The Romanov Bride

Chapter 6 PAVEL

After months of working, working, working, we came to realize one day that our prospects were not so very bright after all. And that is precisely why we decided to go to one of Father Gapon’s tearooms, which was called the Society of Russian Factory Hands. It was open to all, including Finns, Poles, and even Zhidki, the Yids. Simply, we wanted a better life. I had a child coming, and I didn’t want the little one to grow up in the filth of that cellar. I didn’t want to work every waking moment of my life, breathing the foul air from the smelter, only to die not as a human being but some kind of rat. And I didn’t want the little one getting ill with no medical help at hand. So we went to one of these tearooms organized by the Father Gapon, where only tea and mineral waters were served-absolutely no vodka-and where each meeting was opened and closed with prayer. And there, in the Assembly Hall, we heard about the condition of the worker and the need for betterment of his life and so on. It seemed very promising and very good at first. Father Gapon himself spoke with such power, and the portrait of Otets Rodnoi, Batushka-Our Own Dear Father, the Tsar-hung on the wall, and really there was no dark talk whatsoever. None. In fact, many praised our system-that we had an autocrat who stood above all classes and nobles and bureaucrats, a God-given leader who, when he learned of our sufferings, would make things right with a single ukaz.

But then the great strikes of January, 1905, broke out. It all started at the very place where I was employed, the Putilov Works, when three or four men were unjustly fired. I can’t even remember why they were sacked, but the manager, Smirnoff, who could easily have fixed the problem, only succeeded in making it worse by doing nothing, absolutely nothing. And so the list of demands from the workers grew and grew-including better ventilation for us smiths, which pleased me greatly-but when there was no agreement, all 13,000 of us walked out. Almost immediately the Schau Cotton Mills in the Vyborg Quarter stopped work, even work at the Semyannikov Shipyard and the Franco-Russo Shipyard ground to a halt, too. Why, by the end of the first week of January it all became a general strike-nearly 150,000 workers refusing to do anything!-and it scared the government a great deal because we were at war with the Yaposki, the Japs, in Manchuria and the production of ships and cannons and uniforms had completely stopped. I tell you, it was all amazing. Shocking even, especially for Shura and me. We were not but a few months in the capital-mere minnows! -and the world around us was being swept away by a great wave. It was all so very different from life in our quiet village.

It must have been that Friday that someone gave us a hectograph copy of an amazing idea-that we were all to go to the Tsar! Of course Shura, as the daughter of a priest, could read very nicely, and with a strong voice she recited:

Workers, Wives, Children!

We will gather together and all go to Batushka, the Dear Father Tsar, and bow before Him and tell Him how we, His children, hurt. We will tell Him how we toil and suffer and live in starvation. We will tell Him how the master foremen and bureaucrats at the factories fleece us. True, it is true, Batushka does not know how we need His help. But once He does our lives will become easier. For the sake of Mother Russia, let us gather! Let us march to Batushka and bow and kneel before Him so that He can bathe us with His love!

This was how we learned of the great demonstration, and the instant we learned about it, why, Shura and I were seized with excitement. Immediately we set off for Father Gapon’s Assembly Hall where we had drunk tea and which, by the time we got there, was already packed, so packed that people were fainting from lack of oxygen. When the kerosene lights even started going out because of the bad air, why, that was when I grabbed a copy of the petition and rushed my pregnant Shura from the hall. But it was a beautiful idea, so beautiful in its simplicity: We would all march peacefully to the Winter Palace, where Father Gapon would hand our Tsar-Batushka a petition telling him of our needs. It was even promised that the Sovereign himself would be there to receive us and hear of our sufferings.

“Oh, Pavel, we must go!” exclaimed my Shura, her face radiant with a smile, her breath steaming in the winter air.

“You just want to see the Tsar!” I laughed knowingly.

“Yes, you’re right. I want to see him because once he sees all of us kneeling before him, once he sees our love for him, he will understand how much we suffer. And then he will make everything right, our Tsar-Batushka will ease our pain and make our lives good. Just listen to the words on this paper.” And with a trembling hand she lifted up this paper, this plea to our Tsar, and read: “ ‘Sovereign! We, workers and inhabitants of the city of Sankt Peterburg, members of various classes, our wives, children, and poor old parents, call upon Thee, Sovereign, to seek justice and protection. We are poor and downtrodden, buried beneath work, and insulted. We are treated not like humans but slaves…’ ”

Shurochka read on and on, and I must tell you, it thrilled both of us, these words, calling for such unheard-of things as freedom of speech, equality for all before the law, compulsory and free education, and even an eight-hour workday. These things delighted me because in them I saw not just simple hope but a real future for my young family. Yes, with promises like these we could stay in the city, we could build a real life.

We could even prosper.