia Sophia”—an obsession among some sections of Russian society for many decades—is not considered a fantasy, but a reality. According to Kolchak’s calculations, the Turkish army has been bled dry by the Battle of Gallipoli and the constant setbacks in Palestine, Egypt, and Armenia, not to mention the fact that Turkish troops were sent to Galicia to aid the Austrian army. In the area of the straits, only three Ottoman divisions remain. Kolchak insists that the operation to seize Istanbul must be carried out before the weather deteriorates (i.e., no later than September). He asks Alekseyev to supply him with landing troops.
According to Kolchak, only five divisions will be needed to capture Istanbul—half the number suggested by Alekseyev. In 1916, the city is home to more than 1.5 million people. The question of what to do with them is not discussed.
Emperor Nicholas II approves the plan. However, it turns out that the preparations and military training will require three to four months. The operation cannot be carried out in the autumn or winter due to the stormy weather, so Kolchak has to postpone the maritime offensive until the spring of 1917.
The cancellation of the operation plunges Kolchak into a state of depression, aggravated by a tragedy that occurs in October. Aboard the battleship Empress Maria, a keg of gunpowder self-ignites, causing a massive explosion inside a shell room. A fire breaks out. Kolchak sails to the battleship and personally oversees the fire-fighting operation, but despite all the efforts, the battleship sinks. Admiral Kolchak is the last man to leave the ship. The loss of the Empress Maria is a body blow to Kolchak. He becomes withdrawn, stops eating, and receives no one. His entourage fears for his sanity.
MAD AS A HATTER
“My dearest darling wife! Yesterday I met a great man—Protopopov,” Nicholas writes to Alexandra on 20 July. “He traveled abroad with other members of the Duma and told me lots of interesting things.”
It is the start of a beautiful friendship. Returning from his foreign tour, Protopopov feels triumphant. His ambition is said to be running wild. He dreams of becoming a minister, and the chances look good. Protopopov knows that back in spring Rodzianko recommended him to the tsar as the new trade minister. But Rodzianko does not know that Protopopov has even more influential patrons. The fact is that the deputy chairman of the Duma was recently treated for a venereal disease by Dr. Badmaev, who specializes in Buryat and Tibetan medicine. The healer introduces him to Rasputin, and now Rasputin recommends him to the empress.
Soon after returning from Europe, Protopopov attends a reception at Tsarskoye Selo. Alexandra also takes a liking to the Duma deputy chairman. She urges her husband to appoint Protopopov to the post of interior minister: “He has known and loved our Friend for at least four years, which redounds greatly to his credit.”
On 16 September the deputy chairman of the State Duma is duly appointed acting interior minister. To his colleagues in the Duma, it comes as a complete surprise. He did not forewarn anyone about the appointment. They are outraged.
The fuss surrounding Protopopov’s appointment intensifies when he orders the transfer of former War Minister Sukhomlinov from prison to house arrest. Protopopov is acting at the behest of the empress and Rasputin, who pity the old man locked up in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
On his way back from Central Asia, Duma member Kerensky stops over in Saratov (which happens to be his electoral constituency), where he holds several meetings. There he learns about Protopopov’s elevation and is initially heartened by the news: Protopopov is a fellow native of Simbirsk (as is Lenin), and they have good relations. But back in Petrograd, Kerensky discovers a telegram reporting the arrest of everyone he recently met in Saratov. He immediately goes to see Protopopov.
Interior Minister Protopopov promises to sort everything out. They start to chat informally. Kerensky notices a reproduction of the painting Christ with Crown of Thorns by Guido Reni on Protopopov’s desk. Intercepting his gaze, the interior minister explains that he always seeks advice from the picture: “When a decision has to be taken, He points the way.” Protopopov proceeds to outline his messianic plan for saving Russia. Kerensky cannot understand what has happened—he knew Protopopov as a person of sane mind: “Is he a madman? Or a charlatan who has adroitly tailored his views to the musty atmosphere of the tsaritsa’s apartments and Anna Vyrubova’s ‘little house’?” wonders Kerensky.
Rumors of Protopopov’s insanity quickly spread around the capital. “He symbolizes the fact that all ministers are non compos mentis,” writes Zinaida Gippius in her diary. “There are quiet idiots who, with a smirk on their sagging lips, enjoy starting fires. Protopopov is one. No one can prevent his arsonist activity, because his power comes from above.”
AMERICAN PSYCHO
In the autumn of 1916 Diaghilev divides his troupe in two: he and his dancer Myasin remain in Spain, while the other part, as arranged, returns to America under the direction of Nijinsky. Diaghilev used to mock his former prima ballerina Anna Pavlova for having performed in circuses and hippodromes, laughing at her for devaluing high art by dancing in arenas for dogs and horses. Now Nijinsky performs at similar venues, but Diaghilev does not protest. On the contrary, he pockets the money from it.
The program of the American tour is intense: fifty-three cities. In New York Nijinsky stages his new ballet Till Eulenspiegel, but it bombs. The American tour turns into a horror story, and the troupe is exhausted by the constant traveling.
By the end of December the company is running out of money. On the way to Los Angeles and San Francisco, the dancers practically starve. Nijinsky sends telegram after telegram to Diaghilev, begging for help and imploring him to come over. But Diaghilev cannot stomach the thought of another Atlantic crossing. He does, however, dispatch Vasily.
With Vasily of no assistance whatsoever, Nijinsky has a nervous breakdown and is unable to perform. No one yet realizes it, but this is the onset of madness. The upcoming 1917 will be the last year of his ballet career. After that, he will spend the rest of his life in psychiatric clinics.
The tour is interrupted, and the Metropolitan Opera suffers huge losses, which are passed onto Diaghilev’s enterprise. He tries to economize on everything—even on the services of his friend Stravinsky, with whom he now quarrels over every centime. Their ping-pong telegrams to each other are full of mutual reproaches.
Despite the mess, Diaghilev still dreams of performing in Russia as soon as the war is over—which he thinks will happen very soon.
GO TO SLEEP
Pavel Milyukov leaves for Europe at the end of the summer. He and Struve are invited to Cambridge, where they are to be awarded with honorary professorships. There is nothing for them to do in Petrograd at the present time, for the Duma is in recess until November. Throughout the trip Milyukov is continually asked whether Russia intends to conclude a separate peace and about the influence of Rasputin. He gets so carried away on this latter topic that he decides to conduct his own journalistic investigation. Milyukov is no professional, and his inquiries are limited to reading newspapers and a handful of interviews. He is, however, an excellent orator and delivers talks about his work as if he has discovered a new continent.
During his trip, he stocks up on rumors. In London he meets with the elderly Russian ambassador, Count Benckendorff, who says that British diplomats dislike Stürmer; in Lausanne he converses with Russian diplomats and immigrants (who feed him with gossip about clubs for Russian Germanophiles, which Milyukov takes with a pinch of salt). Trips to Paris, Oslo, and Stockholm also furnish him with hearsay, whereafter he returns to Petrograd in September.
He is just in time for the first meeting between Duma members and their former colleague Protopopov, now the interior minister. On 19 October Duma Chairman Rodzianko invites the leaders of the Duma factions and the freshly baked minister to his home. Protopopov amazes his old comrades by turning up dressed as a gendarme. No minister since Plehve has worn a police uniform. Protopopov insists that their conversation remain confidential, but Milyukov replies that the time for secrets is over, and that he will duly report to his faction.
“What’s happened? Why don’t you want to talk like comrades?” Protopopov is surprised. Milyukov shouts back that Protopopov is serving the interests of Stürmer, whom the whole country considers a traitor. Moreover, he is hounding the press and his appointment was made largely thanks to Rasputin. “I am the personal choice of the Sovereign, whom I have grown to love,” replies Protopopov. He goes on to say that he has in no way defected to the monarchist camp, for he has always been a monarchist and never considered himself a member of the “progressive bloc.” What is more, he asserts, he will never allow the government to become answerable to the Duma. “I began my career as a humble student, giving lessons for 50 kopecks,”* he exclaims. “All I have is my personal support for the Sovereign, which I will retain to my dying day, regardless of what you think of me!” The parliamentarians respond to the chest-thumping minister’s histrionic speech with the words: “Go to sleep.”
The next day a transcript of the meeting spreads around Petrograd. Milyukov claims that he recalled the details of the conversation from memory, while Protopopov is sure that Rodzianko planted a stenographer behind the wall. No newspaper risks publishing the text. But the smile-inducing transcript is printed unofficially and transmitted from hand to hand and lauded as a fine example of humorous prose.
However, there are more strings to Pavel Milyukov’s literary bow than political satire. For the new session of the Duma, he prepares a revelatory address using all the materials collected during his recent travels. The Duma opens on 1 November, whereupon Milyukov gives perhaps the most famous speech in the history of the Russian parliament.
He says nothing not already discussed in the average Petrograd living room, but he says it openly and candidly. He states that Russia is rife with rumors of betrayal and treason, of dark forces fighting for Germany, asserting that if the Germans wanted to ferment disorder in Russia, they would do no better than to follow the example of the Russian government, and goes on to cite numerous cases of corruption, fraud, and errors of judgment by the authorities. Recalling the phrase of War Minister Shuvaev, “I may be a fool, but I’m not a traitor,” Milyukov poses a rhetorical question: Is the Russian government stupid or treacherous?
The “raw nerve” moment of the speech pertains to Rasputin and Empress Alexandra’s entourage, who effectively decide government appointments. Despite it being a forbidden topic, Milyukov cannot keep silent. He knows that he will be cut short if he says anything construed as an “insult to the supreme authority,” so Milyukov craftily quotes an extract from a Swiss newspaper in German about the role of the empress and her “party of courtiers.” Rodzianko has prudently left the hall, so the acting chairman at that moment is his deputy, Varun-Sekret, who does not know German and so does not interrupt the speaker.
The refrain of Milyukov’s speech is highly symbolic. He feels obliged to answer his own rhetorical “stupid or treacherous” question. He thinks that traitors exist, that there is a “pro-German party” and that the government cannot be full of idiots—there must be some wicked intent somewhere. A century on, we know the answer to his question: it is stupidity. None of the bureaucrats he exposed were spies. They were just feckless pen-pushers.
The speech is a sensation, for it marks the first time that the whispers have sounded in public. The censor forbids its publication, so newspapers simply print empty columns where it would have been. However, the text of Milyukov’s speech (sometimes considerably embellished) spreads throughout the country: it is read by soldiers and workers. According to Colonel Denikin, many officers, including the top commanders, agree with Milyukov. Moreover, the points he touched upon are no longer taboo, but openly discussed during officer meetings.
A week after the speech Rasputin and Protopopov are so worried that they advise Alexandra that the elderly Stürmer should be sidelined for a while—because his German surname is a “red flag for the lunatics” who believe in espionage theories. The empress passes on the request to her husband.
INVISIBLE TROUSERS
Nicholas II lives at the High Command in Mogilev (a city in modern Belarus, then in the west of Russian Empire) with his ailing son. He corresponds constantly with his relatives, who all live apart: his wife and daughters at Tsarskoye Selo, his mother, sister Olga, and brother-in-law Sandro in Kiev, and the rest either at the front, in Petrograd, or in Tiflis.
The correspondence between the imperial couple in the autumn of 1916 is a monument to their insane love and devotion. They do everything they can to help each other. Alexandra sincerely believes that by consulting with Rasputin on any matter and conveying his recommendations, she is helping her husband.
In his letters, Nicholas ironically refers to himself as a “weak-willed hubby,” while Alexandra displays resoluteness. She writes that she has a strong will and wears “invisible trousers,” making her the only real man among the feeble ministers. She demands that her husband be merciless towards their enemies (i.e., the Duma). She wants to see Guchkov hanged and Polivanov, Lvov, and Milyukov sent to Siberia.
On 1 November, the day of Milyukov’s speech in the Duma, Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, a liberal and a friend of the late Tolstoy, visits the High Command. Without consulting the leader of the Kadets, he delivers a speech to the tsar, which also touches upon the “dark forces” surrounding Alexandra. He says that the whole country is gossiping about Rasputin: “Russia cannot be ruled like this anymore.” Moreover, he warns the tsar that his life is under threat: “You are on the threshold of a new era of unrest and assassinations.”
Nicholas is silent. Nicholas Mikhailovich hands him a letter in which he further develops his thoughts. “You have faith in Empress Alexandra. That is understandable,” writes the grand duke. “But what comes from her lips is smoke and mirrors, not the truth,” he writes. Nicholas, even without breaking the seal on the letter, sends it to his wife. She replies that Siberia is the only fitting punishment for such a letter, “since it borders on high treason.… He and Nikolasha [Nikolai Nikolaivich] are my greatest enemies inside the family, not counting the black [Montenegrin] women.”
A week later, on 6 November, “Nikolasha” and his brother “Petyusha” pay a visit to the High Command—for the first time since his dismissal as supreme commander. Alexandra is fraught: “You must be cold-blooded with this wretched gang,” she writes to her husband. The tsar’s uncle picks a fight with his nephew: “You ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking that I wanted to dethrone you. You’ve known me all my life; you know how I’ve always been devoted to you. Shame on you, Nicky.” The tsar shrugs his shoulders in silence. “It would be better if you cursed or struck me than keeping silent. Don’t you see that you are losing the crown?” says his uncle, urging the tsar to appoint a government of national confidence that is answerable to the Duma. “You are delaying everything. There’s still time, but soon it will be too late.”
Nicholas II maintains his stubborn silence. In the end, he decides to dismiss Stürmer. Empress Alexandra is very upset. She bombards her husband with hysterical letters, demanding that Nicholas Mikhailovich be exiled and complaining that the new prime minister, Trepov, dislikes her and “great difficulties will arise” with him. Finally, she urges her husband not to fire Protopopov and essentially not to do anything until she herself comes to see him at the High Command.
DREAMS OF A CONSPIRACY
On 7 November, Emperor Franz Josef I of Austria dies after a sixty-eight-year rule: that is to say, he was on the throne long before Nicholas II and Alexandra, and most of their relatives, were even born. The death of the “eternal emperor” makes a great impression on the Russian imperial family: on the one hand, they say that it will bring about the defeat of Austria-Hungary and end the war; on the other, there is talk of the need for changes at the top in Russia, too.
The discussions about “saving Russia” by replacing Nicholas and Alexandra are not new, of course. But in November 1916 the emperor’s abdication and the empress’s exile to a monastery are the most fashionable debates in almost every Petrograd living room. Opinion is split on one point in particular: If Nicholas II renounces the throne in favor of his son, who will become the regent? His brother Mikhail, his uncle Nikolasha, or perhaps Grand Duke Dmitry?
The most influential woman in Petrograd is Grand Duchess Miechen, around whom the entire imperial court rotates, since the two empresses do not live in the capital (Alexandra hardly ever leaves Tsarskoye Selo, and Maria Feodorovna has moved to Kiev). The grand duchess has a deep-seated grudge against Alexandra. First, she has not forgotten how her eldest son Kirill was expelled from Russia for marrying a princess who had rejected Alexandra’s brother. Second, Miechen wanted to marry off her son Boris to the imperial couple’s eldest daughter, Olga. Alexandra refused without hesitation. What is more, Miechen is eyeing the throne for one of her own sons: Kirill, Boris, or Andrei.
In November Miechen visits the chairman of the Duma, Mikhail Rodzianko. She says that Alexandra is ruining the country and putting the tsar and the whole dynasty at risk. She needs to be sidelined, asserts Miechen. Many share this view. No one wants to get their hands dirty, but everyone prods each other and openly speaks about the need for concerted action.
Even Protopopov talks about a plot. Shortly after his appointment, he told the head of the Zemstvo Union, Prince Lvov, that he would prohibit the union from meeting because its members allegedly want to arrest the tsar and force him to adopt a constitution.
Lvov was not planning anything of the sort back then, but the idea got him thinking. In October, he visits the High Command to discuss the political situation with Chief of Staff Alekseyev. Various scenarios are considered: for instance, the empress could be arrested during one of her visits to the High Command. In this case, Nicholas would willingly agree to anything and would certainly appoint Lvov as prime minister.
After this conversation, both fall ill from exhaustion. Alekseyev is so stressed that on 3 November he cannot get out of bed. On 8 November, he goes to Crimea for treatment. Meanwhile, on 14 November Empress Alexandra arrives at the High Command.
In early December the Zemstvo Union holds a congress in Moscow. It is officially banned, so the delegates meet at the home of Prince Lvov. One of them is the Armenian politician Alexander Khatisov, the head of Tiflis (i.e., the head of the City Duma of present-day Tbilisi). Lvov tells Khatisov how much better it would be if Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich were the sovereign instead of Nicholas II. As a former supreme commander with an iron will, he is convinced of the need for dialogue with society. He was one of those who insisted on the dismissal of Sukhomlinov and other odious ministers, and urged the tsar to sign the manifesto on 17 October 1905. Prince Lvov has no desire to orchestrate a coup d’état himself—he wants the coup to be carried out by the grand duke. Nikolai Nikolaevich is so popular that everything will go swimmingly, he is sure.
Khatisov travels to Tbilisi to see the grand duke. According to protocol, the duke should, in fact, summon an adjutant and order the arrest of the conspirator—but instead he listens attentively before asking Khatisov to come back the following day. When Khatisov returns the next day, he is met by the grand duke with his wife, the Montenegrin Stana, and his chief-of-staff, General Yanushkevich. Khatisov repeats everything and sees that the idea of a coup greatly appeals to the grand duchess. Yanushkevich doubts whether the army will follow the grand duke, fearing that there could be a mutiny at the front. Nikolai Nikolaevich thanks Khatisov and bids him farewell. The conversation is over. The next time they see each other will be in February 1917.
PLOTS
During his trip around Europe, Milyukov was repeatedly tormented by the questions of “Who if not Nicholas II?” and “What will happen if there is another revolution?” Returning home, Milyukov decides to discuss this topic with his comrades: Who indeed? Many of his colleagues regularly discuss this issue at their Masonic lodge meetings, but Milyukov is not a Freemason and is not party to these conversations. He summons Rodzianko and the leading Kadets, including Nekrasov, the chairman of the Masonic supreme council, and some non-Duma members, including Guchkov and the young tycoon Mikhail Tereshchenko, heir to a sugar-refining dynasty (he is also a Freemason, and Nekrasov brings him along).
They discuss the likelihood of a street uprising, which the current government will not be able to handle. In this case, one of two things will happen: either the authorities will form a government of national confidence, or the protesters themselves will come to power. Guchkov listens in silence to these arguments and then replies that the new government will be formed from the forces that make the revolution, not outsiders. On this thought, the discussion ends. Almost everyone concludes that Guchkov knows about a brewing conspiracy, but is not letting on.
After the meeting Guchkov again falls ill and goes for treatment to Kislovodsk (the spa city in the south of the Russian Empire). When he returns, he is immediately approached by Nekrasov, with whom he is not very familiar; Nekrasov wants to know about the rumored conspiracy.
As the doyen of Russian Freemasonry, Nekrasov loves secrecy and mystery. He tells his friends that his dream is to become an éminence grise, whom “no one knows” but who “does everything.” He disseminates rumors of a possible conspiracy inside the Masonic lodges themselves. The leader of the Social Democratic faction in the Duma, Nikolai Chkheidze, recalls that some of his colleagues regularly voice the need to finance and stage a coup, which would include holding lectures in the regions to prepare public opinion. But since the Russian Freemasons are a network of discussion clubs, and not a secret organization (everyone knows about it), Nekrasov needs Guchkov’s assistance.
Guchkov says that there is no conspiracy just yet, but the time has come to start thinking about one. The plan that Guchkov comes up with is almost a carbon copy of the Young Turk Revolution. He wants to force the tsar to abdicate in favor of another. He himself has no intention of entering government, for at heart he is a monarchist and simply wants a different emperor.
The details of the plan are as follows: it is difficult to detain the tsar at the High Command (it would require the involvement of senior officers), and an attempt at Tsarskoye Selo could result in bloodshed, so the most opportune moment would be to intercept the tsar’s train en route from Mogilev to the capital. No violence would be necessary, just a bit of psychological pressure to persuade Nicholas to abdicate in favor of his son, with his brother Mikhail as regent. Since everyone loves little Alexei, it would boost support for the monarchy across society. After that, everything will be done by the book: Mikhail will expel Rasputin and Protopopov and refill the government with decent types, such as the reformer Krivoshein and former Foreign Minister Sazonov.
According to Guchkov’s memoirs, there is no plan B: if the tsar refuses, the conspirators will not insist, but surrender, which means arrest and possible hanging.
The thirty-seven-year-old Nekrasov involves his Masonic “brother,” the thirty-year-old Tereshchenko, in the conspiracy. Together they begin searching for military units able to intercept the imperial train on the journey from Mogilev to Tsarskoye Selo. But they are hard to come by.
Elsewhere, another couple of plotters are hatching a plan: the twenty-nine-year-old Felix Yusupov and his friend, the twenty-five-year-old Grand Duke Dmitry, a potential pretender to the throne. They have been thinking about assassinating Rasputin for several months now, even consulting with friends and family. For instance, on 20 November Felix writes to his wife Irina, the tsar’s niece: “My dear darling, I’m terribly busy with plans to eliminate R. It is now absolutely necessary, or else everything will be finished.” It is believed that Rasputin intends to lobby for a separate peace with Germany before the end of 1916.
As a result, many people learn about their intentions, including Irina’s father and the tsar’s childhood friend, Grand Duke Sandro, and Alexandra’s sister, Grand Duchess Ella. Initially, Yusupov plans to use his wife Irina as bait. Rasputin wants to make the acquaintance of the tsar’s niece, which means he will willingly accept the invitation to their home. But Felix then decides not to involve Irina, which offends her greatly.
Felix and Dmitry have entirely different motivations. Both are under the influence of what they have heard from their families. Grand Duchess Ella hates Rasputin and has made a mortal enemy of her sister the empress because of him. Felix’s father, meanwhile, the former Moscow governor-general Felix senior, is consumed by other prejudices and conspiracy theories. Yusupov senior is sure that there is a secret German lobby inside Russia in control of Rasputin and the government. He believes that it was the Germans who secured his dismissal the year before. Felix shares all his father’s convictions. Their circle believes that Rasputin is a spy and that it was his doing that enabled the Germans to sink Lord Kitchener’s ship as it sailed to Russia.
But that is not all. Felix is used to being the center of everyone’s attention, and is forever plotting increasingly extravagant ways to achieve this. Aged thirteen, strolling around the World Exhibition in Paris with his parents, Felix grabbed a fire hose and began spraying passers-by. He was detained by the police and his parents paid a fine. The case was hushed up and they did not punish their son. Later, at a more mature age, while studying in Oxford, he was the star of London’s balls—his suits were always the most colorful and expensive. Now grown up, he is a student of an elite military school—the Pazhesky Corps—and craves glory. He wants to be a superhero, the savior of the Fatherland. Dmitry, on the other hand, judging by his letters, harbors more modest ambitions and is ready to follow his idol, Felix.
In early December the two friends find themselves an unexpected accomplice: State Duma member Vladimir Purishkevich, a former leader of the Union of the Russian People, who, with government funding, split the movement in two and founded his own Black Hundred organization. On 20 November Purishkevich amazes everyone by leaving the right-wing faction, joining the opposition, and making a provocative speech in the Duma against corruption inside the imperial court.
Purishkevich’s speech is no less explosive than Milyukov’s. That same day Felix Yusupov calls him to arrange a meeting at which Felix opens up about the plan to kill Rasputin. A few more assistants are found, among them Lieutenant Sukhotin, the stepson of Leo Tolstoy’s daughter Tatiana.
The operation is scheduled for 16 December. Yusupov calls the preacher beforehand to invite him to his parents’ home on the Moika River in Petrograd, saying that Irina wants to meet him. Rasputin agrees and arrives in secret, without the knowledge of his own bodyguards. “It’s strange and frightening to think how easily he agreed to everything, as if he himself was helping us in our difficult task,” recalls Yusupov.
At 11 p.m. Grand Duke Dmitry and the other conspirators arrive. According to Yusupov, one of the accomplices, Dr. Lazovert, laces a plate of chocolate cakes with poison—the dose is many times stronger than necessary for a fatal outcome. After the murder, the plan is for one of the conspirators, Lieutenant Sukhotin, to put on Rasputin’s hat and coat and walk back in the direction of the preacher’s house on Gorokhovaya Street, where he lives with his daughters, to create an alibi. Purishkevich is to burn Rasputin’s clothes, while Grand Duke Dmitry will take the corpse to Petrovsky Island in his car.
FOUR SHOTS AND AN ICE-HOLE
At about midnight on 16–17 December 1916, Rasputin opens the door to Yusupov, who has come to pick him up. The preacher is well attired—Yusupov has never seen him looking so dapper. Rasputin says that he has promised Interior Minister Protopopov to stay at home: “‘They want to kill you,’ he says. ‘Evil people are plotting bad things.…’ Well, let them try. They won’t succeed. They’re not up to it.”
For some reason, the preacher trusts Yusupov, which, for a moment, makes the latter feel “ashamed and loathsome.” Later, Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich suggests that Rasputin had a “carnal passion for Felix.”
They go to the Moika Palace. Seated at the table, Rasputin refuses a drink for a long time, waiting for Irina Yusupova to appear (although she won’t, for she is no longer part of the plan). Felix says that she and his mother-in-law are entertaining guests, and that his wife will come down as soon as they leave. Finally, Rasputin begins to eat and drink. At 3:30 a.m. Felix runs upstairs and complains to his accomplices that the cyanide in the cakes and wine is not working. He takes Dmitry’s revolver and goes back.
Rasputin is sitting at the table as before, head down, breathing heavily. He complains that his “head is heavy and his stomach is burning.” He asks for another glass and suggests going to see some local gypsies. Yusupov, according to his own account, points to the wall and says: “Grigory Yefimovich [Rasputin], why don’t you take a look at that crucifix and pray in front of it.” He takes the revolver from behind his back and shoots. Rasputin “roars like a wild animal and falls heavily onto the bearskin rug.”
Grand Duke Dmitry and the other conspirators leave the house, according to Yusupov’s version. Only he and Purishkevich remain. Felix takes a closer look at the “corpse” when suddenly it moves. Yusupov runs to Purishkevich, shouting: “Where’s your revolver, he’s still alive!” He grabs a truncheon and runs back. The resurrected Rasputin crawls away, “moaning and growling like a wounded beast.”
He stumbles into the street and screams: “Felix, Felix, I’m going to tell the tsaritsa everything!” Purishkevich runs after him and shoots four times, twice missing, twice hitting the target. He catches up with his victim and kicks him in the temple.
Hearing shots, a policeman by the name of Vlasyuk runs to the palace. The inebriated Purishkevich confesses in the heat of the moment that they have killed “Grishka Rasputin, who destroyed our Motherland and our tsar, and sold us to the Germans,” and if he [Vlasyuk] loves Russia, he must remain silent. The policeman agrees, yet informs his superiors after leaving the palace.
Yusupov again inspects Rasputin: he is “irresistibly drawn to the bloody corpse.” He starts beating the body with his truncheon. Purishkevich cannot stop him. Grand Duke Dmitry arrives with his car, and the corpse is stuffed inside and taken to Petrovsky Island, where they throw it from the bridge into a pre-prepared ice-hole. But they forget to tie a weight to the legs. Rasputin’s galoshes slip off. They throw them after him into the hole, but in the darkness no one notices that they miss.
Yusupov orders a servant to kill one of his dogs and throw it into the snowdrift where Rasputin fell—in case the police notice that the fresh snow has been disturbed.
THE LAW-BREAKING EMPRESS
On the morning of 17 December, Anna Vyrubova receives a phone call from Rasputin’s daughter Maria. She says that her father left late at night with Yusupov and did not return. That is followed by a call from Interior Minister Protopopov to report the on-duty policeman’s version of the previous night’s events. Another policeman saw a car without headlights drive off from the palace.
Empress Alexandra and Vyrubova are beside themselves with worry. They pray and cry, telling each other that they do not believe that Rasputin is dead. Alexandra fears that the death of Rasputin means the death of her son—without his healing powers, the tsarevich cannot live.
At 10 a.m., when Felix Yusupov wakes up, a police officer is already waiting outside his palace. He has come to ascertain whether Rasputin was with him the night before. Yusupov denies it. The officer says that the policeman who spoke to Purishkevich during the night has reported everything to his superiors. Yusupov feigns surprise and says that the previous night he had simply received guests. One of them got so drunk that he killed a dog. The inebriated Purishkevich had simply been comparing Rasputin to this dog when he spoke to the policeman, alleges Yusupov.
Alexandra asks Protopopov to continue the investigation and conduct a search of the Yusupovs’ palace on the Moika River. She also begs her husband to return as soon as possible. Nicholas II receives her telegram during a war council meeting with the commanders-in-chief from all the fronts. Despite its importance, he interrupts the meeting and leaves for Tsarskoye Selo.
In the evening Purishkevich is due to go to the front line aboard a medical aid train (he is in charge of medical aid), Felix heads for Crimea, while Dmitry goes to the High Command. Felix writes to the empress, claiming that he had invited Rasputin to visit, but the meeting was cancelled. Then, according to his version, he calls on his aunt’s husband, the chairman of the Duma, Mikhail Rodzianko. In the evening he, together with his wife’s brothers, who are the tsar’s nephews, goes to the station and finds it cordoned off by police. Alexandra has ordered that Felix be forbidden from leaving Petrograd.
Grand Duke Dmitry goes to the Mikhailovsky Theatre. There, as a renowned Rasputin-hater, he is greeted with applause. Embarrassed, he quickly leaves. In the evening, he phones the empress at Tsarskoye Selo, but she refuses to talk to him.
On the morning of the 18th, a policeman goes to Rasputin’s house and shows his daughters one of the bloodstained galoshes found near Bolshoi Petrovsky Bridge.
Felix Yusupov collects his things and moves to the home of Grand Duke Dmitry. The house of the grand duke is inviolable, and so he will not be arrested there, he believes. Dmitry is very surprised—he thought that Felix was already on his way to Crimea. At that moment the phone rings from Tsarskoye Selo, reporting that Grand Duke Dmitry is under house arrest on the orders of the empress. The two friends are indignant: according to the law, only her husband the emperor can arrest the grand duke. Dmitry immediately writes telegrams to his relatives. All are outraged: the empress has clearly exceeded her authority.
Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich pays several visits to supply the arrested duo with fresh rumors that Alexandra is demanding a military trial that will sentence them to death by firing squad, but Protopopov is urging her to wait for her husband’s return. A telegram is received from Dmitry’s beloved Aunt Ella in Moscow: “May God grant Felix strength after his patriotic act,” writes the founder of the Marfo-Mariinsky Convent.
A copy of the intercepted telegram is immediately brought to Empress Alexandra, who a few months earlier had quarreled with her sister over Rasputin and banished her from Tsarskoye Selo. Now the sobbing Alexandra is convinced that Ella was part of the conspiracy.
LONESOME AT NEW YEAR
On the morning of 19 December Rasputin’s fur coat is found in the ice-hole, followed by his corpse frozen to the ice. He is taken to the Chesmensky Almshouse for an autopsy. When the corpse thaws, the medics establish that the cause of death was a gunshot—no traces of poison are found. A search of the Yusupovs’ Moika Palace reveals a trail of blood. Forensic analysis establishes it to be human, not canine.
The next morning Protopopov arrives at Tsarskoye Selo and reports that the murder of Rasputin marks the start of a new wave of terrorist attacks; hence, the security of the empress is paramount. Under suspicion are the grand dukes, the Yusupovs, Rodzianko (who is related to them), the prime minister, and the justice minister, who is hampering the investigation. Nicholas, having recently returned, dismisses his justice minister, sanctions the house arrest of Dmitry, and asks for Rasputin’s body to be brought to Tsarskoye Selo.
Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitry feel both fear and pride. They deny that they killed Rasputin, yet their relatives congratulate them and talk about the tremendous public reaction: people are said to be kissing in the streets, like at Easter, rejoicing at the death of Rasputin. But it is an exaggeration. On the third day, the newspapers are banned from writing about Rasputin, and the detainees become depressed. Yusupov clearly expected the assassination to change the world: “Yusupov was intoxicated by the importance of his role. He had a great political future mapped out for himself,” recalls Dmitry’s sister, Grand Duchess Maria.
On 22 December Sandro, Yusupov’s father-in-law, goes to Tsarskoye Selo. The grand duke says that Felix and Dmitry are not common murderers, but patriots misguided by an overwhelming desire to save the Motherland. “You speak very well,” the tsar replies with a smile, “but you will agree that no one, whether a grand duke or a simple peasant, has the right to kill.”
Dmitry, meanwhile, writes to Nicholas to say that he will shoot himself rather than face a military tribunal. The next morning, he is summoned to Tsarskoye Selo and told that he is being exiled to Persia; Felix is banished to his Rakitnoye Estate near Kursk. They are not allowed to phone or correspond with relatives. Purishkevich and the other conspirators are not mentioned, seemingly forgotten.
“They are neuropathic aesthetes, everything they did was a half-measure,” writes the fifty-six-year-old Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich in his diary. “We must definitely put an end to both Alexandra Feodorovna and Protopopov.” He dreams of killing the empress (“rendering her harmless,” in his words), but does not know who to involve after Purishkevich’s departure.
On New Year’s Eve, Miechen’s palace hosts a gathering of family members, who sign a collective letter to the tsar with a request to mitigate Dmitry’s punishment. In their opinion, exile to Persia is a death sentence. “No one has the right to kill. I know that there are other guilty minds out there, for Dmitry Pavlovich did not act alone. I am surprised by your appeal to me,” Nicholas replies. The three grand dukes who signed the letter, Nicholas Mikhailovich and Miechen’s sons Kirill and Andrei, are subsequently expelled from the capital.
Nicholas and Alexandra cease all communication with their relatives. Protopopov continues to supply them with new letters whose authors regret that Rasputin’s killers did not finish the job by getting rid of “Her.” New Year 1917 is a lonely time for the Romanovs. They see in the New Year with only Anna Vyrubova for company, whom the empress no longer allows out of Tsarskoye Selo for fear of her life. Protopopov is now their main source of information from the outside world. He tries his best to make up for the absent Rasputin—he summons the psychic medium Charles Peren from abroad and asks him to invoke the spirit of Rasputin. It is said that a double of the late preacher has been seen inside Protopopov’s office. The interior minister tells the empress that he has seen Rasputin in his sleep, standing there with arms open wide, blessing Russia. It calms her down.
THE CURTAIN CALL
On New Year’s Eve, the tsar dismisses his prime minister, replacing him with a wholly unexpected face. It belongs to the sixty-six-year-old Prince Nikolai Golitsyn, who is almost unknown to the public and lacks experience. His only selling point is that the empress trusts him, for he runs her personal charity committee. Golitsyn implores Nicholas not to appoint him, but the tsar insists and hands the new prime minister a dateless decree for the dissolution of the Duma, allowing Golitsyn to disband parliament at any moment, even when Nicholas is away at the High Command.
Golitsyn is horrified. He asks the tsar at least to fire Protopopov, because it will be impossible to work with him. But Nicholas refuses. Protopopov is the most influential member of the government, who believes that the Duma should be dissolved because it is teeming with revolutionaries. In the meantime, the next session of the Duma is postponed until 14 February. Alexandra expects further decisive action from Protopopov—and he duly orders the arrest of members of the so-called Working Group under the Central Military-Industrial Committee, headed by its Menshevik chairman Kuzma Gvozdev. It is the most high-profile political arrest for several years. The interior minister boasts at Tsarskoye Selo that he has beheaded the revolution.
When the Duma finally sits, the meeting kicks off with a scandal. Kerensky delivers a speech unrivalled for its acerbity: “Do you understand that the historical task facing the Russian people is to destroy the medieval regime whatever it takes?” he asks his colleagues. Having read a transcript of the speech, Alexandra writes that “Kedrinsky” (misspelling his name) should be hanged.
The main word on people’s lips this winter in Petrograd is “tails,” referring to the snake-like queues in front of every store. There are fuel shortages in the capital, and goods cannot be delivered. It is a nationwide problem: everywhere from Petrograd to Moscow to the provinces ration cards are issued for bread, sugar, and meat. The “tails” are not only a source of food, but also of information. While standing endlessly in line, people exchange rumors. Some talk about an impending famine, which does little to calm the already hungry queuers.
However, it is not only a question of bread. Many, even the most loyal monarchists, sense that the regime is doomed: “Soon all of us will be hanging from the lamp-posts,” Admiral Nilov, an imperial adjutant, often says in public, while the elderly lady-in-waiting Naryshkina is eager to leave Tsarskoye Selo for the month of Lent, since she is unable to help the empress, whom she asserts is “under the influence of Satan.”
There is a similar feeling in Moscow. “I often puzzle over the question of how to save the monarchy. I see no available means,” writes the publicist and monarchist Lev Tikhomirov in late January.
It is the same all over the country. The gendarme officer Zavarzin spends several months on a round trip to the Far East: from Petrograd to Vladivostok and then back to Arkhangelsk by train. He marvels at how calm and assured people are. On board the train and in the streets the talk everywhere is of imminent revolution and the abdication of the tsar. The death of Rasputin is universally approved (“Let a dog die like a dog”), and the imperial couple is hated (“Why waste words on them, they’ll soon be gone”). Everyone is waiting for the government to become answerable to the Duma. The gendarme is shocked and angered at first, but soon realizes that a nationwide clampdown would be futile: “State power is atrophied, and we are on the verge of the abyss.”
On 22 February Nicholas suddenly departs for the High Command, although there is nothing for him to do there. He has not been back since interrupting the war council meeting in late December, and has no interest in frontline affairs or the new offensive scheduled for spring. It is simply that he cannot stand the atmosphere at Tsarskoye Selo and needs to get away. He even leaves the sick Alexei. A few days later he writes to his wife from Mogilev that he is “resting his head.”
The day after his departure the children suffer a bout of measles, as does Vyrubova. The empress changes into her nurse’s uniform and takes care of her children. The palace at Tsarskoye Selo turns into a sick ward.
On 23 February riots break out in Petrograd due to bread shortages. The police open fire, killing some protesters. Public transport and factories come to a halt when up to seventy thousand workers go on strike. “Boys and girls are running around, shouting that they have no bread just to create a commotion,” the empress writes to her husband. The commander of the Petrograd Military District, Khabalov, bans mass rallies in the streets, but that causes even greater crowds to gather, with a corresponding rise in the number of victims.
Previously, whenever the tsar left for the High Command, Alexandra took over state business, receiving ministers and reading reports. Now she has her hands full with the sick children, so she devolves the running of the state to her friend Lili Dehn. On 26 February Dehn receives an Interior Ministry official on behalf of Protopopov, who reports that the situation is under control. The ministers are taking proactive measures and tomorrow everything will be calm, he says.
Alexandra goes to the grave of Rasputin to pray, after which she sends her husband a piece of wood she found near the burial site. “I think everything will be fine,” she writes to him. “The sun was shining so brightly and I felt such peace and tranquility at his dear graveside. He died to save us.”
By 25 February the trams are no longer running, and many members of the capital’s bohemia have to walk to the centrally located Mikhailovsky Theatre, where Mikhail Lermontov’s tragedy Masquerade is being performed. The director Vsevolod Meyerhold has just spent five years rehearsing the play—a monstrous show with grandiose scenery that comes sliding off the stage into the auditorium. All the tickets are sold out several months in advance. Lines of black cars hug the entrance to the theatre. “It is a gathering of all the nobility, plutocracy and bureaucracy of Petrograd,” writes the newspaper Theatrical Life.
There is shooting in the city, and a stray bullet kills one theatre-goer right on the threshold of the building. As the capital’s elite sit there watching the performance, a revolution breaks out in the street. What unfolds outside the theatre is even more dramatic than what is happening inside.
The press leaves no stone unturned in trashing the play. Theatrical Life writes the following: “a Babylon of preposterous luxury. The audience gasps, ‘Oh, how splendid, how lush!’, while outside the hungry crowds shout for bread and Protopopov’s police drench them with bullets.”
At the finale, a church choir comes on stage and sings a dirge. The curtain, when it falls, resembles a funeral shroud. It feels like a requiem for the audience.
* It is a striking coincidence that 100 years later there will be a huge corruption scandal in the Russian government that will also involve the Russian Minister of Defense—Anatoly Serdyukov. His story is partially similar to that of Sukhomlinov who was accused of corruption because of the prodigality of his common-law wife, Ekaterina (among other things). Evgeniya Vasilieva, identified as Anatoly Serdyukov’s lover in the press, will symbolize corruption in the Russian Ministry of Defense in the early twenty-first century. However, unlike Sukhomlinov, Serduykov will never be arrested or accused of corruption: he will be a witness in the case while Evgeniya Vasilieva will spend three months behind bars.
* About $1,153,871 in 2017.
* About $6.60 in 2017.
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