The Story of a Life

75

Revolt

The empty stage of the Bolshoi Theatre was set for the scene of the Palace of the Facets from Boris Godunov. A woman in a black dress, clicking her heels, came running out onto the stage and up to the footlights. A scarlet carnation was pinned to her bodice. From a distance she looked young, but in the glare of the lights you could see that her yellow face was covered with fine wrinkles and her eyes possessed a sickly, rheumy lustre. The woman was clutching a small steel Browning in her hand. She raised it over her head, stamped her feet and let out a piercing cry: ‘Long live the uprising!’

The hall cried out in response: ‘Long live the uprising!’

The woman was the well-known Socialist Revolutionary Maria Spiridonova.fn1 This is how we journalists learned about the outbreak of the Left SR revolt in Moscow. A great many events had led up to this moment.

The Congress of Soviets was in session. No one had better seats at the congress than the journalists. We had been seated in the orchestra pit and could see and hear everything perfectly from there. Of all the speakers the only one I remember well was Lenin, and not what he said, but his gestures and manner of speaking. He sat close to the table, hunched over, and writing quickly. It looked as if he were paying no attention to the other speakers. All you could see was his bulging forehead and the occasional mocking glint of his squinting eyes directed at the speaker. From time to time he looked up from his notes and uttered some light-hearted or biting comment in response to one of the speeches. The audience would erupt with laughter and applause. Lenin would lean back in his chair and let out an infectious laugh.

He did not ‘lecture’, but spoke in a simple, relaxed manner, as if he were talking with a friend and not before an enormous auditorium. He spoke without pathos, without pomposity, in a plain, everyday manner, with a slight rolling of his r’s, all of which lent an air of sincerity to his words. Sometimes, however, he would pause for a moment and then speak with a steely voice free of the slightest doubt. He walked back and forth across the stage as he spoke, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets or casually holding the armholes of his black waistcoat. There was nothing the least bit monumental about him, no awareness of his own greatness, no desire to utter sacred truths. He was simple and natural in word and gesture. You could tell from his eyes that along with matters of state, he was just as happy at a spare moment to talk about any sort of human activity or endeavour, be it foraging for mushrooms, fishing or the need for scientific weather forecasting.

At the congress Lenin spoke about the country’s need for peace and breathing space, about food and bread. The word ‘bread’, which in the mouths of other speakers sounded like some abstract, purely statistical concept, became something real and concrete when Lenin spoke, that very black bread for which the country hungered at the time. But in no way did this diminish the weight of his words or their political importance.

Sitting in one of the boxes during the congress was the German ambassador, Count Mirbach – a tall, balding and haughty man with a monocle. At the time the Germans occupied Ukraine, where peasant uprisings had been breaking out, raging and then dying away, in various regions. On the very first day of the congress the Left SR Kamkov took the floor. He unleashed an angry speech against the Germans, demanding a break with Germany, immediate war and support for the insurgents. An alarmed commotion spread through the hall. Kamkov marched almost right up to the box where Mirbach was sitting and screamed at him: ‘Long live the uprising in Ukraine! Down with the German occupation! Down with Mirbach!’

The Left SRs leapt from their seats. They shouted and shook their fists at Mirbach. Kamkov shook his fist too, and when his jacket fell open, you could see a revolver hanging from his belt. Mirbach sat unperturbed, not even removing his monocle, and continued reading his newspaper. The cries, whistles and stamping of feet rose to an impossible din. It seemed that at any moment the massive chandelier would come crashing down and the plaster mouldings would break loose from the walls. Even Sverdlov, with his powerful voice, couldn’t bring the hall under control. He kept ringing his bell, but only the journalists in the orchestra pit could hear it. The sound couldn’t make its way out into the hall, now given over to wild shouts. Finally, Sverdlov closed the meeting. Mirbach stood and slowly walked out of the box, leaving his newspaper on the railing.

The theatre’s hallways were jammed, and it was impossible to squeeze through the crowds. The guards had thrown open all the doors, but nonetheless the theatre emptied slowly. Emotions were running so high that physical confrontations and violence could have broken out at any moment. Yet, despite everyone’s fears, the rest of the day in Moscow passed with unexpected calm.

The next day, 6 July, I arrived early at the Bolshoi Theatre, only to find the orchestra pit already filled with the other journalists. Everyone had come early expecting something to happen. We waited for a brief statement from the government regarding yesterday’s demonstration by the Left SRs. The hall was full. The meeting had been set for two o’clock in the afternoon. But when the time arrived, the presidium’s table remained empty. Another half-hour passed. Still the meeting did not begin. Puzzled murmurs floated throughout the hall.

Then Smidovich, secretary of the Soviet of People’s Commissars, appeared on the stage and said the session would be somewhat delayed and asked the Bolsheviks to join him at a nearby building for a party meeting. The Bolsheviks left. The hall emptied. No one but the Left SRs remained. Everyone now understood that only something extraordinary could account for the delay in the day’s session. The journalists bolted for the telephones to call their editors and ask what had happened. But an armed Red Army soldier stood guard over each telephone and no one was allowed near. The theatre’s exits had all been locked and were watched by armed guards. They were under orders not to let anyone leave.

Soon, a rumour of unknown origin began to spread through the theatre that Count Mirbach had been killed three hours earlier at his embassy. The journalists were seized with panic. The Left SRs silently got up and went to sit by the exits. Strange sounds from outside could be heard in the theatre – a muffled crash followed by heavy pounding, as if wooden piles were being driven into the ground not far from the theatre. A grey-haired usher beckoned me over with his finger and said: ‘If you wish to know what’s going on in the city, take that iron staircase up to the flies. But don’t let anyone see you. You’ll find a tiny window off to the left up there. Have a look-see. You really ought to. Oh, what troubles! Dear Lord, save and protect us!’

I carefully climbed the steep iron stairs (there was no railing) up to a small, dusty window, more like a narrow slit cut into the thick wall. I looked and could see the far edge of Teatralnaya Square and one side of the Hotel Metropole. From the direction of the City Duma Red Army men were running crouched forward towards the Metropole, dropping suddenly to the pavement, quickly firing from their rifles, and then getting back up and running on. Then, from off to the left in the direction of Lubyanskaya Square, came the staccato clatter of a machine-gun and the boom of a cannon. It was now clear that while we had been sitting locked in the theatre with the Left SRs, an uprising had begun in Moscow.

I quietly returned to the orchestra pit. Just then Spiridonova came running out onto the stage and the scene with which I began this chapter took place. It all became perfectly clear – it was the Left SRs who had started the uprising. In reply to Spiridonova’s cry all the Left SRs drew revolvers from their pockets and out from under their jackets. But at that very moment the calm, stern voice of the Kremlin commandant rang out from the gallery: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Left SRs! If you make one move to leave the theatre or to use your weapons, we shall open fire on the whole hall from the upper gallery. I advise you to sit quietly and await your fate.’

None of us journalists cared to perish due to the negligence of the guards, who had, evidently, forgotten to let us out in time. We sent a delegation headed by Oleg Leonidov to speak to the commandant. He replied, politely but firmly, that, unfortunately, he had not received any instructions about the journalists. Eventually, however, he gave in to our pleas and ordered all of us to gather quietly in the vestibule of the theatre, where the guards quickly threw open the doors and pushed us out into Teatralnaya Square. At first, after the dim light of the theatre, I was blinded by the setting sun. Suddenly, a bullet struck the column beside me, hissed and then seemed to fly off in the direction it had come from. After this, as if upon someone’s order, bullets started methodically cracking along the length of the wall, fortunately above our heads.

‘To Kopievsky Lane!’ Leonidov yelled out, bending over towards the ground and then racing around the corner of the theatre. The rest of us ran after him.

Around the corner everything was calm. The bullets were still flying by, and closely, but off to the side. We could tell only by the light whistling sound and the bursting glass and the puffs of white plaster erupting like fountains off the building across from the theatre. As Shchelkunov was running a tattered old book fell out of his briefcase. Several times he turned and tried to run back around the corner to retrieve it, but we held him by his arms and wouldn’t let him go. Eventually he managed to break free, crawled across the ground to the book and returned flushed and covered in dirt, but happy.

‘You and those books of yours, you’re a dangerous maniac!’ Leonidov yelled at him. ‘You’re mad!’

‘What?!’ Shchelkunov shot back. ‘This happens to be a first edition of Rousseau’s Confessions. You’re the one who’s mad, not me.’

The gunfire quickly moved away beyond Lubyanskaya Square. The Left SRs were retreating. Back at the newspaper I learned that Count Mirbach had indeed been killed that morning by the Left SR Blyumkin. This had been the signal for the uprising. The rebels had managed to seize the Pokrovsky Barracks and the telegraph office on Myasnitskaya Street and advanced almost all the way to Lubyanskaya Square. The Left SRs in the theatre had all been arrested soon after we had been let out. By that evening the rebels had been forced out of the city and retreated to the goods station on the Kazan Railway and the main road to Ryazan, where they began to disperse.

As suddenly as it had begun, the uprising was over.