Chapter 14
in which Leon Trotsky and Lev Kamenev don’t wish for a Bolshevik revolt anymore, since they believe it to be completely unnecessary
A CIRCUS STAR
When Leon Trotsky finally gets back to Petrograd after being released from the Canadian “concentration camp,” the revolution is already two months old. Trotsky goes to a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, the organization he headed twelve years previously during the 1905 uprising. Back then, he was twenty-six years old. Now thirty-eight, he is surplus to requirements inside the Petrograd Soviet. As a “veteran,” he is found a place on the executive committee in an “advisory capacity,” but he has no influence on policy. All the roles have been assigned: Tsereteli is in charge; Trotsky is late.
Looking for something to do, he goes to the Modern Circus, located not far from Kschessinskaya’s former mansion. It is a favorite haunt for Petrograd locals who are addicted to mass demonstrations. It is here that Trotsky, having lived abroad for so long in isolation, hones his oratorical skills. The daily rallies at the circus are attended by armchair politicians. They satisfy their thirst for entertainment by listening to mostly third-rate speakers who find themselves outside of the political machine but still eager to be heard. Trotsky makes this audience his own.
He criticizes Kerensky and the war against the Central Powers, saying that the government thinks that Russia’s soldiers are made of clay and utterly dispensable. He accuses Kerensky of clowning around instead of addressing the soldiers’ grievances. Trotsky himself gives very simple answers: to achieve freedom, the war should be stopped and the land should be taken from the landowners. He soon becomes the star turn at the circus—none of his political opponents dare cross the threshold of Trotsky’s bastion. But whenever he shows his face at the Petrograd Soviet, he is met with the words: “This isn’t a circus, you know.”
The first clash between Trotsky and Tsereteli takes place in May. The Petrograd Soviet is trying to stop the ongoing rebellion at Kronstadt. The officers were imprisoned by the sailors during the February revolution and are still locked up. Tsereteli tries to negotiate with the sailors. Having spent eight years in prison, he is horrified by what he has seen and asks the sailors how they can hold people in such conditions. Tsereteli describes Kronstadt as a hotbed of rebellion that could derail the revolution. Some defend the sailors, saying that Kronstadt represents a “deeper” phase of the revolution. One of them is Trotsky.
The popularity of the Bolsheviks and their allies (including the so-called “Interdistrictites,” a faction of the RSDLP to which Trotsky belongs) is growing among the soldiers and sailors. Despite being called “pacifists,” the Bolsheviks do not speak for peace, but for turning the “imperialist war” into a civil conflict “against the bourgeoisie.” Their leaflets state that the revolution has not brought about economic improvements, because the government is controlled by “bankers” and “speculators.” It cannot be tolerated any longer—everyone must leave the barracks and overthrow the capitalist ministers, handing over all power to the Soviets, say the leaflets.
Tsereteli’s patience runs out on 10 June. He has personally built a fragile coalition of all political forces and now asks his colleagues to disarm the Bolsheviks. Trotsky “trolls” Tsereteli in response: Why pay so much attention to such a small group as the Bolsheviks? Tsereteli responds that the Bolsheviks are indeed a small group, almost unrepresented in the Petrograd Soviet, but they are the weak link that could ruin the revolution: “What the Bolsheviks are doing is not ideological propaganda, it’s conspiratorial. Revolutionaries who do not know how to handle a weapon should have it taken from them.”
The situation becomes stormy: “Sir, if you are a man of your word, then arrest me!” cries the Bolshevik Lev Kamenev. Most of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in the Petrograd Soviet disagree with Tsereteli, and his proposal is rejected; the Soviet limits itself to a verbal condemnation of the Bolsheviks’ behavior. “Tsereteli was in the minority, yet he was right,” his main opponent that day, Leon Trotsky, will write many years later.
WEAK LINK
On 2 July Trotsky, along with fellow art historian Lunacharsky, speaks at a rally at the barracks of the First Machine-Gun Regiment. Trotsky turns the event into a powerful anti-government demonstration: “The mood was upbeat. Everyone cursed Kerensky and swore allegiance to the revolution.”
Incited by Trotsky, the machine-gunners head off that same evening to overthrow the Provisional Government under the slogan “The first bullet is for Kerensky.” The war minister himself is at that moment just about to depart on a visit to the front for an update on his offensive against the Germans.
The First Machine-Gun Regiment is a strange formation: at the beginning of the year it had around twenty thousand soldiers, almost the same number as a division. Prior to the revolution, its soldiers were sent to the front. Afterwards, they were deployed in the capital to “guard the revolution.” A third of them have deserted, while the rest remain at their barracks, actively engaged in the political upheaval. With the start of the June offensive, Kerensky tries to return the regiment to frontline duty, but the soldiers disobey.
On the morning of 3 July, the agitated soldiers of the First Machine-Gun Regiment hold another rally. News breaks that “five capitalist ministers” have resigned (in fact, four Kadets have departed over the situation in Ukraine). The soldiers’ favorite slogan (which happens to be “Down with the ten capitalist ministers”) has been half fulfilled, which ignites them even more.
The First Machine-Gun Regiment dispatches couriers to the other barracks in Petrograd to inform them that they intend to overthrow the government. One column of soldiers goes to the Mariinsky Palace, where the Provisional Government sits, and another to the Tauride Palace, home of the Petrograd Soviet, to seize power from the former and hand it to the latter. “All power to the Soviet of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies!” and “Down with Kerensky and his offensive!” are written on their banners. It is War Minister Kerensky, the country’s most popular politician, who is in the crosshairs of the Bolsheviks. They describe him as a “little Napoleon” who has sacrificed half a million lives in the war.
The crowd arrives at the Mariinsky Palace, but it is empty once again. This time the ministers are meeting at the apartment of Prime Minister Lvov. Some of the marchers start looting shops out of frustration.
The soldiers stop cars in the street and “confiscate” them in the name of the revolution. They even steal Tsereteli’s car. There is a feeling of déjà vu: law and order has broken down again, and this time the soldiers are seizing power for themselves. The weather is summery, and this adds to the feverish atmosphere. The soldiers drive around the city in the open cars they have commandeered. Some machine-gunners ride on the fenders for effect. “When will this outrage come to an end?” mutters Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, walking through the Summer Garden, now “Citizen Romanov,” a cousin of the former tsar and once the most liberal of his relatives.
The soldiers approach the former mansion of Kschessinskaya. A perplexed Lev Kamenev comes out onto the balcony—he missed the previous evening’s rally, so the militancy of the regiment takes him by surprise. He tries to persuade the machine-gunners to return to their barracks, but they do not listen to him. So Kamenev returns to confer with his comrades—all are in a state of confusion. Lenin is not in the capital. Feeling unwell, he has decided to recuperate at a sanatorium in Finland, departing with his sister on 29 June. The remaining Bolshevik leaders vote against an armed uprising. Trotsky also says that it is premature to overthrow the government. Kamenev and Zinoviev write an article in the next issue of Pravda, urging restraint.
The Tauride Palace hosts another exhausting meeting of the executive committee. Tsereteli, who is simultaneously the leader of the Petrograd Soviet and minister for post and telegraph communications inside the Provisional Government, is in the middle of a speech when news arrives that regiments are approaching to seize power from the government. The Bolshevik Stalin jumps up and tells Tsereteli and Chkheidze that the Bolsheviks have nothing to do with it and that they oppose the uprising. They do not believe him.
Tsereteli’s position is unique: Petrograd is essentially undergoing another revolution, which requires him to consolidate power in his own hands, but he resolutely refuses to do so, because the very idea of dictatorship is anathema to him: he wants democracy and is ready to fight against the insurrection. Being a Marxist, he is convinced that the government should consist of representatives of the bourgeoisie. That was the decision of the Congress of Soviets, and the Petrograd Soviet does not have the right to violate it.
The Petrograd Soviet issues another order forbidding the soldiers to leave their barracks, but this time no one obeys: at 8 p.m. on 2 July soldiers from across the city gather near the Tauride Palace. A disorganized mob without orders or objectives, it simply hangs around outside.
The panicky discussions at Kschessinskaya’s mansion continue. Various speakers go out onto the balcony to try to calm the soldiers. They are implacable—hence the only option is to join them and lead them, believes Trotsky. Zinoviev and Kamenev’s article calling for calm is scrapped. The next morning’s issue of the Bolshevik mouthpiece Pravda is published with a blank front page.
Instead of the article, a leaflet is printed with the words: “The Provisional Government has collapsed… a new supreme power is needed.… This power can only be the Soviet of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.” The text is written by the editor of Pravda, Joseph Stalin.
By midnight all the streets around the Tauride Palace are occupied by armed soldiers. At 2 a.m. they are joined by thirty thousand workers from the Putilovsky plant. Surrounded by the crowd, the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet realizes, perhaps for the first time, that it is powerless in the face of such an elemental force.
In the morning military vessels sail from Kronstadt to Petrograd, and Lenin boards a train to return to the capital. It is a short distance from Finland Station to Kschessinskaya’s mansion. By noon he is there on the balcony. Still swarming below is the feverish crowd. But Lenin is out of sorts. For one thing, he is still sick, and for another, he, like his comrades, is not convinced that the uprising will succeed. “You must show steadfastness, endurance and vigilance,” he tells the crowd rather aimlessly. The soldiers are disappointed.
Lenin is clearly nervous: he believes that it is not the right time for an insurrection. A frontline offensive has just begun, Kerensky is popular with the majority of the army, and the Provisional Government can deploy regiments from the front to suppress the uprising at any moment. Zinoviev recalls a talk he had that day with Lenin and Trotsky over lunch at the Tauride Palace: “No, we cannot seize power now because the frontline soldiers are not yet ours,” says Lenin. “The frontline soldiers have been brainwashed by the liberals and will cut the Petrograd workers’ throats.”
INTO THE JAWS OF THE CROWD
On 4 July the city center is still crawling with Kronstadt sailors; local residents are in hiding. There are skirmishes here and there as the sailors randomly shoot at the windows of houses along Nevsky Prospekt, leaving dozens dead.
The sailors arrive at the Tauride Palace and ask to speak to Justice Minister Pereverzev, demanding that he immediately release the Kronstadt sailor. The justice minister is not there, provoking more rage. The sailors start smashing down the gates of the Tauride Palace. “There’s one of the traitors!” a sailor shouts out, catching sight of the leader of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, Agriculture Minister Viktor Chernov, who is dragged into the street. He tries to jump onto a nearby barrel to explain to the crowd that he is trying to reform the land laws, but no one is listening. The crowd yells that the land should be distributed immediately. Chernov, the leader of the oldest and largest political party in Russia, the Socialist-Revolutionaries (SRs), is just moments away from being torn to pieces, like tsarist generals and policemen during the February Revolution. But Chernov is lucky. Instead of being lynched, he is arrested and stuffed into a car. A worker shakes his fist in Chernov’s face, shouting: “You should take power, you son of a bitch, when it’s being offered to you.” The minister’s clothes are torn, and he himself is badly shaken.
The executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet, which is meeting inside the palace, learns about what has happened a few minutes later. Chkheidze yells at Kamenev and Martov, who supposedly have influence over the crowd, demanding that they immediately release the agriculture minister. While they procrastinate, the crowd becomes more and more aggressive. Trotsky goes out to speak to them. An experienced tamer of the crazed masses, he picks out the ringleader, goes up to him, and embraces him.
“You have all proved your devotion to the revolution. Every one of you is ready to lay down his life for it. I know it,” he cries. “Give me your hand, comrade! Give me your hand, my brother!” he says, trying to shake hands with everyone. Some avoid Trotsky’s handshake. The sailors know Trotsky well from his speeches at Kronstadt, during which he urged them to be merciless towards their enemies. Now he is trying to pacify them, and they do not like it.
He jumps onto the hood of the car with Chernov still inside, shouting: “Who here is for violence? Raise your hands!” With the crowd somewhat dumbfounded, he takes the opportunity to grab the deathly pale Chernov from the car and take him back to the Tauride Palace.
THE ANATOMY OF PROTEST*
The sailors are still looking for Justice Minister Pavel Pereverzev. As a lawyer before the revolution, he defended members of the Bolsheviks who were being tried at Stolypin’s request. Now he himself is preparing to accuse them of treason: he claims to have documents proving that Lenin and company are German spies.
The charges are based on the testimony of a warrant officer by the name of Yermolenko, who in late April surrendered to Russian counterintelligence and admitted that he worked for Germany, listing other German spies operating in Russia in the process. Among the first names he cites is Lenin. According to the documents presented by Yermolenko, Lenin is in the pay of German intelligence.
There is one drawback: the evidence is fake. It is a stitch-up, and not a very subtle one at that: a humble warrant officer could not possibly be in possession of documents exposing the entire German spy network. Pereverzev is well aware of this (and maybe even ordered the forged documents himself). His motive is to get rid of all enemies threatening the stability of the government. On 3 July the justice minister decides to make the documents public: his people invite representatives from different regiments of the Petrograd garrison to the general staff to show the soldiers the putative evidence of the Bolsheviks’ betrayal.
At the same time, Pereverzev sends the “Yermolenko papers” to the press. Unexpectedly, the first scandal erupts when the justice minister discusses the operation at a government meeting. Prime Minister Prince Lvov is outraged. The accusations against the Bolsheviks are obviously bogus, he cries. Lies are inadmissible even in the struggle against one’s opponents, as this will undermine the authority of the government.
Lvov demands that all newspapers refrain from publishing the documents; he personally rings round the editorial offices. Heeding the prime minister’s authoritative tone, the newspapers comply—all except one; the tabloid Living Word refuses to pass up such a sensational story. An article entitled “Lenin, Ganetsky* & Co Are German Spies” has already been written and is due to be published the next morning.†
TO SEIZE OR NOT TO SEIZE
In the evening of 4 July, the Tauride Palace is still besieged by armed sailors and soldiers. There is shooting in the streets, and demonstrators occasionally break into the assembly hall, shouting out their demands. The nerves of those assembled are stretched to the limit.
Tsereteli explains that the Petrograd Soviet cannot accept the demands of the soldiers. The Congress of Soviets met less than a month ago and agreed to support the coalition Provisional Government. If the executive committee now yields to the insurgents and opposes the government, the whole country will view it as succumbing to the will of the violent minority. While the executive committee ponders the matter, a strong summer downpour drives almost all the protesters away. Some run to the barracks, others to the mansion of Kschessinskaya or the Peter and Paul Fortress. In the deserted street outside the Tauride Palace, a few armored cars stand abandoned in the pouring rain.
The executive committee is still in session late that night when members hear the trampling of soldiers’ boots in the corridor. There is panic in the hall, but it turns out to be regiments loyal to the Provisional Government that have just returned from the front. The executive committee duly votes for a resolution in support of the Provisional Government, and that same day the Provisional Government decides to hold elections to the new Constituent Assembly on 17 September and to draft a land reform bill in advance of them.
Tsereteli approaches Stalin, whom the Bolsheviks have sent to negotiate with the Petrograd Soviet, hoping that the two Georgians will see eye to eye. The Bolsheviks know, Stalin says, that the government intends to dispatch troops to the mansion of Kschessinskaya. However, the building is armed with Bolshevik detachments, so any attempt to seize the house and arrest the Bolsheviks will inevitably result in bloodshed.
“There will be no blood split in Kschessinskaya’s mansion,” Tsereteli says. “So the government will not send troops there?” asks Stalin. “The government will send troops, but there will be no bloodshed, for the Bolsheviks will see that resistance is useless.” Stalin walks away. In all his subsequent speeches and books, he will always describe Tsereteli as the chief victimizer of the Bolsheviks.*
END OF THE BOLSHEVIKS
Early in the morning of 5 July the Bolsheviks learn from the newspaper Living Word that they are to face espionage charges. They describe the charges as “another Dreyfus affair” by analogy with the trial of a French officer falsely accused of spying for Germany in the 1890s.
“They will shoot us one by one. Now is their time,” Lenin says to Trotsky, who agrees. The Bolshevik leaders hastily leave the Pravda printing house, narrowly avoiding the arrival of government troops, who then head for the mansion of Kschessinskaya.
“Comrades, a most heinous act of villainy has been committed,” shouts Zinoviev, running into the meeting room. “A monstrous piece of populist slander has appeared in the press, which is intended to mobilize the most benighted section of the population.” Ironically, the Bolsheviks do not consider as “populist” their calls for the soldiers to desert the front and seize the land from the landlords and the factories from the bourgeois.
The Bolsheviks’ supporters from the machine-gun regiment are still holding on to the Peter and Paul Fortress, but on the morning of 5 July they are disarmed. There are no mass executions of the Bolsheviks, which Trotsky in his memoirs many years later will describe as a mistake by the Provisional Government: “Fortunately, our enemies lacked determination,” he writes. Tsereteli, even in exile, will maintain that he and his comrades did the right thing, because they wanted to implant democracy, not terror.
PRINCE MYSHKIN
War Minister Kerensky is at the front during the entire uprising. Only on the evening of 4 July does he receive a telegram from Prince Lvov with an urgent request to return to the capital. He immediately goes back and sends irate telegrams demanding the arrest of all the Bolsheviks. Along the way, a catastrophe happens: a locomotive slams into Kerensky’s train at full speed. The minister is not injured, but he is severely shaken and convinced that it is an assassination attempt, although there no evidence to prove it.
At the last station before Petrograd, he is met by Foreign Minister Tereshchenko, who has made the journey specifically to meet him and discuss the situation in the capital. The uprising is a big blow for Prime Minister Lvov. The latter intends to resign in favor of Kerensky.
Kerensky is deeply irritated by what is happening in Petrograd. On arriving in the capital, his first act is to dismiss the commander of the Petrograd Military District, General Polovtsev, despite the latter having pacified the Bolshevik insurrection.
A telegram is received from the Southwestern Front with news that the Germans have broken through the Russian defenses. With this telegram in hand, Kerensky strides into the hall where the Provisional Government and representatives of the Petrograd Soviet are meeting. “Are you still opposed to arrests?” he says, waving the telegram. He is sure that the German offensive and the Bolshevik insurrection are connected.
Kerensky finds Prime Minister Georgy Lvov in a state of severe depression. As a Tolstoyan, he has always defended the interests of the people. The slogans damning the “capitalist ministers” are weighing heavily on the prime minister. Who does he represent if the people themselves are against him?
“There is nothing left for me to do,” says Lvov. “To rescue the situation, we have to disperse the Soviets and open fire on the people. This I cannot do. But Kerensky can.”
In his resignation letter Prime Minister Lvov cites the main reason for his departure as his conflict with the leader of the SRs, Agriculture Minister Viktor Chernov, who wants to distribute the land without waiting for approval from the Constituent Assembly. Lvov believes that this is illegal and simply wrong. Moreover, he accuses Chernov of justifying the peasants’ unlawful land grabs (Chernov does indeed believe that this is the lesser evil, when the alternative is to keep the peasants hanging in limbo).
Prince Georgy Lvov is a unique figure in Russian history. The first head of the Russian republic, essentially the Russian George Washington, he was—and still is—generally unknown. The first American president, according to the recollections of colleagues, was clearly aware that he was shaping history with his own hands. Prince Lvov, too, is historically unprecedented. Unlike Russia’s previous leaders, he shuns the idea of becoming an emperor. A friend of Leo Tolstoy, Prince Lvov turns into the Prince Myshkin* of Russian politics. This highly principled (and hence transient) leader of Russia could not tolerate violence and did not aspire or cling to power.
On leaving his post, Lvov departs for Optina Pustyn—a monastery that Tolstoy visited on several occasions, the last time just before his death.
ESCAPE FROM THE BATTLEFIELD
The German counteroffensive inflicts a crushing psychological blow on the Russian army and the country. The newspapers write that the 607th Regiment has deserted. Later, Kerensky will assert that such reports were deliberate lies to demoralize the army, leading to its collapse.
Boris Savinkov telegraphs from the Southwestern Front that most of the units are falling apart; there is no discipline, and the lines of deserters stretch for hundreds of miles. Rumors spread that the fleeing infantrymen are shooting anyone who tries to stop them, killing officers, and robbing local residents. In what is known as the “Tarnopol disgrace,” the Russian army loses all the territories it gained during the previous year’s Brusilov Offensive, and much more besides.
Kerensky blames the press for the failure of his offensive, and orders the restoration of military censorship. General Kornilov, the new commander-in-chief of the Southwestern Front, telegraphs Petrograd to say that the reintroduction of the death penalty for “traitors and cowards” will save “many innocent lives.” His telegram is reprinted by all the newspapers. Without waiting for approval from the Provisional Government, Kornilov orders that deserters should be seized and hanged from lampposts, with plaques listing their crimes attached to the corpses.
TO RAZLIV
The frontline defeat causes shock and hysteria in Petrograd. Lenin and the Bolsheviks are blamed for being “German spies.” The papers write that they are complicit in the failure of the Kerensky Offensive and the Russian army’s retreat: “Thanks to them—Lenin, Zinoviev, Trotsky, et al.—Wilhelm II has achieved everything he dreamt of,” writes Vladimir Burtsev, Russia’s real-life Sherlock Holmes, who unmasks double agents and provocateurs. For him there is no doubt: Lenin is a traitor.
The first to be arrested is Kamenev, followed by the commander of the Kronstadt sailors, Midshipman Raskolnikov. Lenin and Zinoviev go into hiding, which the press reports as proof of their guilt.
Even many Bolsheviks do not understand why the party leaders are hiding instead of facing trial and proving their innocence, like in the Dreyfus affair. But as usual, Lenin does not care about what his comrades think. Wearing a wig and clean-shaven, he travels to Lake Razliv in Finland under a false passport. There, he and Zinoviev live in a hut by the waterside. Lenin builds a wooden “office,” which even Zinoviev is not allowed to enter. He devours all newspapers he can get hold of and plots a new armed uprising against the Provisional Government, taking into account the previous unsuccessful attempt.
Trotsky is at liberty, but members of the executive committee treat him like a leper. He still goes to the buffet inside the Tauride Palace, where he sups on black bread with cheese and red caviar. Trotsky notices that at the height of the Bolshevik persecution his tea and sandwiches suddenly taste nicer: staff members sympathize with the Bolsheviks and give Trotsky the best food and drink that they can find.
Trotsky writes an open letter in support of the Bolsheviks and declares that he intends to defend them in court. However, on 10 July he himself is arrested and sent to the Kresty prison.
THIRTEEN SPEECHES A DAY
After the July uprising many in Petrograd believe that the Bolsheviks are finished. But the accusations of spying for Germany spread further: the next victim of the patriotic press is the leader of the SRs, Viktor Chernov.
The SRs, the oldest and largest party in the country, who enjoy tremendous influence over the peasantry, now have a leadership problem: the legendary Mikhail Gotz and Gregory Gershuni did not live to see the revolution. In his memoirs, Chernov (writing about himself in the third person) complains that he lacks their charisma and experience. He has neither the determination, nor the vision of the party’s deceased leaders, yet he is still the party’s only option. Chernov is loved by the peasants, who gladly listen to his speeches—up to thirteen a day, it is reported.
The SRs triumph in all local elections, but inside the government coalition Tsereteli is clearly in charge. The former head of the party’s militant organization, Boris Savinkov, and the former head of its faction in the Duma, Alexander Kerensky, are now trying to distance themselves from the SRs and from Chernov. Both consider themselves to be sufficiently popular in their own right.
Chernov wants to fulfill the dream of the Russian peasantry by giving them “land and freedom.” A faithful disciple of Babushka, the agriculture minister believes that the growing tension among the peasants can only be relieved through the rapid redistribution of the land. Therefore, he vests the regional land committees with the authority to take land from the landlords and transfer it to the peasants. At the same time, the Provisional Government is adamant that a land law should be drafted by the forthcoming Constituent Assembly; if the peasants are given land, it warns, all the frontline soldiers will desert in order to get their share. Chernov counters this by saying that, on the contrary, the reform will spur the soldiers to fight for what is now their land.
Chernov’s land policy is the reason for the espionage campaign against him—at least that’s what he thinks. He is labeled a defeatist and a spy in the pay of the Germans. The leader of the SRs even resigns temporarily to devote all his time to proving his innocence. The party stands by him and puts forward a condition to Kerensky: they will support the new government only if Agriculture Minister Chernov remains a part of it.
A FIRM HAND
When the Kerensky Offensive was going well, it seemed that the whole army adored the new war minister. But when the retreat begins, the antagonism between the generals and Kerensky comes to the surface at a meeting of all the commanders on 16 July in Mogilev.
Kerensky arrives from Petrograd with Boris Savinkov, the government’s frontline commissioner. When Kerensky’s train pulls up, he refuses to disembark because only Brusilov’s adjutant is there to meet him, not the supreme commander himself. Kerensky waits in the carriage until Brusilov arrives. It is not a requirement of protocol, just a personal whim.
Kerensky’s late arrival delays the meeting by an hour and a half. General Denikin, long irritated by Kerensky, blames him for the collapse of the army and for undermining the authority of the officers. Kerensky is amazed. He listens to the accusations, holding his head in his hands, before thanking Denikin for his “bold and sincere words.”
Brusilov reports that to save the army, the soldiers must be deprived of the right of assembly and barred from politics, including the abolition of all soldiers’ committees. Kerensky listens carefully, but on returning to Petrograd, his first act is to dismiss Brusilov, who takes his grievances to the press.
Kerensky’s new supreme commander is Lavr Kornilov, the only member of the top brass to be absent from the controversial meeting in Mogilev. Having recently commanded the Petrograd Military District, Kornilov is remembered for clashing with the Petrograd Soviet. Now he is gaining a reputation for his de facto reintroduction of the death penalty by hanging deserters.
The idea to appoint Kornilov belongs to Savinkov, a former terrorist who has grown to admire the former tsarist general. Savinkov likes Kornilov’s “attitude to the death penalty, his understanding of the causes of the rout at Tarnopol, and his resoluteness in the fight against Bolshevism.”
However, in response to the telegram informing him of his appointment, Kornilov lists his conditions for accepting the post, which include the freedom to act as he sees fit and to be “responsible only to his own conscience and the people.” Kerensky has second thoughts, but it is too late—the press is already trumpeting the appointment.
THE KERENSKY GOVERNMENT
Kerensky, too, tries to strike a more resolute tone: “The main task now is to unite power,” he says in an interview after returning from the front. “The government will save Russia. It is ready to forge national unity with blood and iron if rationality, honor and conscience do not suffice.”
His behavior becomes increasingly erratic, yet few notice the signs of emotional burnout. He is still considered the country’s most effective leader and its most popular politician. With the departure of Prince Lvov, it is not clear who should form the next government. The former prime minister “bequeathed” the chair to Kerensky, but the position is not hereditary and there are no laws or institutions governing the transfer of power. There begin endless negotiations between the Petrograd Soviet and government members. Kerensky does not take part, demonstrating that he is above such squabbling and too busy saving the motherland.
Lvov also served as Russia’s interior minister, and that position is taken by Tsereteli. He becomes the de facto leader of the government while Kerensky is at the front. He is in fact opposed to Kerensky becoming prime minister, because he lacks faith in the latter’s organizational skills. Yet Tsereteli does not fight for power himself. The press is waiting for a conflict to break out between Kerensky and Tsereteli over the post of prime minister, but instead they issue a joint statement saying that they are ready to work together.
Faced with never-ending talks between the government and the Petrograd Soviet, War Minister Kerensky pointedly refuses to accept power and departs on vacation for Finland, leaving Savinkov in the role of acting war minister. He also writes a resignation letter to Deputy Prime Minister Nekrasov.
Petrograd is in a flurry. Nekrasov holds a government meeting in the Malachite Hall of the Winter Palace with the participation of the Petrograd Soviet, the Provisional Committee of the State Duma, and the leaders of all political parties except the Bolsheviks. All decline to take power. Milyukov suggests to Tsereteli that the Soviets should form a government (which happens to be one of Lenin’s slogans). Tsereteli, for his part, believes that the bourgeoisie should be represented, meaning that the Kadets should be part of any Soviet-led cabinet.
In the end, a compromise is found: the absent Kerensky is given the right to appoint a new cabinet at his own discretion. Tsereteli is opposed and declines to join the new government.
With the new ministers accountable only to Kerensky, the result is a strange semi-monarchical system. Almost all the old faces remain in their positions. In addition to his new prime ministerial functions, Kerensky retains the post of war minister, even though the War Ministry is now de facto managed by Savinkov.
The new government finally takes up residence in the Winter Palace, relocating from the Mariinsky Palace, and Kerensky, having returned from Finland and now not averse to power, settles there with his “mascot”—Babushka Breshko-Breshkovskaya. He is increasingly suspected of harboring dictatorial and even imperial tendencies. It is rumored that his signature looks like “Alexander IV.” Moreover, every time Kerensky leaves the Winter Palace, the red flag above it is lowered, just like the Imperial standard in the old days.
FINNISH GRIEVANCES
While Kerensky was resting in the Finnish wilderness, a dramatic event occurred: the Grand Duchy of Finland, part of the Russian Empire, decided to opt for autonomy—even more determinedly than Ukraine. The spark was the July uprising in Petrograd. At the peak of the anarchy, the Finnish Social Democrats in Petrograd (supporters of the Bolsheviks) proposed that the Finnish Sejm (parliament) should declare itself the supreme authority in Finland and implement the slogan “All power to the Soviets” at the local level.
The Sejm adopts this decision, making the situation for the Russian government even more precarious. There is no stable governance in Russia, the front line in western Ukraine is turning into a catastrophe, the supreme commander has been dismissed, and War Minister Kerensky is threatening and pretending to resign: Finnish autonomy is the last thing that anyone needs. But the Provisional Government decides to play even tougher with the Sejm than it did with Ukraine’s parliament, the Central Rada. The Sejm is dissolved and its building occupied by Russian troops. New elections are held, and all previous decisions on autonomy are annulled.
The Finns are incensed by the crackdown. Henceforth, as in tsarist times, Finland becomes the unruliest of all Russia’s unruly regions. Lenin does not spend long in his log cabin by Lake Razliv. He soon moves to Helsinki, where he receives the personal protection of the head of the Finnish militia. It is in the latter’s apartment that Lenin continues to develop plans for a new uprising. The Finnish authorities are happy to assist as revenge for their thwarted autonomy.
TO TOBOLSK
On 11 July Kerensky pays a visit to Tsarskoye Selo. The former emperor, Nicholas, is pleased to see him. He is appalled by the July uprising, yet happy about the restoration of order and the reintroduction of the death penalty at the front.
For the imperial family, Kerensky’s visit eclipses all the alarming news of the previous days. He reports that the prisoners of the Alexander Palace (i.e., the imperial family) are to be allowed to travel to the south “in view of the proximity of Tsarskoye Selo to the turbulent capital.” The whole family is in a state of nervous excitation. “It is strange that we are being moved after four months of seclusion here,” writes Nicholas in his diary (we also learn that on that day the former tsar reads Conan Doyle’s “The Poison Belt” to his daughters). Two weeks later the imperial family is told that Crimea is not an option. It is not yet clear where they are going, but they are advised to pack some warm clothes. There is talk of a three or four-day journey to Siberia. That evening Nicholas reads the children A Study in Scarlet, again by his beloved Conan Doyle.
The departure is scheduled for late that same evening. The whole family dresses and goes out into the street at midnight, but the car due to take them to the station arrives only in the morning. All are terribly nervous, but calm down once they board the train. Nicholas has time to admire the sunrise over Petrograd, where they change trains. At the station in Petrograd they finally learn that their destination is Tobolsk, the historical capital of Siberia.
Alexandra is terribly agitated the whole way. The journey will take them close to the home of Rasputin, which she regards as a mystical sign. In Tyumen they are transferred to a steamship and, on 5 August, they sail past the village of Pokrovskoe, the birthplace of the preacher. The whole family stands on the deck in prayer. The next day the ship steams into Tobolsk, where they discover that their accommodation is not ready. The Romanovs joke about the Russian people’s “astonishing inability even to arrange lodging”—and spend another week living on the boat.
At precisely the same time, the Provisional Government publishes a decree on elections to the Constituent Assembly to be held on the basis of universal, equal, and direct suffrage by secret ballot. Electoral rights are denied only to persons that are insane, deaf-and-dumb, or incarcerated—as well as all members of the House of Romanov.
The imperial family itself is not investigated, but members of the inner circle are. In early summer the prison doctor, Ivan Manukhin, notes that the soldiers guarding the Peter and Paul Fortress have stopped taking orders from the investigators and are starting to administer their own justice. He decides to rescue the prisoners, or at least take them to other prisons that are “less Bolshevik.” According to Manukhin, the soldiers hate Anna Vyrubova most of all, and she is likely to be the first victim.
The doctor states that Vyrubova is a virgin, so the rumors about her and Rasputin are fiction. And while the charges against her relate to her role in state policy, not her personal life, the investigative commission takes note of her chastity: on 12 June she is transferred to a “detention house” with a more lenient regime, and on 24 July released for lack of evidence.
Another patient of Manukhin is the sixty-nine-year-old former Prime Minister Boris Stürmer. He is seriously ill with uremia. The doctor insists on his release, but Kerensky decides to transfer him to the “softer” Kresty prison, where he dies from complications on 5 September.
“HANG FROM THE LAMPPOSTS”
Kerensky does not approve of the Kornilov-Savinkov plan to reintroduce the death penalty—and not only because he does not trust them (the feeling is mutual: at a meeting with the prime minister at the Winter Palace, Kornilov came surrounded by armed Turkmen guards). The main reason is because it runs contrary to his convictions. It calls for the execution not only of rebels, but of agitators, too—something that didn’t happen even under Stolypin and his “neckties.” Kerensky is a lawyer who has spent his life defending opponents of the regime. However, he does not voice his opposition to Kornilov’s face, and instead promises to think about it.
The altercation takes place on the eve of a major public conference in Moscow, which Kerensky needs to give the government legitimacy and convince himself of the need for more stringent measures. On the eve of the Moscow conference, he postpones the Constituent Assembly elections from September to November. However, Kerensky’s public propaganda show is hijacked by Kornilov, who becomes the new hero of Moscow.
Kornilov at that moment is quite popular, especially in Moscow. The city is home to big business and merchants, who have long eyed Kornilov as the one person capable of restoring order. But the old generals do not rate him very highly: Mikhail Alekseyev once said that he had “the heart of a lion and the head of a sheep,” while Brusilov described him as the head of a guerrilla group. Yet on the eve of the Moscow conference, all the talk is about Kornilov.
The day before, Moscow’s conservative circles hold a meeting of their own, including the entrepreneur Pavel Ryabushinsky, the two recent supreme commanders Alekseyev and Brusilov, as well as Mikhail Rodzianko and the Kadets, led by Milyukov. The main outcome of the meeting is that they will support Kornilov as the man to bring order to the country and disperse the Soviets.
As soon as Kornilov arrives at the train station in Moscow, he is met like the lord of the realm and pelted with flowers by women. He goes to the Iberian Gate near the Kremlin to pray to the Iveron Theotokos icon (as the tsars used to do when visiting Moscow). Russia’s supreme commander then meets with advisers, who report on the country’s finances and the international situation.
On the second day, Kornilov speaks at the Bolshoi Theatre—after Kerensky, who has just delivered a one-and-a-half hour speech full of promises to restore order with “blood and iron.” When the supreme commander appears on stage, half the hall gives him a standing ovation, but the soldiers (who prefer Kerensky) refuse to rise.
Kornilov’s speech is a direct challenge to Kerensky and the members of the Petrograd Soviet there in the hall. He says that the liberated Russia has inherited a combat-ready and “self-sacrificial” army, but that the new laws have turned it into a “mad rabble of people who value only their own lives.” Peace, he says, is impossible, and even if one were concluded, the “rabble” would then proceed to crush its own country. Lastly, he tells the audience that he and Savinkov have suggested a reform plan to Kerensky, and that he has no doubt that it will be adopted shortly.
Having said his piece, Kornilov departs from the theatre and heads for the High Command at Mogilev. His speech makes a huge impression on the audience.
The last day of the Moscow conference sees the opening of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church—the first time since the seventeenth century. It is a symbolic act, representing the restoration of the Patriarchate after it was abolished by Peter the Great and replaced by the Holy Synod in 1721 as part of his reforms of the church. The ceremony is attended by Kerensky and the last Minister of Religion of the Synod, Anton Kartashov.
But the main talking point for the press that day, 15 August, is not the end of the political conference or the opening of the Local Council, but the largest manmade disaster in the history of Russia (at that time). An arms factory watchman in Kazan throws a cigarette butt to the parched ground, which sparks a fire that spreads to a warehouse containing ammunition and oil cisterns. Panic sets in when the explosion bellows across the city. The fire kills twenty-one people and destroys almost the entire arsenal sorely needed by the army. The papers claim that it is the work of German agents. The tragedy is compounded by a surge in looting, especially among the rampant soldiers (according to the press).
TIME FOR HANGING
The fire in Kazan is still raging when the Germans take Riga, stopping five hundred kilometers short of the Russian capital. Kornilov decides to create a separate Petrograd Front, directly subordinate to the High Command, while the city itself remains under the control of the Provisional Government, which duly appoints Savinkov as governor-general.
On the eve of the Moscow conference, Kornilov sends troops to the capital: a cavalry corps under the command of General Krymov and the so-called “Wild Division,” consisting of troops from the North Caucasus. The High Command understands that the intent is to take control of Petrograd. “It’s time to hang Lenin’s German stooges and spies, and disperse the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies,” Kornilov tells his chief of staff, Alexander Lukomsky, adding that he is not opposed to the Provisional Government, and hopes to reach an agreement with it.
Kerensky is still hesitant about declaring martial law and adopting the repressive measures proposed by Kornilov. He tells Savinkov that the government’s authority is spent and that the High Command is full of counter-revolutionary sentiment. Moreover, he says that Savinkov must go to Mogilev to straighten things out. In response, the latter says that he is still offended by their last conversation: “Have you forgotten it?” he asks. “Yes, I have. I seem to have forgotten everything,” says the prime minister, smiling oddly. “I’m sick. I’m a corpse. That conference killed me.”
Savinkov meets with Kornilov on 24 August at the High Command to discuss the plan: Kerensky signs all the repressive laws, while Kornilov leads his troops into the capital to suppress the protests. Supreme Commander Kornilov tells Savinkov of his dislike for Prime Minister Kerensky, whom he considers a lame duck. The government, believes Kornilov, will function better without him. He is sending troops to Petrograd to defend the city not only from the Germans and the Bolsheviks, but also from Kerensky. Savinkov tries to win Kornilov over: “I know and admire Kerensky,” he says. “Kerensky is a man of integrity, but you’re right about one thing. He’s weak.” Savinkov eventually persuades Kornilov to work with Kerensky.
Savinkov asks Kornilov not to appoint General Krymov as the commander of the Petrograd operation and not to send in the Wild Division, because “the mountain dwellers don’t care who they kill.” Kornilov appears to agree, but goes ahead anyway and appoints Krymov. Both the cavalry corps and the Wild Division continue to advance on Petrograd.
“Krymov is known for his bloody-mindedness. Savinkov is just afraid that he might hang more people than necessary,” the supreme commander tells his chief of staff. He is sure that Savinkov will thank him later for ignoring his requests.
THE HIGHS OF OFFICE
On the day when Savinkov leaves for the High Command, his friends Gippius, Merezhkovsky, and Filosofov pen a letter to Kerensky. They call on him to take drastic measures and to “wield power”—if he is unable to do so, he should hand over to someone “more capable” like Savinkov, and he himself should become a “symbol.”
That same day, Kerensky is visited at the Winter Palace by a former member of the Provisional Government, Vladimir Lvov, who just a month previously was dismissed from his post as minister for religion. He once described Kerensky as a mortal enemy, but has now come to warn him of the impending danger. Lvov says that Kerensky’s popularity is declining, while hinting vaguely at the existence of “certain circles” that could support him. Kerensky agrees to enter into negotiations with these “certain circles.”
After receiving the Merezhkovskys’ letter, Kerensky goes to see them for an explanation. Only Filosofov is at home when he calls by. “Take decisive action, smash them to pieces!” Filosofov advises him. “Remember that you are the ‘president’ of the republic. You are the chosen one of the new democracy. You are, and not the socialists.” After this short conversation, Kerensky runs off as quickly as he arrived. “He seemed like a morphine addict who only comes alive after a fix,” recalls Filosofov. “I’m not sure he even heard what I said, never mind remembered it.”
Meanwhile, Vladimir Lvov begins his shuttle diplomacy. On 25 August he approaches Kornilov, allegedly on Kerensky’s instructions, and says that the latter is ready to retire, but will continue as prime minister if he has Kornilov’s support. He asks Kornilov to put forward his demands. The latter replies that after the capture of Riga, the Kazan fire, and the nationwide unrest, only a dictator can rescue the country, be it himself, Kerensky, General Alekseyev, or anyone. Kornilov says that a dictatorship is required because the Bolsheviks are planning a coup in Petrograd for late August. Lvov replies that Kornilov could be the one to lead this dictatorship.
After spending the whole day discussing the makeup of the government, Kornilov proposes to set up a “Council of National Defense,” headed by him with the participation of Kerensky, Savinkov, Alekseyev, Kolchak, and High Command Government Commissar Filonenko. The talks with Vladimir Lvov come to an end. Kornilov does not even suspect that he is dealing with an impostor: Lvov is only pretending to be acting on behalf of Kerensky.
Kornilov writes to Savinkov that the troops will arrive in Petrograd on 28 August, on which day martial law and his package of repressive measures can be implemented, including the death penalty. This will lead to immediate protests, whereupon General Krymov’s cavalry corps will suppress the rioters and “hang the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies from the lamp-posts.”
Lastly, Kornilov asks Lvov to tell Kerensky and Savinkov that they should go to the High Command to ensure their safety during the fighting in Petrograd. With that, Lvov takes his leave. He has the feeling that Kornilov is trying to lure Kerensky there in order to assassinate him. Moreover, Lvov recalls that an officer of Kornilov’s staff spoke openly to him about a plan to kill Kerensky.
THE PENCIL IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD
Lvov heads back to Petrograd in a daze. He did not expect that his unsolicited mediation would lead to the discovery of an assassination plot. He can barely contain the importance of what he has to convey to Kerensky.
Meanwhile, Savinkov gives Kerensky the text of the repressive measures to be approved by the government. Seeing that Kerensky is again having doubts, Savinkov snaps that his indecision is criminal and his weakness is ruining Russia. Kerensky promises to adopt the “Kornilov package” during that evening’s cabinet meeting. Kerensky is horrified: the repressive laws are contrary to his beliefs. He is far from being a professional killer like Savinkov or a swashbuckler like Kornilov.
While Kerensky is still racked with doubt, he is paid a visit by an agitated Vladimir Lvov, who reports that he has come from Kornilov with a request that he, Kerensky, should resign, transfer all military and civil authority to the supreme commander and, together with Savinkov, go to the High Command for their own safety.
Kerensky is shocked. He believed that his mediator in dealing with Kornilov was Savinkov, who never mentioned Kerensky’s resignation or leaving for the High Command. On the contrary, it was Kerensky who was to introduce the emergency measures in Petrograd, not Kornilov. Kerensky perceives the words of the trembling Lvov as an ultimatum from Kornilov.
“It seemed like either he was insane or something major had happened,” Kerensky recalls this conversation. Seeing Lvov’s anxious state, he asks him to formulate the ultimatum on paper so as to convey it accurately to the government. Armed with pencil and paper, Lvov writes:
1) Martial law is to be declared in Petrograd.
2) All military and civil power is to be transferred to the Supreme Commander.
3) All ministers, including the Minister-Chairman,* are to resign, and temporary control of the ministries shall pass to their deputies until the formation of a cabinet under the Supreme Commander.
Petrograd. 26 August 1917
V. Lvov
As soon as Lvov begins to write, Kerensky’s remaining doubts vanish. He had been warned of a conspiracy among the generals and of Kornilov’s excessive popularity. Now a picture of betrayal emerges in his mind, and he sees clearly that everyone is against him.
“Will you go to the High Command?” asks Lvov. “Of course not. Do you really think I can serve under Kornilov?” snarls Kerensky.
Lvov, whom Kerensky believes to be Kornilov’s envoy, confesses that Kerensky is right not to go, because he believes that there is a plot to assassinate him. Kerensky is surprised: “And what if they were just pulling your leg, Vladimir?” he says.
FATEFUL CHAT
When Lvov departs, Kerensky goes to the War Ministry to talk with Kornilov over a direct telegraphic link. They do not know each other very well, having spoken only a few times. Now the main showdown between them occurs via “telegraph chat.” This exchange of telegrams will change the world.
Kerensky asks Kornilov to confirm that Lvov is indeed acting on his behalf. Kornilov confirms the request for Kerensky and Savinkov to come to the High Command at Mogilev. Kerensky says that it is impossible at the moment, and asks if Savinkov is required. Kornilov replies that both men should appear by 27 August at the latest.
Kerensky tries to clarify: “We are to come only if the rumors of an offensive on Petrograd come true?” Kornilov says that they should visit the High Command in any event. “See you soon,” Kerensky signs off informally.
Kerensky takes this vague conversation as proof of a conspiracy. He runs to the Winter Palace and bumps into Lvov on the steps. He takes the latter inside and asks him to recount the whole story from the very beginning. An Interior Ministry official stands guard behind a screen. When the conversation ends, Kerensky draws back the screen and announces that Lvov is under arrest. He is taken into the next room.
Kerensky arrives late for a government meeting at which the repressive Kornilov measures are due to be discussed. His lateness is compounded by sending Kornilov a telegram informing the supreme commander of his dismissal.
At the meeting Kerensky demands that the ministers grant him dictatorial powers. Almost everyone agrees—except for the Kadets, who state that they would rather resign. The meeting breaks up at dawn, but assembles again at 11 a.m. at the request of Kerensky, although he himself fails to appear. The ministers continue the discussion till evening: Is it possible to salvage the situation? Can an agreement be reached between Kerensky and Kornilov?
Kornilov receives Kerensky’s telegram that same morning and immediately responds that he will not obey. Savinkov persuades Kerensky not to leak the news of Kornilov’s supposed resignation to the press, whereafter he convinces Kornilov to come to Petrograd for talks with Kerensky.
Kornilov refuses to come, explaining to Savinkov that Lvov cannot be trusted. At the same time, he orders the troops loyal to him—General Krymov’s corps and the Wild Division—to continue their advance on Petrograd. Kerensky’s circle is aware of the developments: “While you were talking on the wire, the people from the Caucasus were on their way to Petrograd,” Kerensky’s horrified deputy Nekrasov tells Savinkov.
The talks between Savinkov and Kornilov are cut short when the deputy war minister, Savinkov, learns that Kerensky has ordered the publication of an official government statement branding General Kornilov a traitor. Kerensky’s telegram is forwarded to all military units.
The Petrograd Soviet learns of the unfolding crisis from this official statement, and its members rush to the Smolny Institute, where the Soviet is headquartered. Lunacharsky, a Bolshevik, is pleased. For him, it is “a storm that will clear the unbearably stifling atmosphere” and “revenge” for the July repression of his party. The leader of the Petrograd Soviet, Tsereteli, is depressed: “It’s celebration time on Bolshevik street,” he says to Lunacharsky. “It’s your time again.”
Throughout the night of 27-28 August, Savinkov, Alekseyev, and Tereshchenko try to figure out what to do in the morning when the newspapers publish Kerensky’s statement about Kornilov’s resignation. Savinkov asks Kerensky if he is aware that it will ruin army morale. Kerensky replies that, on the contrary, “inspired by the victory over the counter-revolution, the soldiers will charge into battle and defeat the enemy.”
THE AUGUST PUTSCH
On the morning of 28 August, the entire country learns from the papers of a coup by the supreme commander against the government. At 7 a.m. Kornilov issues an appeal not to obey Kerensky: “A great provocation is threatening the Fatherland. Russia is dying. The hour of death is drawing near!” Kornilov accuses the Provisional Government of assisting the Germans, arguing that, under pressure from the Bolshevik-led Soviets, the government is “killing the army and shaking the country to its foundations.”
The army is on the side of Kornilov. The High Command at Mogilev believes that the insurgents have the upper hand in terms of military force: the entire command staff and the overwhelming majority of the officers, the Cossacks, the military schools, and the top combat units all support Kornilov. Moreover, General Krymov’s corps and the Wild Division are almost in Petrograd. The Provisional Government is close to panic: a full-scale civil war is about to erupt on the streets of the capital.
The Petrograd Soviet becomes the new headquarters of the resistance against the advancing troops. Since the July revolt, the Soviet has been fairly inactive. On learning of the coup, it comes alive, as do the Bolsheviks. They understand that if Kornilov enters the city, his troops will immediately hang the Bolsheviks who were arrested by Kerensky back in July.
At the suggestions of Lev Kamenev, one of the most prominent Bolsheviks, a counter-coup military revolutionary committee is set up, consisting of three representatives each from the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, and the SRs. They draw up plans to oppose Kornilov. The Petrograd Soviet and the Bolsheviks are sure that they will be “hanged from the lamp-posts.”
The committee does everything to prevent General Krymov’s troops from entering Petrograd. Telegrams are dispatched nationwide, and the railways along which Krymov’s echelons are moving are blocked with logs. Meanwhile, some experienced heads, including members of the Congress of Muslim Nations, led by the grandson of Imam Shamil,* are sent to parley with the Wild Division to halt its advance on Petrograd. At the same time, the new Military Revolutionary Committee starts to arm the workers.
NEW PETROGRAD SOVIET
While the Petrograd Soviet is making efforts to protect the capital, the government ministers at the Winter Palace are discussing what to do next. They propose that Kerensky resign in favor of a new government headed by General Alekseyev, the former tsar’s chief of staff. Kerensky summons Alekseyev, but he declines both the post of prime minister and the post of supreme commander in place of Kornilov. Alekseyev has never been a leader and prefers to be second in command. He urges Kerensky to take over as supreme commander himself, and he, Alekseyev, will serve as his chief of staff.
In the evening it is reported that Kornilov’s troops have halted. The mood inside the once-loyal units has changed radically. They were ready to march on the capital with the intention of rescuing it from the Bolshevik uprising, but on hearing that Kornilov has been declared a traitor, their enthusiasm wanes. General Krymov’s corps disperses at Luga on the approach to Petrograd. Interestingly, precisely six months earlier, General Ivanov’s offensive against Petrograd had crumbled at exactly the same place.
General Krymov travels to Petrograd alone to find out what is happening there. He meets with Alekseyev and then Kerensky. Taking leave of Kerensky, he writes a farewell note to Kornilov—and shoots himself. That same day, the commander of the Southwestern Front, General Denikin, is arrested by his own soldiers—the Provisional Government has to work hard to save him from mob law.
On 1 September, the new chief of staff, Alekseyev, goes to the High Command at Mogilev, where he arrests Kornilov and his closest officers, and imprisons them inside a monastery in the town of Bykhov with double perimeter protection. Kornilov and his loyal Turkmen fighters are guarded by soldiers from the Provisional Government. But only a few days later, on 7 September, Alekseyev resigns under pressure from the Petrograd Soviet, which considers him a “reactionary general” and a supporter of the old regime. After the failed coup* Kerensky dismisses many members of his inner circle. He appoints Savinkov as governor-general of Petrograd, but dismisses him three days later on learning of his dealings with Kornilov. Even his loyal deputy Nekrasov is suspected of treason; Kerensky removes him from the government and exiles him to Finland as the region’s governor-general.
The Kornilov revolt is a milestone in the history of the 1917 revolution. It is hard to imagine a more absurd train of events. It causes a spike in the Bolsheviks’ popularity and leads to the October uprising. Typically, none of the protagonists ever admit that they made serious blunders; both sides will remain convinced to their dying day that they were the victims of a vile conspiracy.
“THE SAD PIERROT OF THE REVOLUTION”
“Hope in the once-demigod Kerensky is fading fast,” writes Alexander Benois, who back in March was so desperate to be of use to him. Kerensky’s credibility has been fatally undermined, and those who idolized him are disillusioned.
“Kerensky is a pitiful sight,” describes Kartashov, the minister of religion, in conversation with Gippius. “Yes, he doesn’t physically hear what is said to him,” adds Gippius. She, like many others, considers Kerensky to be the aggressor and Kornilov the victim. Kerensky is soon labeled “the sad Pierrot* of the revolution.”
Kerensky is likely suffering from bipolar disorder combined with exhaustion: it is said that he has not slept properly for months. Back in March, Gippius suspected that he would burn out, and, come August, he has. His public behavior increasingly resembles that of a drug addict (he is now said to be sniffing cocaine). His bouts of euphoria vie with periods of prolonged depression, during which time he loses all interest in government business. All the while he brags to his colleagues that he is still constantly being asked for his autograph.
Alexander Benois retells a common piece of gossip that the prime minister allegedly spent his days at the Winter Palace in the former quarters of Alexander III, where he would “sing opera arias and take all kinds of junk.” Arias and drugs in the imperial chamber is probably an exaggeration—akin to Rasputin’s supposed orgies with Anna Vyrubova and Empress Alexandra. But the public laps it up.
Vladimir Lvov, the self-styled mediator in the negotiations between Kerensky and Kornilov, having spent a short spell at the Peter and Paul Fortress, is eager to confirm all the rumors about Kerensky. He tells that on 26 August, after being arrested at the Winter Palace, he was locked up in the former bedroom of Maria Feodorovna and could not sleep all night because in the late Alexander III’s chamber next door Kerensky was pacing up and down, belting out operatic arias. The craziest rumor of all alleges that after the revolution Kerensky divorced his wife (true) in order to marry one of the former tsar’s daughters (not so true).
The Kornilov revolt completely changes the balance of power in Petrograd. The Bolsheviks played a crucial role in defending the capital and dispersing Kornilov’s troops. The Petrograd Soviet demands that Kerensky release the hundreds of Bolsheviks arrested during the July uprising. The Bolsheviks scream that it is the Kadets’ turn to be rounded up for having supported Kornilov. But this does not happen, save for an isolated incident in Crimea, where the Simferopol Council of Workers’ Deputies arrests the tycoon Ryabushinsky on suspicion of sympathy for Kornilov. He is released only after Kerensky’s intervention.
After the defeat of Kornilov the Bolsheviks see their popularity soar. On 1 September a plenary session of the Petrograd Soviet is held at the Smolny Institute—it is so crowded and tumultuous that virtually no decisions are taken. The Bolsheviks put forward a resolution consisting of their traditional populist slogans: offer universal democratic peace to all belligerent nations; abolish the death penalty at the front; abolish the private ownership of landed estates; and transfer power to the proletariat and the revolutionary peasantry. The Petrograd Soviet adopts the resolution by a majority vote.
But this event is eclipsed by the same-day announcement of Kerensky’s new government (a directory of five persons). He also dissolves the State Duma and, without waiting for approval from the Constituent Assembly, declares Russia to be a republic.
The next day, 2 September, Trotsky is released from the Kresty prison on a bail of 3,000 roubles* —the Provisional Government does not consider him to be a threat. On 4 September Kerensky orders the dissolution of the Military Revolutionary Committee, which was set up to defend the capital from Kornilov. An announcement to that effect is published in Izvestia, the official mouthpiece of the Petrograd Soviet. The very next day Izvestia publishes the dates of the committee’s next sittings. The still-intact committee has no intention of obeying Kerensky.
By 9 September the executive committee—a narrow circle of leaders of the Petrograd Soviet—has come to realize that it no longer controls what goes on inside. Many of them, including Chkheidze, Tsereteli, and Chernov (most of the former ministers in the Provisional Government) decide to snub the Petrograd Soviet using a favorite tactic of Kerensky: they announce their resignation. They disapprove of the Bolshevik resolution adopted on 1 September. Tsereteli and company do not want to resign; on the contrary, they wish to fight against the Bolsheviks for influence and win back their supporters who have been seduced by the Bolsheviks.
Meanwhile, Trotsky actively campaigns against the old presidium: “The ghost of Kerensky now sits between Fyodor Dan† and Chkheizde,” he declaims. “Remember that by approving the policy of the presidium, you are approving the policy of Kerensky!” The result of the vote on the Bolshevik resolution is a shock to the leaders of the SRs and the Mensheviks: they secured four hundred votes in the Petrograd Soviet against five hundred for the Bolsheviks.
This is a far greater political earthquake than the endless updates of the Provisional Government. The composition of the Petrograd Soviet has not changed since the revolution began. It has been the de facto parliament and the guarantor of stability throughout all the turmoil: from the Milyukov note in April to the July uprising and the August muddle between Kerensky and Kornilov. Now the executive committee has resigned.
“We are stepping down,” says Tsereteli, “in the knowledge that over the past six months we have honorably held the banner of revolution. Now the banner is in your hands. We can only hope that you will be able to hold it aloft for at least half that period.”
A week later the Petrograd Soviet elects a new executive committee and a new chairman in the shape of Leon Trotsky. The new Bolshevik-led Petrograd Soviet behaves quite differently from its predecessor. A “workers’ militia” is set up to continue arming the workers, even though Kornilov’s troops are no longer a threat. In spring 1917, after the February revolution, Tsereteli and the previous executive committee had made every effort to disarm the workers, who were called the “Red Guards.” Now Trotsky reverses this policy.
A week later the triumph of the Bolsheviks spreads to Moscow: the Moscow Soviet adopts the same Bolshevik resolution as in Petrograd and its moderate members resign.
After the July uprising the Bolsheviks seemed a spent force, banished forever to the political margins. But the Kornilov coup has seen them democratically elected in Moscow and Petrograd. Kornilov and the generals, who were convinced that they could change things for the better by stringing a few people up, are no more.
DARK AND SLIMY
Autumn sets in, and the fleeting euphoria is supplanted by depression. Everywhere—from the front line to civvy street—the word is that Russia is lost. In Petrograd the weather is terrible. “It’s so dark and slimy, even in daytime,” writes Gippius.
The newspapers talk about the horrors of Riga. Before the city was captured by the Germans, it was apparently ransacked by “comrade soldiers” (now a euphemism for armed troublemakers). The press claims that the rapes and murders were perpetrated not by the Germans, but by the departing Russians. There is nationwide chaos, with soldier and peasant uprisings in Astrakhan, Irkutsk, Saratov (now cities in the Russian Federation), Gomel (in modern Belarus), Tashkent (capital of modern Uzbekistan), Kiev, Kharkov, Chernigov, and Odessa (cities in modern Ukraine). According to the new war minister, Verkhovsky, there are two million deserters.
After the tragedy in Kazan, an arson epidemic breaks out: some say it is revenge against the propertied classes; others are sure that the owners themselves are burning down their properties for insurance payouts. The newspapers, meanwhile, blame everything on German agents provocateurs.
The Provisional Government has no economic policy or even a finance ministry. In September the decision is taken to print new twenty- and forty-rouble notes. They do not replace the old tsarist money, but are supposed to complement it. The printing of these worthless pieces of paper, known as “kerenkas” (after Kerensky), spirals out of control—within a few months the money supply increases severalfold.
At the same time, labor productivity is plummeting: workers spend more time rallying than toiling. Living conditions after the revolution deteriorate, largely due to inflation. Throughout 1917 the government tries to reform the labor law, but is afraid of adopting drastic measures without the approval of the Constituent Assembly (which still hasn’t been convened) and cannot reach a compromise with the oligarchs, who claim that in wartime the socialists’ demands (for example, widespread wage increases) will bring industry to a standstill.
Pavel Ryabushinsky, who represented Moscow business at the congress of industrialists in August 1917, says that life punishes those who violate the laws of economics: “Unfortunately, we need the bony hand of hunger and poverty to grab the throat of the faux friends of the people—members of all the countless committees and soviets—so that they come to their senses.” This sentence becomes a catchphrase for the left-wing newspapers, which cite it as proof of corporate callousness.
In autumn many enterprises experience not strikes, but “takeovers”: workers start arresting their bosses. The most uncontrollable situation is in the Donbas (the Donets Basin in modern Ukraine).* “The miners have gone utterly mad,” the mine owners telegraph Petrograd.
On 25 September the three ambassadors to Russia for the European Allies—Britain, France, and now Italy—inform Kerensky that they intend to stop all shipments to Russia until the fighting capacity of its army is restored. When the railways go on strike, the economic collapse is complete. The forthcoming winter promises famine and even worse unrest than during the “bread riots” of 1917.
BACK TO GEORGIA
Everyone is tired of the endless political debates, yet the chin-wagging continues. Kerensky arranges a “democratic conference” at the Alexandrinsky Theatre that sits for two weeks and finally elects from its ranks a “pre-parliament.”
The Bolsheviks announce that their nominated delegates are Lenin and Zinoviev. It is a test to see whether the Bolsheviks have been forgiven, for both leaders are still on Kerensky’s wanted list. Kerensky duly announces that Lenin should be arrested as soon as he sets foot in the theatre.
Tsereteli believes that the pre-parliament can save Russia from the Bolsheviks. Together with the Kadet Vladimir Nabokov, he begins to draft a Russian constitution. Nabokov recalls that Tsereteli spoke endlessly about the threat of the Bolsheviks coming to power. “Of course,” says Tsereteli, “they won’t last more than two or three weeks, but just think of the damage they could still do. That must be avoided at all costs.”
However, in early October Tsereteli unexpectedly drops everything and returns to the Georgian capital on family business. It is his first trip home for ten years.
A PROVINCIAL STRATEGIST
“Vladimir Ilyin” (a.k.a., “Nikolai Lenin”) is still living in Finland under the protection of the local authorities. But he is restless. The “good” news about the Bolsheviks’ ascendancy does not please him: he thinks they should be more proactive and seize power.
It is a repeat of the situation in early March, when all the seminal events took place in the capital while Lenin was away in some secluded backwater. Only this time he is hindered not by borders, but political expediency. He is still a wanted man. The party’s central committee is anxious that he should be protected and that to return him to Petrograd would be dangerous. Lenin is furious and curses his comrades, especially Trotsky, but stays put.
The Bolshevik Party is led by Lev Kamenev and Leon Trotsky (whose first names, incidentally, both mean “lion”). Both are “effective managers”: Kamenev led the Bolsheviks in the workers’ struggle against the Kornilov coup, while Trotsky’s eloquence has secured Bolshevik control over the Petrograd Soviet. Now a second Congress of Soviets is convened that is set to consolidate Bolshevik influence even more. Unlike Lenin, they believe that another armed uprising will ruin everything.
Lenin is afraid that the moment will be squandered. In one newspaper he reads that the British could soon conclude a separate peace with the Germans, and in another that Kerensky is planning to surrender Petrograd to Berlin, so that the Germans will deal with the revolutionaries. The bottom line is that action is required.
By late September Lenin can stand it no longer and ups sticks from Helsinki to Vyborg, half the distance to Petrograd, but still in Finland (in those days). There, he is visited by an old friend, Alexander Shotman, who informs him of the severe economic crisis. No one knows how to fix it, least of all the Bolsheviks, who lack expertise, Shotman says.
“Nonsense!” screams Lenin. “Any worker can become a minister. No special skills are needed.” He continues: “There is nothing simpler than solving the problem of inflation. We’ll print new notes to replace the old ones. It will be done by experts. They will have no choice but to work for us.”
According to Lenin, the priority is to seize power and issue decrees to endear the people to the Bolsheviks, namely: declare peace to win over the army; take the land from the landowners to win over the peasants; and give the factories to the workers. “Who will oppose us after that?” says Lenin, smiling. Shotman goes to Petrograd, leaving Lenin in the quiet, provincial Vyborg to draw up a plan.
TO SURRENDER PETROGRAD TO THE GERMANS
Petrograd is buzzing with speculation that German troops are at the gates. The alleged plan to surrender the city to the Germans is seized upon by Trotsky, who turns it into a rhetorical device. In all his speeches he brands Kerensky as “the head of the government of national betrayal,” who is plotting a counter-revolutionary coup with the Germans. He knows that no such plans exist, but skillfully exploits the public anxiety.
Interestingly, in September and October 1917 the Bolsheviks accuse the Provisional Government of everything that they themselves will do just a few months later, including disrupting the Constituent Assembly, restoring the death penalty, and moving the capital from Petrograd to Moscow. Moreover, they say that Kerensky’s economic policies are leading to starvation and ruin.
The impending coup is on everyone’s lips. The Bolsheviks have not started planning for it, yet Petrograd is discussing when it will happen. Gippius ponders the idea of writing a short, sharp manifesto against the Bolsheviks on behalf of the “silent intelligentsia”: “In view of the government’s criminal feeble-mindedness,” she writes and then changes her mind: “It’s only words, damn it. It won’t have any effect.” Public opinion craves a strong hand, a dictator capable of imposing order. “Everyone is dreaming of bayonets,” admits Gippius.
THE NEW RASPUTIN
Even before the Kornilov affair, the papers were writing about a counter-revolutionary coup and the restoration of the monarchy. In early August, in response to such rumors, the Provisional Government placed the former grand dukes Mikhail (the tsar’s brother) and Pavel (his uncle) under house arrest.
A month later they are freed. In September Pavel is visited by a young officer, who says that he is an envoy of Colonel Igor Sikorsky, the legendary aeronautical engineer. He offers the family an escape plan: one of Sikorsky’s aircraft will make a nighttime landing in the park outside the grand duke’s home, and he and his family will be whisked away to Stockholm.
“Dear friend, I am deeply touched by the proposal, but it sounds like something from the pages of Jules Verne,” replies the grand duke. They will be spotted, he says, and refuses to even try.
Anna Vyrubova, the former lady-in-waiting of Empress Alexandra, lives quietly in Petrograd. That is until 25 August, when she suddenly learns from a newspaper report that she and her associates are to be exiled from Russia as “particularly dangerous counter-revolutionaries.” But on their way to Helsinki the car with the “counter-revolutionaries” is unhooked and all the passengers are dispatched to prison. It is only by some miracle that the sailors don’t kill them. By some miracle, the sailors who found them spare their lives.
Vyrubova and the others are taken to the Sveaborg Fortress on board the Polar Star, a yacht that belonged to the imperial family. Vyrubova has sailed on it many times before. “In that filthy, spit-covered, smoke-filled cabin, it was impossible to recognize the wonderful dining room of Their Majesties. At their table, there sat a hundred ‘rulers’—all dirty, brutal sailors,” she recalls.
Vyrubova spends a month in prison, until her mother somehow manages to get hold of Trotsky in the hallway of the Petrograd Soviet. He orders the release of “Kerensky’s prisoner.” On 3 October Vyrubova is taken to the Smolny Institute in Petrograd, where she meets Kamenev and his wife Olga, Trotsky’s sister. They give her dinner, after which Kamenev says that he will personally vouchsafe her freedom. Thereafter, the press begins to write that Vyrubova is now associated with Trotsky and Kamenev and has allegedly turned into a Bolshevik. “It’s just like before,” she exclaims in her diary, “only this time the papers have replaced Rasputin with Trotsky.”
THE DIE IS CAST
Meanwhile, Lenin is putting the finishing touches to his article “Can the Bolsheviks keep hold of state power?” Finally, on 6 October, he journeys to Petrograd. The fact that the Bolsheviks are planning an armed uprising is hardly a secret: even children know about it. The Military Revolutionary Committee orders the Petrograd garrison not to carry out any orders without Bolshevik approval. Trotsky tables a resolution with the Petrograd Soviet calling for the seizure of power by the workers and soldiers. He is getting carried away by the moment, just like Gapon on the eve of Bloody Sunday a dozen years before.
Local residents prepare for the uprising as if expecting some kind of Saint Bartholomew’s Day massacre: they are sure that armed soldiers and sailors will break into their homes and slaughter them in their beds. Local residents set up the so-called “house committees” for keeping watch and reporting signs of imminent danger.
On 10 October, the Bolsheviks gather at the home of the Menshevik Sukhanov, who, incidentally, is absent from his own apartment. Twelve of the twenty-four central committee members are present, including Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Stalin, and a clean-shaven gentleman wearing a wig and thick horn-rimmed glasses. It is “Comrade Ivanov,” known occasionally as Lenin.
The meeting reveals a split among the Bolsheviks. The head of the Bolshevik faction in the Petrograd Soviet, Kamenev, is categorically opposed to the planned uprising; he is supported by Zinoviev, supposedly Lenin’s right-hand man. Lenin calls them traitors, saying that Kerensky is preparing to surrender Petrograd to the Germans and launch another Kornilov offensive. Urgent action is needed, says the party leader Lenin. The remaining Bolsheviks understand the power of newspaper gossip, yet do not argue: they believe in Lenin’s sixth sense and do not think he has been duped by the press. Trotsky is intoxicated by the feeling of power flowing into his hands. In the end, only two vote against the uprising, with ten in favor.
Trotsky earmarks 25 October as the date of the uprising, when the Second Congress of Soviets is due to commence in Petrograd. The plan is simple and even “democratic”: the Congress will deliver a vote of no confidence in the Provisional Government and form a new one. Whereas the first congress in June was led by Tsereteli and recognized the authority of the Provisional Government, the second will be headed by the new leaders of the Petrograd Soviet—Trotsky and Kamenev. Back in June, Lenin had interrupted Tsereteli when the latter stated that there was no party in Russia capable of seizing power. This time around there will be no need for interruptions.
Trotsky believes that the congress will legitimize the coup, but Lenin is impatient and cannot understand the need to justify the uprising. “Everything is set for 25 October,” says Trotsky. Lenin labels him a “25 October fetishist,” but cannot overrule the leader of the Petrograd Soviet.
LENIN AND HIS TOOTHACHE
Lenin fears that Kerensky will recover his wits and disarm the Bolsheviks, as was the case in July. He is desperate to strike while the Provisional Government is weak. Lenin’s fears are grounded. At a meeting of the Provisional Government on the night of 23-24 October, Kerensky does indeed say that all members of the Military Revolutionary Committee should be arrested immediately. The prime minister is aware of the Bolshevik plan and understands the threat posed by the Congress of Soviets. But ministers have doubts and propose a softer measure: ban the Bolshevik press.
That night, government troops are sent to the Bolsheviks’ printing house and confiscate all copies of the latest issues of its newspapers. This pre-emptive strike plays into the hands of Lenin’s supporters, who now agree that urgent action is required, otherwise they will be arrested ahead of the congress. Lenin, now hiding in a safe house, does not receive his morning edition of Working Path and fears that Kerensky has started a crackdown. However, at 10 a.m. Bolshevik-friendly soldiers arrive at the printing press and drive away the young government troops, who are only student cadets.
At the Smolny Institute, the headquarters of the Petrograd Soviet, the Bolsheviks are continuously in session. Observing them is the American journalist John Reed,* who remarks that the Bolsheviks barely eat or sleep: Trotsky and Kamenev address the workers and soldiers, sometimes speaking for six, eight, or even twelve hours a day. It is decided that all members of the Bolshevik central committee should reside permanently at Smolny. The guards at the entrance are supplied with machine guns, and extra regiments loyal to the Bolsheviks are called in. The Baltic Fleet sails warships into the capital along the Neva. Fearing that the government will try to sever the communication lines, the Bolsheviks send troops to guard the post office and the telegraph.
The soldiers and workers are getting itchy feet: When will the Bolsheviks arrest the Provisional Government? Trotsky replies that if Kerensky acquiesces to the resolutions of the Congress of Soviets, there will be no need for any arrests. Meanwhile, the increasingly restless Lenin joins the workers and soldiers in demanding the immediate arrest of the government. He writes to the Petrograd Soviet, urging his comrades to disarm the government cadets and seize power. In the evening, without waiting for a reply, he goes to the Petrograd Soviet in person. He is unrecognizable: not only has he shaved off his beard and moustache, but he now also has a handkerchief wrapped around his face, as if suffering from a toothache.
THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
On the morning of 24 October, Kerensky arrives for a meeting of the pre-parliament. Speaking clearly and convincingly, he states that waiting is not an option and calls on his ministers to sanction the arrest of the Bolsheviks. As usual, the call for immediate action prompts a lengthy discussion. The debate continues well into the night.
Throughout the next day preparations are made to defend against the Bolshevik offensive. Troops supposedly loyal to the Provisional Government are brought in, including cadets and women soldiers. Adult men—in particular, soldiers of the Petrograd garrison—cannot be relied upon. The bicycle infantry that used to guard the Winter Palace declare that they no longer wish to serve the government and leave their barracks to hold a spontaneous rally.
However, the cadets and women soldiers are not as pliable as expected. When the First Petrograd Women’s Battalion arrives at the Winter Palace and is ordered to guard the building, many ask to return to the barracks, saying that they were expecting to take part in a parade. But by evening around two hundred women soldiers and two thousand cadets have surrounded the Winter Palace, in the company of slightly more than one hundred officers.
The commander of the Petrograd Military District orders all bridges in the capital to be raised, but the order is not carried out. The Women’s Battalion is afraid to approach the Troitsky Bridge because it is in range of the cannons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, where the garrison supports the Bolsheviks.
A unit of cadets goes to the central telegraph building to relieve the guard, but the on-duty troops refuse to leave. They have gone over to the Bolsheviks and force the cadets to back off. That night the soldiers seize the post office building, not far from the telegraph.
The uprising is only just beginning, but it is already clear that the authority of the Provisional Government is crumbling—everything is much calmer and less bloody than it was at the start of the February revolution.
RUNNING OUT OF ENERGY
Lenin, meanwhile, is making his way to the Smolny Institute. Only on trying to enter the building does he encounter a problem: he has no pass. But he manages to slip inside with a bustling crowd of workers. It is Lenin’s first time inside the Smolny Institute. He wanders from room to room, looking for familiar faces, and inadvertently stumbles upon a meeting of the Mensheviks, who, mistaking him for a hungry worker, offer the disguised Bolshevik leader a sausage sandwich.
Even more in need of a sausage sandwich at that moment is Trotsky. He recalls how, after another interminable meeting, he collapsed onto a nearby couch, asked Kamenev for a cigarette, and promptly passed out. Regaining consciousness, he sees Kamenev’s alarmed face: “Do you need some medicine?” he asks. “How about some food,” replies Trotsky. “I can’t remember the last time I ate. It certainly wasn’t yesterday.”
The Provisional Government sits until 2 a.m. and leaves the Winter Palace, leaving Kerensky there alone. He is still trying to summon a Cossack regiment to protect the palace, but without success.
That same night the Smolny Institute hosts a meeting of the Bolshevik central committee. Heartened by how the revolt is progressing, Lenin suggests forming a government made up solely of Bolsheviks. However, the only affirmative decision he takes is to go to sleep—right on the floor of Trotsky’s office.
A STAR-SPANGLED DEPARTURE
On the morning of 25 October, pro-Bolshevik soldiers continue seizing the main facilities in Petrograd without resistance. Around seventy of them approach the telephone exchange, which is guarded by a few dozen cadets. Seeing their numerical inferiority, the cadets surrender the building without a fight. On entering the telephone exchange, the soldiers sever all lines to the Winter Palace.
That same morning Lenin writes an appeal, “To the Citizens of Russia,” in which he states that the Provisional Government has been overthrown and power has passed into the hands of the Military Revolutionary Committee. This is a great exaggeration, since the Petrograd garrison soldiers are simply moving around the city, placing guards at key institutions. They calmly take control of the state bank and release all Bolsheviks from the Kresty prison.
Kerensky is afraid that the Bolsheviks will come for him before his promised reinforcements arrive. At 9 a.m. he goes to his office at the Winter Palace and starts burning documents. The commander of the Petrograd Military District, Colonel Polkovnikov, reports that the situation is hopeless: the Provisional Government has no more soldiers at its disposal. Kerensky instructs Deputy Prime Minister Konovalov to call a ministerial meeting. He himself runs to the General Staff building, where he learns that there are indeed no new troops. The commanders of the cadets and the Women’s Battalion say that their forces are insufficient to defend the Winter Palace, but are still hopeful of receiving Cossack reinforcements and battle-hardened troops from the front.
Kerensky tells Polkovnikov that he intends to leave the city to meet the troops supposedly heading to Petrograd from the Northern Front. Polkovnikov tries to find Kerensky a car, but it is not so straightforward. There are no vehicles in the palace garage, so inquiries are made at the local foreign embassies. The Italians refuse, but the Americans agree. The secretary of the US embassy, the appropriately named Sheldon Whitehouse, delivers two vehicles to the Winter Palace, replete with star-spangled banners. Kerensky asks him to inform the other ambassadors not to recognize the Bolshevik government under any circumstances, since he will return in five days at the most with reinforcements.
At 11 a.m. the two vehicles pull off with Kerensky and his adjutants inside. An hour later the Provisional Government assembles at the Winter Palace for what is to be its last meeting and is surprised to discover that Kerensky has disappeared.
THE LAST SUPPER
On 25 October the Winter Palace hosts the last and most remarkable sitting of the Provisional Government. Those in attendance know from the start that they are doomed. The Winter Palace guards do not mince words when reporting that they cannot offer protection against a Bolshevik assault. The ministers believe that their leader Kerensky has fled, and they know that they do not have the support of the masses. Yet they stubbornly continue to sit and wait.
Ten government members are there from the start, later joined by three more. Who are these people? Four millionaire tycoons, two lawyers, two professors, an engineer, an economist, a doctor, a theologian, a naval officer, and a worker. All of them are between thirty-one and fifty-four years old. Three of the entrepreneurs—Konovalov, Tretyakov, and Smirnov—are the “young capitalists” who, together with Pavel Ryabushinsky, sought freedom and reforms on the part of the authorities. Prosecutor-General Malyantovich is a prominent lawyer who defended Trotsky in 1906 and also won Maria Andreyeva’s case against Zinaida Morozova, ironically securing 100,000 roubles* from the widow of Savva Morozov for the Bolsheviks. The labor minister is the thirty-five-year-old worker Kuzma Gvozdev, who in January 1917 was arrested on the orders of then Interior Minister Protopopov. It was his arrest that effectively kick-started the February revolution. Now he himself is a member of the latest government to be overthrown.
The session is opened by Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Konovalov, who informs his colleagues of the previous night’s events and of Kerensky’s whereabouts. Naval Minister Verderevsky says that he does not understand why the meeting has been convened, since the ministers have no real power. He is given short shrift by Dr. Kishkin, an old Kadet, one of the founders of the Liberal Party: “We are not the Petrograd Provisional Government, but the All-Russian Provisional Government. If we have lost power in Petrograd, it does not mean that we have lost power in Russia.” Deputy Prime Minister Konovalov suggests that the ministers remain at the Winter Palace, despite the threat of arrest. The proposal is adopted without objection.
The meeting also votes to appoint Dr. Kishkin as the minister responsible for the city’s defense. But what can he do? The only hope is the Cossacks, who will never support the Bolsheviks. But neither Konovalov nor Kishkin can persuade them to side with the government.
To the aid comes Pinhas Rutenberg, the famous SR, “friend” and killer of Georgy Gapon; Rutenberg has recently been appointed by Kerensky as vice-governor of Petrograd. He recalls that his comrade Savinkov is in touch with the Cossacks. Savinkov promises to help and goes to meet with the Cossack leaders.
In the afternoon the ministers learn that posters are being plastered around the city announcing the new Bolshevik government, including Prime Minister Lenin and Foreign Minister Trotsky. Soon after, the news arrives that the Bolsheviks have dispersed the pre-parliament.
Vladimir Nabokov, the deputy chairman of the pre-parliament, goes to the Winter Palace. The mood there is one of extreme despondency. He is approached by Sergei Tretyakov, a Moscow tycoon and the grandson of one of the founders of the Tretyakov Gallery. He is very angry with Kerensky, who has betrayed them, he says, adding that the situation is hopeless. Foreign Minister Tereshchenko interjects that troops loyal to the government are on their way—they just need to hold out for forty-eight hours.
Nabokov leaves the Winter Palace as discreetly as he arrived. The other ministers could also depart, but instead they stubbornly sit and wait. At 6:30 p.m. they go to the dining room, where they are served soup, fish, and artichokes. Immediately after dinner, an ultimatum is issued by the Bolsheviks: the ministers have twenty minutes to surrender. If they do not, the cruiser Aurora, which has already pulled up alongside the Winter Palace on the Neva, will open fire.
The telephones at the Winter Palace start trilling. In order to talk in peace, the ministers retire to a side room with no annoying modern means of communication. They decide unanimously to reject the ultimatum.
Cups of tea are ordered in anticipation of the onslaught. But the storm does not begin. The clock strikes eight, then nine. All the while, the naval minister is desperately trying to persuade his colleagues to surrender: “Do you know what will happen if the Aurora opens fire? The Winter Palace will be turned into a heap of rubble.” But the ministers do not listen.
It is odd, for the ministers understand that they no longer hold power. During the analogous February uprising, it did not take long for the imperial government to scatter, even though its members still saw themselves as appointees of the Anointed One. Why now do the ministers risk their lives and the lives of the women soldiers and cadets guarding them?
A COMMON MAN
At 3 p.m. Leon Trotsky ascends the podium at the Smolny Institute and announces that the Provisional Government is no more: “I know of no other example in the history of the revolutionary movement to have involved such a huge mass of people and to have been so bloodless. Kerensky’s Provisional Government is dead. The broomstick of history has swept it aside.” This phrase is Lenin’s cue to enter the hall. Trotsky gives him the floor. Lenin delivers the first of many triumphant speeches, listing the immediate objectives of the new government: create an entirely new state apparatus; end the war; and destroy the propertied classes. “You are pre-empting the will of the Congress of Soviets,” shout a few disgruntled voices in the hall.
The Congress of Soviets is due to meet later that night. Lenin demands the storming of the Winter Palace and the arrest of the Provisional Government before the Congress starts. He prowls around the small hall like a caged lion.
Trotsky says that “the common man has been sleeping peacefully and does not yet know that power has been transferred.” He is right: most inhabitants of Petrograd suspect nothing. There are posters around the city stating that the old government has been overthrown, but there is no evidence of it, other than the Aurora alongside the Winter Palace.
At around 10 p.m. the opera singer Feodor Chaliapin is on stage. He is dressed in a purple robe, holding a scepter, and wearing a crown. He is playing the role of King Philip of Spain. He surveys his subjects and … suddenly a cannon shot rings out. Then another. The actors are frightened and slowly edge their way off the stage. The audience is also jumpy. A minute later, an official runs on stage and informs the hall that the shells are not being fired in the direction of the theatre, so there is nothing to fear: “Ladies and gentlemen, the cruiser Aurora is shelling the Provisional Government inside the Winter Palace,” he announces. Clearly nothing to worry about.…
At roughly the same time, Kerensky arrives in Pskov and inquires as to whether his government-loyal troops are heading towards the capital. Kerensky, now the supreme commander as well as the prime minister, issued an order to that effect in the morning. But he learns to his horror that the commander-in-chief of the Northern Front, General Cheremisov, cancelled the order because he considered it pointless: “The soldiers will not fight for Kishkin.” There are no troops on the move. Kerensky goes to the Pskov apartment of his brother-in-law, General Baranovsky, where, according to the latter, he “suffers the torments of hell and despair.”
When the Aurora’s first salvo rings out, the defenders of the Winter Palace immediately start to surrender, including three hundred Cossacks (who have decided to join the Provisional Government), followed by the Women’s Battalion. A few cadets remain on duty inside the palace.
At 10:40 p.m. the Congress of Soviets gets underway at the Smolny Institute. Of the 670 participants in the congress about three hundred are Bolsheviks. “The mood of those assembled is festive. There is great excitement and not the slightest panic, despite the fact that fighting is still raging around the Winter Palace,” rejoices the art historian Lunacharsky. In truth, only the Bolsheviks are celebrating. Their opponents are “panic-stricken, angry, confused and nervous.” One of the Mensheviks runs up to the art historian and shouts: “The Aurora is bombarding the Winter Palace! Do you hear, Comrade Lunacharsky? Your cannon are destroying Rastrelli’s masterpiece!” The Winter Palace is, in fact, under fire from three sides: from the Aurora, from the Peter and Paul Fortress, and from guns mounted on the arch of the General Staff building. Some cadets are wounded, and Dr. Kishkin does his best to patch them up. There is a fire in one of the rooms, and the ministers do what they can to put out the flames.
“We are here in the Winter Palace, completely abandoned,” says Agriculture Minister Semyon Maslov. “It was democracy that sent us here. But my last word will be to curse that wretched democracy for failing to protect us.”
Back at Smolny, the Menshevik leader Julius Martov demands an immediate halt to the shelling of the Winter Palace and for negotiations to begin. “The revolt of the people needs no justification,” smiles Trotsky. “What has happened is an uprising, not a conspiracy. The masses have won victory under our banner, and now you want them to make concessions and come to an agreement? With whom? I ask you, with whom do we have to reach an agreement?” “In that case, we shall leave,” cries Martov.
They do indeed. Most of the Mensheviks and the SRs get up and walk out. Only the Bolsheviks and their allies remain in the hall. Trotsky yells after them that they are making a feeble and criminal attempt to disrupt the genuine will of the workers and soldiers.
At 1:30 a.m. around three hundred Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko, one of three new war ministers, go to the Winter Palace. The troops take a long time to find the Provisional Government inside the huge building. During the search, they come across the former office of Nicholas II, which has been left intact for the creation of a museum. They smash it to bits.
They eventually find the ministers: “The pressure of the crowd caused it to burst through the door. It came spilling in, flooding all corners of the room like water,” recalls Justice Minister Malyantovich.
Antonov-Ovseyenko describes the scene: “[The ministers] were sitting at the table, blurred into a single grey, pallid, quivering blob. ‘In the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee, you are under arrest!’ I said to them. ‘Members of the Provisional Government, I order you to surrender in the interests of avoiding bloodshed,’ said Konovalov.”
The ministers are taken from the Winter Palace across Troitsky Bridge to the Peter and Paul Fortress. Along the way a crowd gathers, demanding their heads to be cut off and thrown into the water. By 4 a.m. they are all inside prison cells at the fortress.
Before that, at 3 a.m., Kamenev reads out a telegram from the podium of the Smolny hall: the Winter Palace has been taken. The congress rejoices and approves the decision to set up a new revolutionary government headed by Lenin.
“You know,” Lenin says to Trotsky, “after all the persecution and underground activity …” He tries to find the right phrase in Russian, but gives up. He says, “es schwindelt,”* and gestures that his head is spinning. He and Trotsky exchange glances and chuckle.
* The title of a Russian documentary maligning the anti-Putin protests of 2011-12.
* An “Old Bolshevik” and a close associate of Lenin.
† The way authorities spread accusations against Bolsheviks in the press is very similar to the persecution of the Russian opposition in the early twenty-first century. In 2011 the TV channel NTV will broadcast two features: “Anatomy of Protest” and “Anatomy of Protest 2” based on candid videos, possibly shot by the Russian secret service. These videos will allegedly prove that Russian opposition is being funded by the Georgian secret service. Later criminal charges will be brought against three activists of the “Left front” based on “Anatomy of Protest 2”—all of them will be sentenced to prison.
* In the period between February and October 1917 not a single Bolshevik is killed; it is Stalin who will repress almost all the party members after 1927.
* The pacifist protagonist of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot.
* The prime minister.
* The leader of the anti-Russian resistance during the Caucasian War of 1817–64.
* The parallels between the Kornilov revolt of 1917 and the putsch of August 1991 are striking. Both had the same objectives: enact revenge and restore the old order. In both cases, the coups were instigated by fanatics of an empire in the throes of agony and led by members of the military and the old elite. State power (Kerensky, Gorbachev) played a passive, ambiguous role: it has been suggested that both times the head of state and the putschists were in collusion. A portion of the cultural intelligentsia sided with the coups, but most people in the capital cities opposed them. It was civil society, rather than the government, that defeated the coups. As a result, the failed coups led to the exact opposite of what the conspirators intended, accelerating the collapse of their beloved regimes. Moderate, transitional forms of government were ruled out as radical opponents of the former empires gained the upper hand. In both cases, the state—which the putschists had vainly tried to save—split into pieces. Were it not for the coups, the territorial integrity of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union might have been preserved.
* A character from French mime.
* About $39,550 in 2017
† A Menshevik leader.
* Eastern part of modern Ukraine occupied by two self-proclaimed states—Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic—which are waging war against Ukraine supported by Russia.
* The author of Ten Days That Shook the World.
* About $1,318,333 in 2017.
* It’s intoxicating.
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