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Ten Days That Shook the World

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Title: Ten Days That Shook the World

Author: John Reed


        
Release date: February 1, 2002 [eBook #3076]
                Most recently updated: March 3, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEN DAYS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD ***




[Redactor’s Note: The book is composed of text, footnotes, and appendices. The
footnotes are included at the end of each chapter, while the Appendix No. and
Section are referred to in the text in parentheses, the Appendices following
the book text. There are 17 graphic figures in the text. These are indicated by
a reference to the page number in the original book.]




Ten Days That Shook the World

by John Reed


Contents

 Preface
 Notes and Explanations
 Chapter 1. Background
 Chapter 2. The Coming Storm
 Chapter 3. On the Eve
 Chapter 4. The Fall of the Provisional Government
 Chapter 5. Plunging Ahead
 Chapter 6. The Committee for Salvation
 Chapter 7. The Revolutionary Front
 Chapter 8. Counter-Revolution
 Chapter 9. Victory
 Chapter 10. Moscow
 Chapter 11. The Conquest of Power
 Chapter 12. The Peasants’ Congress
 Appendices I - XII




Preface


This book is a slice of intensified history—history as I saw it. It
does not pretend to be anything but a detailed account of the November
Revolution, when the Bolsheviki, at the head of the workers and
soldiers, seized the state power of Russia and placed it in the hands
of the Soviets.

Naturally most of it deals with “Red Petrograd,” the capital and heart
of the insurrection. But the reader must realize that what took place
in Petrograd was almost exactly duplicated, with greater or lesser
intensity, at different intervals of time, all over Russia.

In this book, the first of several which I am writing, I must confine
myself to a chronicle of those events which I myself observed and
experienced, and those supported by reliable evidence; preceded by two
chapters briefly outlining the background and causes of the November
Revolution. I am aware that these two chapters make difficult reading,
but they are essential to an understanding of what follows.

Many questions will suggest themselves to the mind of the reader. What
is Bolshevism? What kind of a governmental structure did the Bolsheviki
set up? If the Bolsheviki championed the Constituent Assembly before
the November Revolution, why did they disperse it by force of arms
afterward? And if the bourgeoisie opposed the Constituent Assembly
until the danger of Bolshevism became apparent, why did they champion
it afterward?

These and many other questions cannot be answered here. In another
volume, “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk,” I trace the course of the
Revolution up to and including the German peace. There I explain the
origin and functions of the Revolutionary organisations, the evolution
of popular sentiment, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the
structure of the Soviet state, and the course and outcome of the
Brest-Litovsk negotiations….

In considering the rise of the Bolsheviki it is necessary to understand
that Russian economic life and the Russian army were not disorganised
on November 7th, 1917, but many months before, as the logical result of
a process which began as far back as 1915. The corrupt reactionaries in
control of the Tsar’s Court deliberately undertook to wreck Russia in
order to make a separate peace with Germany. The lack of arms on the
front, which had caused the great retreat of the summer of 1915, the
lack of food in the army and in the great cities, the break-down of
manufactures and transportation in 1916—all these we know now were part
of a gigantic campaign of sabotage. This was halted just in time by the
March Revolution.

For the first few months of the new régime, in spite of the confusion
incident upon a great Revolution, when one hundred and sixty millions
of the world’s most oppressed peoples suddenly achieved liberty, both
the internal situation and the combative power of the army actually
improved.

But the “honeymoon” was short. The propertied classes wanted merely a
political revolution, which would take the power from the Tsar and give
it to them. They wanted Russia to be a constitutional Republic, like
France or the United States; or a constitutional Monarchy, like
England. On the other hand, the masses of the people wanted real
industrial and agrarian democracy.

William English Walling, in his book, “Russia’s Message,” an account of
the Revolution of 1905, describes very well the state of mind of the
Russian workers, who were later to support Bolshevism almost
unanimously:

They (the working people) saw it was possible that even under a free
Government, if it fell into the hands of other social classes, they
might still continue to starve….

The Russian workman is revolutionary, but he is neither violent,
dogmatic, nor unintelligent. He is ready for barricades, but he has
studied them, and alone of the workers of the world he has learned
about them from actual experience. He is ready and willing to fight his
oppressor, the capitalist class, to a finish. But he does not ignore
the existence of other classes. He merely asks that the other classes
take one side or the other in the bitter conflict that draws near….

They (the workers) were all agreed that our (American) political
institutions were preferable to their own, but they were not very
anxious to exchange one despot for another (i.e., the capitalist
class)….

The workingmen of Russia did not have themselves shot down, executed by
hundreds in Moscow, Riga and Odessa, imprisoned by thousands in every
Russian jail, and exiled to the deserts and the arctic regions, in
exchange for the doubtful privileges of the workingmen of Goldfields
and Cripple Creek….

And so developed in Russia, in the midst of a foreign war, the Social
Revolution on top of the Political Revolution, culminating in the
triumph of Bolshevism.

Mr. A. J. Sack, director in this country of the Russian Information
Bureau, which opposes the Soviet Government, has this to say in his
book, “The Birth of the Russian Democracy”: The Bolsheviks organised
their own cabinet, with Nicholas Lenine as Premier and Leon
Trotsky—Minister of Foreign Affairs. The inevitability of their coming
into power became evident almost immediately after the March
Revolution. The history of the Bolsheviki, after the Revolution, is a
history of their steady growth….

Foreigners, and Americans especially, frequently emphasise the
“ignorance” of the Russian workers. It is true they lacked the
political experience of the peoples of the West, but they were very
well trained in voluntary organisation. In 1917 there were more than
twelve million members of the Russian consumers’ Cooperative societies;
and the Soviets themselves are a wonderful demonstration of their
organising genius. Moreover, there is probably not a people in the
world so well educated in Socialist theory and its practical
application.

William English Walling thus characterises them:

The Russian working people are for the most part able to read and
write. For many years the country has been in such a disturbed
condition that they have had the advantage of leadership not only of
intelligent individuals in their midst, but of a large part of the
equally revolutionary educated class, who have turned to the working
people with their ideas for the political and social regeneration of
Russia….

Many writers explain their hostility to the Soviet Government by
arguing that the last phase of the Russian Revolution was simply a
struggle of the “respectable” elements against the brutal attacks of
Bolshevism. However, it was the propertied classes, who, when they
realised the growth in power of the popular revolutionary
organisations, undertook to destroy them and to halt the Revolution. To
this end the propertied classes finally resorted to desperate measures.
In order to wreck the Kerensky Ministry and the Soviets, transportation
was disorganised and internal troubles provoked; to crush the
Factory-Shop Committees, plants were shut down, and fuel and raw
materials diverted; to break the Army Committees at the front, capital
punishment was restored and military defeat connived at.

This was all excellent fuel for the Bolshevik fire. The Bolsheviki
retorted by preaching the class war, and by asserting the supremacy of
the Soviets.

Between these two extremes, with the other factions which
whole-heartedly or half-heartedly supported them, were the so-called
“moderate” Socialists, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries,
and several smaller parties. These groups were also attacked by the
propertied classes, but their power of resistance was crippled by their
theories.

Roughly, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries believed that
Russia was not economically ripe for a social revolution—that only a
_political_ revolution was possible. According to their interpretation,
the Russian masses were not educated enough to take over the power; any
attempt to do so would inevitably bring on a reaction, by means of
which some ruthless opportunist might restore the old régime. And so it
followed that when the “moderate” Socialists were forced to assume the
power, they were afraid to use it.

They believed that Russia must pass through the stages of political and
economic development known to Western Europe, and emerge at last, with
the rest of the world, into full-fledged Socialism. Naturally,
therefore, they agreed with the propertied classes that Russia must
first be a parliamentary state—though with some improvements on the
Western democracies. As a consequence, they insisted upon the
collaboration of the propertied classes in the Government.

From this it was an easy step to supporting them. The “moderate”
Socialists needed the bourgeoisie. But the bourgeoisie did not need the
“moderate” Socialists. So it resulted in the Socialist Ministers being
obliged to give way, little by little, on their entire program, while
the propertied classes grew more and more insistent.

And at the end, when the Bolsheviki upset the whole hollow compromise,
the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries found themselves fighting
on the side of the propertied classes…. In almost every country in the
world to-day the same phenomenon is visible.

Instead of being a destructive force, it seems to me that the
Bolsheviki were the only party in Russia with a constructive program
and the power to impose it on the country. If they had not succeeded to
the Government when they did, there is little doubt in my mind that the
armies of Imperial Germany would have been in Petrograd and Moscow in
December, and Russia would again be ridden by a Tsar….

It is still fashionable, after a whole year of the Soviet Government,
to speak of the Bolshevik insurrection as an “adventure.” Adventure it
was, and one of the most marvellous mankind ever embarked upon,
sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking
everything on their vast and simple desires. Already the machinery had
been set up by which the land of the great estates could be distributed
among the peasants. The Factory-Shop Committees and the Trade Unions
were there to put into operation workers’ control of industry. In every
village, town, city, district and province there were Soviets of
Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies, prepared to assume the task
of local administration.

No matter what one thinks of Bolshevism, it is undeniable that the
Russian Revolution is one of the great events of human history, and the
rise of the Bolsheviki a phenomenon of world-wide importance. Just as
historians search the records for the minutest details of the story of
the Paris Commune, so they will want to know what happened in Petrograd
in November, 1917, the spirit which animated the people, and how the
leaders looked, talked and acted. It is with this in view that I have
written this book.

In the struggle my sympathies were not neutral. But in telling the
story of those great days I have tried to see events with the eye of a
conscientious reporter, interested in setting down the truth.

J. R.


New York, January 1st 1919.



Notes and Explanations


To the average reader the multiplicity of Russian
organisations—political groups, Committees and Central Committees,
Soviets, Dumas and Unions—will prove extremely confusing. For this
reason I am giving here a few brief definitions and explanations.

Political Parties

In the elections to the Constituent Assembly, there were seventeen
tickets in Petrograd, and in some of the provincial towns as many as
forty; but the following summary of the aims and composition of
political parties is limited to the groups and factions mentioned in
this book. Only the essence of their programmes and the general
character of their constituencies can be noticed….

1. _Monarchists,_ of various shades, _Octobrists,_ etc. These
once-powerful factions no longer existed openly; they either worked
underground, or their members joined the _Cadets,_ as the _Cadets_ came
by degrees to stand for their political programme. Representatives in
this book, Rodzianko, Shulgin.

2. _Cadets._ So-called from the initials of its name, Constitutional
Democrats. Its official name is “Party of the People’s Freedom.” Under
the Tsar composed of Liberals from the propertied classes, the _Cadets_
were the great party of _political_ reform, roughly corresponding to
the Progressive Party in America. When the Revolution broke out in
March, 1917, the _Cadets_ formed the first Provisional Government. The
_Cadet_ Ministry was overthrown in April because it declared itself in
favour of Allied imperialistic aims, including the imperialistic aims
of the Tsar’s Government. As the Revolution became more and more a
_social economic_ Revolution, the _Cadets_ grew more and more
conservative. Its representatives in this book are: Miliukov, Vinaver,
Shatsky.

2a. _Group of Public Men._ After the _Cadets_ had become unpopular
through their relations with the Kornilov counter-revolution, the
_Group of Public Men_ was formed in Moscow. Delegates from the _Group
of Public Men_ were given portfolios in the last Kerensky Cabinet. The
_Group_ declared itself non-partisan, although its intellectual leaders
were men like Rodzianko and Shulgin. It was composed of the more
“modern” bankers, merchants and manufacturers, who were intelligent
enough to realise that the Soviets must be fought by their own
weapon—economic organisation. Typical of the _Group:_ Lianozov,
Konovalov.

3. _Populist Socialists,_ or _Trudoviki_ (Labour Group). Numerically a
small party, composed of cautious intellectuals, the leaders of the
Cooperative societies, and conservative peasants. Professing to be
Socialists, the _Populists_ really supported the interests of the petty
bourgeoisie—clerks, shopkeepers, etc. By direct descent, inheritors of
the compromising tradition of the Labour Group in the Fourth Imperial
Duma, which was composed largely of peasant representatives. Kerensky
was the leader of the _Trudoviki_ in the Imperial Duma when the
Revolution of March, 1917, broke out. The _Populist Socialists_ are a
nationalistic party. Their representatives in this book are:
Peshekhanov, Tchaikovsky.

4. _Russian Social Democratic Labour Party._ Originally Marxian
Socialists. At a party congress held in 1903, the party split, on the
question of tactics, into two factions—the Majority (Bolshinstvo), and
the Minority (Menshinstvo). From this sprang the names “Bolsheviki” and
“Mensheviki”—“members of the majority” and “members of the minority.”
These two wings became two separate parties, both calling themselves
“Russian Social Democratic Labour Party,” and both professing to be
Marxians. Since the Revolution of 1905 the Bolsheviki were really the
minority, becoming again the majority in September, 1917.

a. _Mensheviki._ This party includes all shades of Socialists who
believe that society must progress by natural evolution toward
Socialism, and that the working-class must conquer political power
first. Also a nationalistic party. This was the party of the Socialist
intellectuals, which means: all the means of education having been in
the hands of the propertied classes, the intellectuals instinctively
reacted to their training, and took the side of the propertied classes.
Among their representatives in this book are: Dan, Lieber, Tseretelli.

b. _Mensheviki Internationalists._ The radical wing of the
_Mensheviki,_ internationalists and opposed to all coalition with the
propertied classes; yet unwilling to break loose from the conservative
Mensheviki, and opposed to the dictatorship of the working-class
advocated by the Bolsheviki. Trotzky was long a member of this group.
Among their leaders: Martov, Martinov.

c. _Bolsheviki._ Now call themselves the _Communist Party,_ in order to
emphasise their complete separation from the tradition of “moderate” or
“parliamentary” Socialism, which dominates the Mensheviki and the
so-called Majority Socialists in all countries. The _Bolsheviki_
proposed immediate proletarian insurrection, and seizure of the reins
of Government, in order to hasten the coming of Socialism by forcibly
taking over industry, land, natural resources and financial
institutions. This party expresses the desires chiefly of the factory
workers, but also of a large section of the poor peasants. The name
“Bolshevik” can _not_ be translated by “Maximalist.” The Maximalists
are a separate group. (See paragraph 5b). Among the leaders: Lenin,
Trotzky, Lunatcharsky.

d. _United Social Democrats Internationalists._ Also called the _Novaya
Zhizn_ (New Life) group, from the name of the very influential
newspaper which was its organ. A little group of intellectuals with a
very small following among the working-class, except the personal
following of Maxim Gorky, its leader. Intellectuals, with almost the
same programme as the _Mensheviki Internationalists,_ except that the
_Novaya Zhizn_ group refused to be tied to either of the two great
factions. Opposed the Bolshevik tactics, but remained in the Soviet
Government. Other representatives in this book: Avilov, Kramarov.

e. _Yedinstvo._ A very small and dwindling group, composed almost
entirely of the personal following of Plekhanov, one of the pioneers of
the Russian Social Democratic movement in the 80’s, and its greatest
theoretician. Now an old man, Plekhanov was extremely patriotic, too
conservative even for the Mensheviki. After the Bolshevik _coup d’etat,
Yedinstvo_ disappeared.

5. _Socialist Revolutionary party._ Called _Essaires_ from the initials
of their name. Originally the revolutionary party of the peasants, the
party of the Fighting Organisations—the Terrorists. After the March
Revolution, it was joined by many who had never been Socialists. At
that time it stood for the abolition of private property in land only,
the owners to be compensated in some fashion. Finally the increasing
revolutionary feeling of peasants forced the _Essaires_ to abandon the
“compensation” clause, and led to the younger and more fiery
intellectuals breaking off from the main party in the fall of 1917 and
forming a new party, the _Left Socialist Revolutionary party._ The
_Essaires,_ who were afterward always called by the radical groups
_“Right Socialist Revolutionaries,”_ adopted the political attitude of
the Mensheviki, and worked together with them. They finally came to
represent the wealthier peasants, the intellectuals, and the
politically uneducated populations of remote rural districts. Among
them there was, however, a wider difference of shades of political and
economic opinion than among the Mensheviki. Among their leaders
mentioned in these pages: Avksentiev, Gotz, Kerensky, Tchernov,
“Babuschka” Breshkovskaya.

a. _Left Socialist Revolutionaries._ Although theoretically sharing the
Bolshevik programme of dictatorship of the working-class, at first were
reluctant to follow the ruthless Bolshevik tactics. However, the _Left
Socialist Revolutionaries_ remained in the Soviet Government, sharing
the Cabinet portfolios, especially that of Agriculture. They withdrew
from the Government several times, but always returned. As the peasants
left the ranks of the _Essaires_ in increasing numbers, they joined the
_Left Socialist Revolutionary party,_ which became the great peasant
party supporting the Soviet Government, standing for confiscation
without compensation of the great landed estates, and their disposition
by the peasants themselves. Among the leaders: Spiridonova, Karelin,
Kamkov, Kalagayev.

b. _Maximalists._ An off-shoot of the _Socialist Revolutionary party_
in the Revolution of 1905, when it was a powerful peasant movement,
demanding the immediate application of the maximum Socialist programme.
Now an insignificant group of peasant anarchists.

Parliamentary Procedure

Russian meetings and conventions are organised after the continental
model rather than our own. The first action is usually the election of
officers and the _presidium._

The _presidium_ is a presiding committee, composed of representatives
of the groups and political factions represented in the assembly, in
proportion to their numbers. The _presidium_ arranges the Order of
Business, and its members can be called upon by the President to take
the chair _pro tem._

Each question (_vopros_) is stated in a general way and then debated,
and at the close of the debate resolutions are submitted by the
different factions, and each one voted on separately. The Order of
Business can be, and usually is, smashed to pieces in the first half
hour. On the plea of “emergency,” which the crowd almost always grants,
anybody from the floor can get up and say anything on any subject. The
crowd controls the meeting, practically the only functions of the
speaker being to keep order by ringing a little bell, and to recognise
speakers. Almost all the real work of the session is done in caucuses
of the different groups and political factions, which almost always
cast their votes in a body and are represented by floor-leaders. The
result is, however, that at every important new point, or vote, the
session takes a recess to enable the different groups and political
factions to hold a caucus.

The crowd is extremely noisy, cheering or heckling speakers,
over-riding the plans of the _presidium._ Among the customary cries
are: _“Prosim!_ Please! Go on!” _“Pravilno!”_ or _“Eto vierno!_ That’s
true! Right!” _“Do volno!_ Enough!” _“Doloi!_ Down with him!” _“Posor!_
Shame!” and _“Teesche!_ Silence! Not so noisy!”

Popular Organisations

1. _Soviet._ The word _soviet_ means “council.” Under the Tsar the
Imperial Council of State was called _Gosudarstvennyi Soviet._ Since
the Revolution, however, the term _Soviet_ has come to be associated
with a certain type of parliament elected by members of working-class
economic organisations—the Soviet of Workers’, of Soldiers’, or of
Peasants’ Deputies. I have therefore limited the word to these bodies,
and wherever else it occurs I have translated it “Council.”

Besides the local _Soviets,_ elected in every city, town and village of
Russia—and in large cities, also Ward _(Raionny) Soviets_—there are
also the _oblastne_ or _gubiernsky_ (district or provincial) _Soviets,_
and the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian _Soviets_ in the
capital, called from its initials _Tsay-ee-kah._ (See below, “Central
Committees”).

Almost everywhere the _Soviets_ of Workers’ and of Soldiers’ Deputies
combined very soon after the March Revolution. In special matters
concerning their peculiar interests, however, the Workers’ and the
Soldiers’ Sections continued to meet separately. The _Soviets_ of
Peasants’ Deputies did not join the other two until after the Bolshevik
_coup d’etat._ They, too, were organised like the workers and soldiers,
with an Executive Committee of the All-Russian Peasants’ _Soviets_ in
the capital.

2. _Trade Unions._ Although mostly industrial in form, the Russian
labour unions were still called Trade Unions, and at the time of the
Bolshevik Revolution had from three to four million members. These
Unions were also organised in an All-Russian body, a sort of Russian
Federation of Labour, which had its Central Executive Committee in the
capital.

3. _Factory-Shop Committees._ These were spontaneous organisations
created in the factories by the workers in their attempt to control
industry, taking advantage of the administrative break-down incident
upon the Revolution. Their function was by revolutionary action to take
over and run the factories. The _Factory-Shop Committees_ also had
their All-Russian organisation, with a Central Committee at Petrograd,
which co-operated with the Trade Unions.

4. _Dumas._ The word _duma_ means roughly “deliberative body.” The old
Imperial Duma, which persisted six months after the Revolution, in a
democratised form, died a natural death in September, 1917. The _City
Duma_ referred to in this book was the reorganised Municipal Council,
often called “Municipal Self-Government.” It was elected by direct and
secret ballot, and its only reason for failure to hold the masses
during the Bolshevik Revolution was the general decline in influence of
all purely _political_ representation in the fact of the growing power
of organisations based on _economic_ groups.

5. _Zemstvos._ May be roughly translated “county councils.” Under the
Tsar semi-political, semi-social bodies with very little administrative
power, developed and controlled largely by intellectual Liberals among
the land-owning classes. Their most important function was education
and social service among the peasants. During the war the _Zemstvos_
gradually took over the entire feeding and clothing of the Russian
Army, as well as the buying from foreign countries, and work among the
soldiers generally corresponding to the work of the American Y. M. C.
A. at the Front. After the March Revolution the _Zemstvos_ were
democratized, with a view to making them the organs of local government
in the rural districts. But like the _City Dumas,_ they could not
compete with the _Soviets._

6. _Cooperatives._ These were the workers’ and peasants’ Consumers’
Cooperative societies, which had several million members all over
Russia before the Revolution. Founded by Liberals and “moderate”
Socialists, the Cooperative movement was not supported by the
revolutionary Socialist groups, because it was a substitute for the
complete transference of means of production and distribution into the
hands of the workers. After the March Revolution the _Cooperatives_
spread rapidly, and were dominated by Populist Socialists, Mensheviki
and Socialist Revolutionaries, and acted as a conservative political
force until the Bolshevik Revolution. However, it was the
_Cooperatives_ which fed Russia when the old structure of commerce and
transportation collapsed.

7. _Army Committees._ The _Army Committees_ were formed by the soldiers
at the front to combat the reactionary influence of the old regime
officers. Every company, regiment, brigade, division and corps had its
committee, over all of which was elected the _Army Committee._ The
_Central Army Committee_ cooperated with the General Staff. The
administrative break-down in the army incident upon the Revolution
threw upon the shoulders of the _Army Committees_ most of the work of
the Quartermaster’s Department, and in some cases, even the command of
troops.

8. _Fleet Committees._ The corresponding organisations in the Navy.

Central Committees

In the spring and summer of 1917, All-Russian conventions of every sort
of organisation were held at Petrograd. There were national congresses
of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Soviets, Trade Unions,
Factory-Shop Committees, Army and Fleet Committees—besides every branch
of the military and naval service, Cooperatives, Nationalities, etc.
Each of these conventions elected a Central Committee, or a Central
Executive Committee, to guard its particular interests at the seat of
Government. As the Provisional Government grew weaker, these Central
Committees were forced to assume more and more administrative powers.

The most important Central Committees mentioned in this book are:

_Union of Unions._ During the Revolution of 1905, Professor Miliukov
and other Liberals established unions of professional men—doctors,
lawyers, physicians, etc. These were united under one central
organisation, the _Union of Unions._ In 1905 the _Union of Unions_
acted with the revolutionary democracy; in 1917, however, the _Union of
Unions_ opposed the Bolshevik uprising, and united the Government
employees who went on strike against the authority of the Soviets.

_Tsay-ee-kah._ All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the Soviets
of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. So called from the initials of its
name.

_Tsentroflot._ “Centre-Fleet”—the Central Fleet Committee.

_Vikzhel._ All-Russian Central Committee of the Railway Workers’ Union.
So called from the initials of its name.

Other Organisations

_Red Guards._ The armed factory workers of Russia. The _Red Guards_
were first formed during the Revolution of 1905, and sprang into
existence again in the days of March, 1917, when a force was needed to
keep order in the city. At that time they were armed, and all efforts
of the Provisional Government to disarm them were more or less
unsuccessful. At every great crisis in the Revolution the _Red Guards_
appeared on the streets, untrained and undisciplined, but full of
Revolutionary zeal.

_White Guards._ Bourgeois volunteers, who emerged in the last stages of
the Revolution, to defend private property from the Bolshevik attempt
to abolish it. A great many of them were University students.

_Tekhintsi._ The so-called “Savage Division” in the army, made up of
Mohametan tribesmen from Central Asia, and personally devoted to
General Kornilov. The _Tekhintsi_ were noted for their blind obedience
and their savage cruelty in warfare.

_Death Battalions._ Or _Shock Battalions._ The Women’s Battalion is
known to the world as the _Death Battalion,_ but there were many _Death
Battalions_ composed of men. These were formed in the summer of 1917 by
Kerensky, for the purpose of strengthening the discipline and combative
fire of the army by heroic example. The _Death Battalions_ were
composed mostly of intense young patriots. These came for the most part
from among the sons of the propertied classes.

_Union of Officers._ An organisation formed among the reactionary
officers in the army to combat politically the growing power of the
Army Committees.

_Knights of St. George._ The Cross of St. George was awarded for
distinguished action in battle. Its holder automatically became a
_“Knight of St. George.”_ The predominant influence in the organisation
was that of the supporters of the military idea.

_Peasants’ Union._ In 1905, the _Peasants’ Union_ was a revolutionary
peasants’ organisation. In 1917, however, it had become the political
expression of the more prosperous peasants, to fight the growing power
and revolutionary aims of the Soviets of Peasants’ Deputies.

Chronology and Spelling

I have adopted in this book our Calendar throughout, instead of the
former Russian Calendar, which was thirteen days earlier.

In the spelling of Russian names and words, I have made no attempt to
follow any scientific rules for transliteration, but have tried to give
the spelling which would lead the English-speaking reader to the
simplest approximation of their pronunciation.

Sources

Much of the material in this book is from my own notes. I have also
relied, however, upon a heterogeneous file of several hundred assorted
Russian newspapers, covering almost every day of the time described, of
files of the English paper, the _Russian Daily News,_ and of the two
French papers, _Journal de Russie_ and _Entente._ But far more valuable
than these is the _Bulletin de la Presse_ issued daily by the French
Information Bureau in Petrograd, which reports all important
happenings, speeches and the comment of the Russian press. Of this I
have an almost complete file from the spring of 1917 to the end of
January, 1918.

Besides the foregoing, I have in my possession almost every
proclamation, decree and announcement posted on the walls of Petrograd
from the middle of September, 1917, to the end of January, 1918. Also
the official publication of all Government decrees and orders, and the
official Government publication of the secret treaties and other
documents discovered in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when the
Bolsheviki took it over.

Ten Days That Shook The World




Chapter I
Background


Toward the end of September, 1917, an alien Professor of Sociology
visiting Russia came to see me in Petrograd. He had been informed by
business men and intellectuals that the Revolution was slowing down.
The Professor wrote an article about it, and then travelled around the
country, visiting factory towns and peasant communities—where, to his
astonishment, the Revolution seemed to be speeding up. Among the
wage-earners and the land-working people it was common to hear talk of
“all land to the peasants, all factories to the workers.” If the
Professor had visited the front, he would have heard the whole Army
talking Peace….

The Professor was puzzled, but he need not have been; both observations
were correct. The property-owning classes were becoming more
conservative, the masses of the people more radical.

There was a feeling among business men and the _intelligentzia_
generally that the Revolution had gone quite far enough, and lasted too
long; that things should settle down. This sentiment was shared by the
dominant “moderate” Socialist groups, the _oborontsi_ (See App. I,
Sect. 1) Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, who supported the
Provisional Government of Kerensky.

On October 14th the official organ of the “moderate” Socialists said:

The drama of Revolution has two acts; the destruction of the old régime
and the creation of the new one. The first act has lasted long enough.
Now it is time to go on to the second, and to play it as rapidly as
possible. As a great revolutionist put it, “Let us hasten, friends, to
terminate the Revolution. He who makes it last too long will not gather
the fruits….”


Among the worker, soldier and peasant masses, however, there was a
stubborn feeling that the “first act” was not yet played out. On the
front the Army Committees were always running foul of officers who
could not get used to treating their men like human beings; in the rear
the Land Committees elected by the peasants were being jailed for
trying to carry out Government regulations concerning the land; and the
workmen (See App. I, Sect. 2) in the factories were fighting
black-lists and lockouts. Nay, furthermore, returning political exiles
were being excluded from the country as “undesirable” citizens; and in
some cases, men who returned from abroad to their villages were
prosecuted and imprisoned for revolutionary acts committed in 1905.

To the multiform discontent of the people the “moderate” Socialists had
one answer: Wait for the Constituent Assembly, which is to meet in
December. But the masses were not satisfied with that. The Constituent
Assembly was all well and good; but there were certain definite things
for which the Russian Revolution had been made, and for which the
revolutionary martyrs rotted in their stark Brotherhood Grave on Mars
Field, that must be achieved Constituent Assembly or no Constituent
Assembly: Peace, Land, and Workers’ Control of Industry. The
Constituent Assembly had been postponed and postponed—would probably be
postponed again, until the people were calm enough—perhaps to modify
their demands! At any rate, here were eight months of the Revolution
gone, and little enough to show for it….

Meanwhile the soldiers began to solve the peace question by simply
deserting, the peasants burned manor-houses and took over the great
estates, the workers sabotaged and struck…. Of course, as was natural,
the manufacturers, land-owners and army officers exerted all their
influence against any democratic compromise….

The policy of the Provisional Government alternated between ineffective
reforms and stern repressive measures. An edict from the Socialist
Minister of Labour ordered all the Workers’ Committees henceforth to
meet only after working hours. Among the troops at the front,
“agitators” of opposition political parties were arrested, radical
newspapers closed down, and capital punishment applied—to revolutionary
propagandists. Attempts were made to disarm the Red Guard. Cossacks
were sent to keep order in the provinces….

These measures were supported by the “moderate” Socialists and their
leaders in the Ministry, who considered it necessary to cooperate with
the propertied classes. The people rapidly deserted them, and went over
to the Bolsheviki, who stood for Peace, Land, and Workers’ Control of
Industry, and a Government of the working-class. In September, 1917,
matters reached a crisis. Against the overwhelming sentiment of the
country, Kerensky and the “moderate” Socialists succeeded in
establishing a Government of Coalition with the propertied classes; and
as a result, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries lost the
confidence of the people forever.

An article in _Rabotchi Put_ (Workers’ Way) about the middle of
October, entitled “The Socialist Ministers,” expressed the feeling of
the masses of the people against the “moderate” Socialists:

Here is a list of their services.(See App. I, Sect. 3)

Tseretelli: disarmed the workmen with the assistance of General
Polovtsev, checkmated the revolutionary soldiers, and approved of
capital punishment in the army.

Skobeliev: commenced by trying to tax the capitalists 100% of their
profits, and finished—and finished by an attempt to dissolve the
Workers’ Committees in the shops and factories.

Avksentiev: put several hundred peasants in prison, members of the Land
Committees, and suppressed dozens of workers’ and soldiers’ newspapers.

Tchernov: signed the “Imperial” manifest, ordering the dissolution of
the Finnish Diet.

Savinkov: concluded an open alliance with General Kornilov. If this
saviour of the country was not able to betray Petrograd, it was due to
reasons over which he had no control.

Zarudny: with the sanction of Alexinsky and Kerensky, put some of the
best workers of the Revolution, soldiers and sailors, in prison.

Nikitin: acted as a vulgar policeman against the Railway Workers.

Kerensky: it is better not to say anything about him. The list of his
services is too long….

A Congress of delegates of the Baltic Fleet, at Helsingfors, passed a
resolution which began as follows:

We demand the immediate removal from the ranks of the Provisional
Government of the “Socialist,” the political adventurer—Kerensky, as
one who is scandalising and ruining the great Revolution, and with it
the revolutionary masses, by his shameless political blackmail on
behalf of the bourgeoisie….


The direct result of all this was the rise of the Bolsheviki….

Since March, 1917, when the roaring torrents of workmen and soldiers
beating upon the Tauride Palace compelled the reluctant Imperial Duma
to assume the supreme power in Russia, it was the masses of the people,
workers, soldiers and peasants, which forced every change in the course
of the Revolution. They hurled the Miliukov Ministry down; it was their
Soviet which proclaimed to the world the Russian peace terms—“No
annexations, no indemnities, and the right of self-determination of
peoples”; and again, in July, it was the spontaneous rising of the
unorganised proletariat which once more stormed the Tauride Palace, to
demand that the Soviets take over the Government of Russia.

The Bolsheviki, then a small political sect, put themselves at the head
of the movement. As a result of the disastrous failure of the rising,
public opinion turned against them, and their leaderless hordes slunk
back into the Viborg Quarter, which is Petrograd’s _St. Antoine._ Then
followed a savage hunt of the Bolsheviki; hundreds were imprisoned,
among them Trotzky, Madame Kollontai and Kameniev; Lenin and Zinoviev
went into hiding, fugitives from justice; the Bolshevik papers were
suppressed. Provocators and reactionaries raised the cry that the
Bolsheviki were German agents, until people all over the world believed
it.

But the Provisional Government found itself unable to substantiate its
accusations; the documents proving pro-German conspiracy were
discovered to be forgeries;[1] and one by one the Bolsheviki were
released from prison without trial, on nominal or no bail-until only
six remained. The impotence and indecision of the ever-changing
Provisional Government was an argument nobody could refute. The
Bolsheviki raised again the slogan so dear to the masses, “All Power to
the Soviets!”—and they were not merely self-seeking, for at that time
the majority of the Soviets was “moderate” Socialist, their bitter
enemy.

[1] Part of the famous “Sisson Documents”.

But more potent still, they took the crude, simple desires of the
workers, soldiers and peasants, and from them built their immediate
programme. And so, while the _oborontsi_ Mensheviki and Socialist
Revolutionaries involved themselves in compromise with the bourgeoisie,
the Bolsheviki rapidly captured the Russian masses. In July they were
hunted and despised; by September the metropolitan workmen, the sailors
of the Baltic Fleet, and the soldiers, had been won almost entirely to
their cause. The September municipal elections in the large cities (See
App. I, Sect. 4) were significant; only 18 per cent of the returns were
Menshevik and Socialist Revolutionary, against more than 70 per cent in
June….

There remains a phenomenon which puzzled foreign observers: the fact
that the Central Executive Committees of the Soviets, the Central Army
and Fleet Committees,[2] and the Central Committees of some of the
Unions—notably, the Post and Telegraph Workers and the Railway
Workers—opposed the Bolsheviki with the utmost violence. These Central
Committees had all been elected in the middle of the summer, or even
before, when the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries had an
enormous following; and they delayed or prevented any new elections.
Thus, according to the constitution of the Soviets of Workers’ and
Soldiers’ Deputies, the All-Russian Congress _should have been called
in September;_ but the _Tsay-ee-kah_[2] would not call the meeting, on
the ground that the Constituent Assembly was only two months away, at
which time, they hinted, the Soviets would abdicate. Meanwhile, one by
one, the Bolsheviki were winning in the local Soviets all over the
country, in the Union branches and the ranks of the soldiers and
sailors. The Peasants’ Soviets remained still conservative, because in
the sluggish rural districts political consciousness developed slowly,
and the Socialist Revolutionary party had been for a generation the
party which had agitated among the peasants…. But even among the
peasants a revolutionary wing was forming. It showed itself clearly in
October, when the left wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries split off,
and formed a new political faction, the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.

[2] See Notes and Explanations.

At the same time there were signs everywhere that the forces of
reaction were gaining confidence.(See App. I, Sect. 5) At the Troitsky
Farce theatre in Petrograd, for example, a burlesque called _Sins of
the Tsar_ was interrupted by a group of Monarchists, who threatened to
lynch the actors for “insulting the Emperor.” Certain newspapers began
to sigh for a “Russian Napoleon.” It was the usual thing among
bourgeois _intelligentzia_ to refer to the Soviets of Workers’ Deputies
(Rabotchikh Deputatov) as _Sabatchikh_ Deputatov—Dogs’ Deputies.

On October 15th I had a conversation with a great Russian capitalist,
Stepan Georgevitch Lianozov, known as the “Russian Rockefeller”—a Cadet
by political faith.

“Revolution,” he said, “is a sickness. Sooner or later the foreign
powers must intervene here—as one would intervene to cure a sick child,
and teach it how to walk. Of course it would be more or less improper,
but the nations must realise the danger of Bolshevism in their own
countries—such contagious ideas as ‘proletarian dictatorship,’ and
‘world social revolution’… There is a chance that this intervention may
not be necessary. Transportation is demoralised, the factories are
closing down, and the Germans are advancing. Starvation and defeat may
bring the Russian people to their senses….”

Mr. Lianozov was emphatic in his opinion that whatever happened, it
would be impossible for merchants and manufacturers to permit the
existence of the workers’ Shop Committees, or to allow the workers any
share in the management of industry.

“As for the Bolsheviki, they will be done away with by one of two
methods. The Government can evacuate Petrograd, then a state of siege
declared, and the military commander of the district can deal with
these gentlemen without legal formalities…. _Or if, for example, the
Constituent Assembly manifests any Utopian tendencies, it can be
dispersed by force of arms….”_

Winter was coming on—the terrible Russian winter. I heard business men
speak of it so: “Winter was always Russia’s best friend. Perhaps now it
will rid us of Revolution.” On the freezing front miserable armies
continued to starve and die, without enthusiasm. The railways were
breaking down, food lessening, factories closing. The desperate masses
cried out that the bourgeoisie was sabotaging the life of the people,
causing defeat on the Front. Riga had been surrendered just after
General Kornilov said publicly, “Must we pay with Riga the price of
bringing the country to a sense of its duty?”[3]

[3] See “Kornilov to Brest-Litovsk” by John Reed. Boni and Liveright
N.Y., 1919.

To Americans it is incredible that the class war should develop to such
a pitch. But I have personally met officers on the Northern Front who
frankly preferred military disaster to cooperation with the Soldiers’
Committees. The secretary of the Petrograd branch of the Cadet party
told me that the break-down of the country’s economic life was part of
a campaign to discredit the Revolution. An Allied diplomat, whose name
I promised not to mention, confirmed this from his own knowledge. I
know of certain coal-mines near Kharkov which were fired and flooded by
their owners, of textile factories at Moscow whose engineers put the
machinery out of order when they left, of railroad officials caught by
the workers in the act of crippling locomotives….

A large section of the propertied classes preferred the Germans to the
Revolution—even to the Provisional Government—and didn’t hesitate to
say so. In the Russian household where I lived, the subject of
conversation at the dinner table was almost invariably the coming of
the Germans, bringing “law and order.”… One evening I spent at the
house of a Moscow merchant; during tea we asked the eleven people at
the table whether they preferred “Wilhelm or the Bolsheviki.” The vote
was ten to one for Wilhelm…

The speculators took advantage of the universal disorganisation to pile
up fortunes, and to spend them in fantastic revelry or the corruption
of Government officials. Foodstuffs and fuel were hoarded, or secretly
sent out of the country to Sweden. In the first four months of the
Revolution, for example, the reserve food-supplies were almost openly
looted from the great Municipal warehouses of Petrograd, until the
two-years’ provision of grain had fallen to less than enough to feed
the city for one month…. According to the official report of the last
Minister of Supplies in the Provisional Government, coffee was bought
wholesale in Vladivostok for two rubles a pound, and the consumer in
Petrograd paid thirteen. In all the stores of the large cities were
tons of food and clothing; but only the rich could buy them.

In a provincial town I knew a merchant family turned
speculator—_maradior_ (bandit, ghoul) the Russians call it. The three
sons had bribed their way out of military service. One gambled in
foodstuffs. Another sold illegal gold from the Lena mines to mysterious
parties in Finland. The third owned a controlling interest in a
chocolate factory, which supplied the local Cooperative societies—on
condition that the Cooperatives furnished him everything he needed. And
so, while the masses of the people got a quarter pound of black bread
on their bread cards, he had an abundance of white bread, sugar, tea,
candy, cake and butter…. Yet when the soldiers at the front could no
longer fight from cold, hunger and exhaustion, how indignantly did this
family scream “Cowards!”—how “ashamed” they were “to be Russians”… When
finally the Bolsheviki found and requisitioned vast hoarded stores of
provisions, what “Robbers” they were.

Beneath all this external rottenness moved the old-time Dark Forces,
unchanged since the fall of Nicholas the Second, secret still and very
active. The agents of the notorious _Okhrana_ still functioned, for and
against the Tsar, for and against Kerensky—whoever would pay…. In the
darkness, underground organisations of all sorts, such as the Black
Hundreds, were busy attempting to restore reaction in some form or
other.

In this atmosphere of corruption, of monstrous half-truths, one clear
note sounded day after day, the deepening chorus of the Bolsheviki,
“All Power to the Soviets! All power to the direct representatives of
millions on millions of common workers, soldiers, peasants. Land,
bread, an end to the senseless war, an end to secret diplomacy,
speculation, treachery…. The Revolution is in danger, and with it the
cause of the people all over the world!”

The struggle between the proletariat and the middle class, between the
Soviets and the Government, which had begun in the first March days,
was about to culminate. Having at one bound leaped from the Middle Ages
into the twentieth century, Russia showed the startled world two
systems of Revolution—the political and the social—in mortal combat.

What a revelation of the vitality of the Russian Revolution, after all
these months of starvation and disillusionment! The bourgeoisie should
have better known its Russia. Not for a long time in Russia will the
“sickness” of Revolution have run its course….

Looking back, Russia before the November insurrection seems of another
age, almost incredibly conservative. So quickly did we adapt ourselves
to the newer, swifter life; just as Russian politics swung bodily to
the Left—until the Cadets were outlawed as “enemies of the people,”
Kerensky became a “counter-revolutionist,” the “middle” Socialist
leaders, Tseretelli, Dan, Lieber, Gotz and Avksentiev, were too
reactionary for their following, and men like Victor Tchernov, and even
Maxim Gorky, belonged to the Right Wing….

About the middle of December, 1917, a group of Socialist Revolutionary
leaders paid a private visit to Sir George Buchanan, the British
Ambassador, and implored him not to mention the fact that they had been
there, because they were “considered too far Right.”

“And to think,” said Sir George. “One year ago my Government instructed
me not to receive Miliukov, because he was so dangerously Left!”

September and October are the worst months of the Russian
year—especially the Petrograd year. Under dull grey skies, in the
shortening days, the rain fell drenching, incessant. The mud underfoot
was deep, slippery and clinging, tracked everywhere by heavy boots, and
worse than usual because of the complete break-down of the Municipal
administration. Bitter damp winds rushed in from the Gulf of Finland,
and the chill fog rolled through the streets. At night, for motives of
economy as well as fear of Zeppelins, the street-lights were few and
far between; in private dwellings and apartment-houses the electricity
was turned on from six o’clock until midnight, with candles forty cents
apiece and little kerosene to be had. It was dark from three in the
afternoon to ten in the morning. Robberies and housebreakings
increased. In apartment houses the men took turns at all-night guard
duty, armed with loaded rifles. This was under the Provisional
Government.

Week by week food became scarcer. The daily allowance of bread fell
from a pound and a half to a pound, then three quarters, half, and a
quarter-pound. Toward the end there was a week without any bread at
all. Sugar one was entitled to at the rate of two pounds a month—if one
could get it at all, which was seldom. A bar of chocolate or a pound of
tasteless candy cost anywhere from seven to ten rubles—at least a
dollar. There was milk for about half the babies in the city; most
hotels and private houses never saw it for months. In the fruit season
apples and pears sold for a little less than a ruble apiece on the
street-corner….

For milk and bread and sugar and tobacco one had to stand in _queue_
long hours in the chill rain. Coming home from an all-night meeting I
have seen the _kvost_ (tail) beginning to form before dawn, mostly
women, some with babies in their arms…. Carlyle, in his _French
Revolution,_ has described the French people as distinguished above all
others by their faculty of standing in _queue._ Russia had accustomed
herself to the practice, begun in the reign of Nicholas the Blessed as
long ago as 1915, and from then continued intermittently until the
summer of 1917, when it settled down as the regular order of things.
Think of the poorly-clad people standing on the iron-white streets of
Petrograd whole days in the Russian winter! I have listened in the
bread-lines, hearing the bitter, acrid note of discontent which from
time to time burst up through the miraculous goodnature of the Russian
crowd….

Of course all the theatres were going every night, including Sundays.
Karsavina appeared in a new Ballet at the Marinsky, all dance-loving
Russia coming to see her. Shaliapin was singing. At the Alexandrinsky
they were reviving Meyerhold’s production of Tolstoy’s “Death of Ivan
the Terrible”; and at that performance I remember noticing a student of
the Imperial School of Pages, in his dress uniform, who stood up
correctly between the acts and faced the empty Imperial box, with its
eagles all erased…. The _Krivoye Zerkalo_ staged a sumptuous version of
Schnitzler’s “Reigen.”

Although the Hermitage and other picture galleries had been evacuated
to Moscow, there were weekly exhibitions of paintings. Hordes of the
female _intelligentzia_ went to hear lectures on Art, Literature and
the Easy Philosophies. It was a particularly active season for
Theosophists. And the Salvation Army, admitted to Russia for the first
time in history, plastered the walls with announcements of gospel
meetings, which amused and astounded Russian audiences….

As in all such times, the petty conventional life of the city went on,
ignoring the Revolution as much as possible. The poets made verses—but
not about the Revolution. The realistic painters painted scenes from
mediæval Russian history—anything but the Revolution. Young ladies from
the provinces came up to the capital to learn French and cultivate
their voices, and the gay young beautiful officers wore their
gold-trimmed crimson _bashliki_ and their elaborate Caucasian swords
around the hotel lobbies. The ladies of the minor bureaucratic set took
tea with each other in the afternoon, carrying each her little gold or
silver or jewelled sugar-box, and half a loaf of bread in her muff, and
wished that the Tsar were back, or that the Germans would come, or
anything that would solve the servant problem…. The daughter of a
friend of mine came home one afternoon in hysterics because the woman
street-car conductor had called her “Comrade!”

All around them great Russia was in travail, bearing a new world. The
servants one used to treat like animals and pay next to nothing, were
getting independent. A pair of shoes cost more than a hundred rubles,
and as wages averaged about thirty-five rubles a month the servants
refused to stand in _queue_ and wear out their shoes. But more than
that. In the new Russia every man and woman could vote; there were
working-class newspapers, saying new and startling things; there were
the Soviets; and there were the Unions. The _izvoshtchiki_
(cab-drivers) had a Union; they were also represented in the Petrograd
Soviet. The waiters and hotel servants were organised, and refused
tips. On the walls of restaurants they put up signs which read, “No
tips taken here—” or, “Just because a man has to make his living
waiting on table is no reason to insult him by offering him a tip!”

At the Front the soldiers fought out their fight with the officers, and
learned self-government through their committees. In the factories
those unique Russian organisations, the Factory-Shop Committees,[4]
gained experience and strength and a realisation of their historical
mission by combat with the old order. All Russia was learning to read,
and _reading_—politics, economics, history—because the people wanted to
_know…._ In every city, in most towns, along the Front, each political
faction had its newspaper—sometimes several. Hundreds of thousands of
pamphlets were distributed by thousands of organisations, and poured
into the armies, the villages, the factories, the streets. The thirst
for education, so long thwarted, burst with the Revolution into a
frenzy of expression. From Smolny Institute alone, the first six
months, went out every day tons, car-loads, train-loads of literature,
saturating the land. Russia absorbed reading matter like hot sand
drinks water, insatiable. And it was not fables, falsified history,
diluted religion, and the cheap fiction that corrupts—but social and
economic theories, philosophy, the works of Tolstoy, Gogol, and Gorky….

[4] See Notes and Explanations.

Then the Talk, beside which Carlyle’s “flood of French speech” was a
mere trickle. Lectures, debates, speeches—in theatres, circuses,
school-houses, clubs, Soviet meeting-rooms, Union headquarters,
barracks…. Meetings in the trenches at the Front, in village squares,
factories…. What a marvellous sight to see Putilovsky Zavod (the
Putilov factory) pour out its forty thousand to listen to Social
Democrats, Socialist Revolutionaries, Anarchists, anybody, whatever
they had to say, as long as they would talk! For months in Petrograd,
and all over Russia, every street-corner was a public tribune. In
railway trains, street-cars, always the spurting up of impromptu
debate, everywhere….

And the All-Russian Conferences and Congresses, drawing together the
men of two continents—conventions of Soviets, of Cooperatives,
Zemstvos,[5] nationalities, priests, peasants, political parties; the
Democratic Conference, the Moscow Conference, the Council of the
Russian Republic. There were always three or four conventions going on
in Petrograd. At every meeting, attempts to limit the time of speakers
voted down, and every man free to express the thought that was in him….

[5] See Notes and Explanations.

We came down to the front of the Twelfth Army, back of Riga, where
gaunt and bootless men sickened in the mud of desperate trenches; and
when they saw us they started up, with their pinched faces and the
flesh showing blue through their torn clothing, demanding eagerly, “Did
you bring anything to _read?”_

What though the outward and visible signs of change were many, what
though the statue of Catharine the Great before the Alexandrinsky
Theatre bore a little red flag in its hand, and others—somewhat
faded—floated from all public buildings; and the Imperial monograms and
eagles were either torn down or covered up; and in place of the fierce
_gorodovoye_ (city police) a mild-mannered and unarmed citizen militia
patrolled the streets—still, there were many quaint anachronisms.

For example, Peter the Great’s _Tabel o Rangov—_Table of Ranks—which he
rivetted upon Russia with an iron hand, still held sway. Almost
everybody from the school-boy up wore his prescribed uniform, with the
insignia of the Emperor on button and shoulder-strap. Along about five
o’clock in the afternoon the streets were full of subdued old gentlemen
in uniform, with portfolios, going home from work in the huge,
barrack-like Ministries or Government institutions, calculating perhaps
how great a mortality among their superiors would advance them to the
coveted _tchin_ (rank) of Collegiate Assessor, or Privy Councillor,
with the prospect of retirement on a comfortable pension, and possibly
the Cross of St. Anne….

There is the story of Senator Sokolov, who in full tide of Revolution
came to a meeting of the Senate one day in civilian clothes, and was
not admitted because he did not wear the prescribed livery of the
Tsar’s service!

It was against this background of a whole nation in ferment and
disintegration that the pageant of the Rising of the Russian Masses
unrolled….




Chapter II
The Coming Storm


In September General Kornilov marched on Petrograd to make himself
military dictator of Russia. Behind him was suddenly revealed the
mailed fist of the bourgeoisie, boldly attempting to crush the
Revolution. Some of the Socialist Ministers were implicated; even
Kerensky was under suspicion. (See App. II, Sect. 1) Savinkov, summoned
to explain to the Central Committee of his party, the Socialist
Revolutionaries, refused and was expelled. Kornilov was arrested by the
Soldiers’ Committees. Generals were dismissed, Ministers suspended from
their functions, and the Cabinet fell.

Kerensky tried to form a new Government, including the Cadets, party of
the bourgeoisie. His party, the Socialist Revolutionaries, ordered him
to exclude the Cadets. Kerensky declined to obey, and threatened to
resign from the Cabinet if the Socialists insisted. However, popular
feeling ran so high that for the moment he did not dare oppose it, and
a temporary Directorate of Five of the old Ministers, with Kerensky at
the head, assumed the power until the question should be settled.

The Kornilov affair drew together all the Socialist groups—“moderates”
as well as revolutionists—in a passionate impulse of self-defence.
There must be no more Kornilovs. A new Government must be created,
responsible to the elements supporting the Revolution. So the
_Tsay-ee-kah_ invited the popular organisations to send delegates to a
Democratic Conference, which should meet at Petrograd in September.

In the _Tsay-ee-kah_ three factions immediately appeared. The
Bolsheviki demanded that the All-Russian Congress of Soviets be
summoned, and that they take over the power. The “centre” Socialist
Revolutionaries, led by Tchernov, joined with the Left Socialist
Revolutionaries, led by Kamkov and Spiridonova, the Mensheviki
Internationalists under Martov, and the “centre” Mensheviki,[6]
represented by Bogdanov and Skobeliev, in demanding a purely Socialist
Government. Tseretelli, Dan and Lieber, at the head of the right wing
Mensheviki, and the right Socialist Revolutionaries under Avksentiev
and Gotz, insisted that the propertied classes must be represented in
the new Government.

[6] See Notes and Explanations.

Almost immediately the Bolsheviki won a majority in the Petrograd
Soviet, and the Soviets of Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and other cities
followed suit.

Alarmed, the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries in control of the
_Tsay-ee-kah_ decided that after all they feared the danger of Kornilov
less than the danger of Lenin. They revised the plan of representation
in the Democratic Conference, (See App. II, Sect. 2) admitting more
delegates from the Cooperative Societies and other conservative bodies.
Even this packed assembly at first voted for a _Coalition Government
without the Cadets._ Only Kerensky’s open threat of resignation, and
the alarming cries of the “moderate” Socialists that “the Republic is
in danger” persuaded the Conference, by a small majority, to declare in
favour of the principle of coalition with the bourgeoisie, and to
sanction the establishment of a sort of consultative Parliament,
without any legislative power, called the Provisional Council of the
Russian Republic. In the new Ministry the propertied classes
practically controlled, and in the Council of the Russian Republic they
occupied a disproportionate number of seats.

The fact is that the _Tsay-ee-kah_ no longer represented the rank and
file of the Soviets, and had illegally refused to call another
All-Russian Congress of Soviets, due in September. It had no intention
of calling this Congress or of allowing it to be called. Its official
organ, _Izviestia_ (News), began to hint that the function of the
Soviets was nearly at an end, (See App. II, Sect. 3) and that they
might soon be dissolved… At this time, too, the new Government
announced as part of its policy the liquidation of “irresponsible
organisations”—i.e. the Soviets.

The Bolsheviki responded by summoning the All-Russian Soviets to meet
at Petrograd on November 2, and take over the Government of Russia. At
the same time they withdrew from the Council of the Russian Republic,
stating that they would not participate in a “Government of Treason to
the People.” (See App. II, Sect. 4)

The withdrawal of the Bolsheviki, however, did not bring tranquillity
to the ill-fated Council. The propertied classes, now in a position of
power, became arrogant. The Cadets declared that the Government had no
legal right to declare Russia a republic. They demanded stern measures
in the Army and Navy to destroy the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Committees,
and denounced the Soviets. On the other side of the chamber the
Mensheviki Internationalists and the Left Socialist Revolutionaries
advocated immediate peace, land to the peasants, and workers’ control
of industry—practically the Bolshevik programme.

I heard Martov’s speech in answer to the Cadets. Stooped over the desk
of the tribune like the mortally sick man he was, and speaking in a
voice so hoarse it could hardly be heard, he shook his finger toward
the right benches:

“You call us defeatists; but the real defeatists are those who wait for
a more propitious moment to conclude peace, insist upon postponing
peace until later, until nothing is left of the Russian army, until
Russia becomes the subject of bargaining between the different
imperialist groups…. You are trying to impose upon the Russian people a
policy dictated by the interests of the bourgeoisie. The question of
peace should be raised without delay…. You will see then that not in
vain has been the work of those whom you call German agents, of those
Zimmerwaldists[7] who in all the lands have prepared the awakening of
the conscience of the democratic masses….”

[7] Members of the revoloutionary internationalist wing of the
Socialists of Europe, so-called because of their participation in the
International Conference held at Zimmerwald, Switzerland, in 1915.

Between these two groups the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries
wavered, irresistibly forced to the left by the pressure of the rising
dissatisfaction of the masses. Deep hostility divided the chamber into
irreconcilable groups.

This was the situation when the long-awaited announcement of the Allied
Conference in Paris brought up the burning question of foreign policy….

Theoretically all Socialist parties in Russia were in favour of the
earliest possible peace on democratic terms. As long ago as May, 1917,
the Petrograd Soviet, then under control of the Mensheviki and
Socialist Revolutionaries, had proclaimed the famous Russian
peace-conditions. They had demanded that the Allies hold a conference
to discuss war-aims. This conference had been promised for August; then
postponed until September; then until October; and now it was fixed for
November 10th.

The Provisional Government suggested two representatives—General
Alexeyev, reactionary military man, and Terestchenko, Minister of
Foreign Affairs. The Soviets chose Skobeliev to speak for them and drew
up a manifesto, the famous _nakaz_—(See App. II, Sect. 5) instructions.
The Provisional Government objected to Skobeliev and his _nakaz;_ the
Allied ambassadors protested and finally Bonar Law in the British House
of Commons, in answer to a question, responded coldly, “As far as I
know the Paris Conference will not discuss the aims of the war at all,
but only the methods of conducting it….”

At this the conservative Russian press was jubilant, and the Bolsheviki
cried, “See where the compromising tactics of the Mensheviki and
Socialist Revolutionaries have led them!”

Along a thousand miles of front the millions of men in Russia’s armies
stirred like the sea rising, pouring into the capital their hundreds
upon hundreds of delegations, crying “Peace! Peace!”

I went across the river to the Cirque Moderne, to one of the great
popular meetings which occurred all over the city, more numerous night
after night. The bare, gloomy amphitheatre, lit by five tiny lights
hanging from a thin wire, was packed from the ring up the steep sweep
of grimy benches to the very roof—soldiers, sailors, workmen, women,
all listening as if their lives depended upon it. A soldier was
speaking—from the Five Hundred and Forty-eight Division, wherever and
whatever that was:

“Comrades,” he cried, and there was real anguish in his drawn face and
despairing gestures. “The people at the top are always calling upon us
to sacrifice more, sacrifice more, while those who have everything are
left unmolested.

“We are at war with Germany. Would we invite German generals to serve
on our Staff? Well we’re at war with the capitalists too, and yet we
invite them into our Government….

“The soldier says, ‘Show me what I am fighting for. Is it
Constantinople, or is it free Russia? Is it the democracy, or is it the
capitalist plunderers? If you can prove to me that I am defending the
Revolution then I’ll go out and fight without capital punishment to
force me.’

“When the land belongs to the peasants, and the factories to the
workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we’ll know we have
something to fight for, and we’ll fight for it!”

In the barracks, the factories, on the street-corners, end less soldier
speakers, all clamouring for an end to the war, declaring that if the
Government did not make an energetic effort to get peace, the army
would leave the trenches and go home.

The spokesman for the Eighth Army:

“We are weak, we have only a few men left in each company. They must
give us food and boots and reinforcements, or soon there will be left
only empty trenches. Peace or supplies… either let the Government end
the war or support the Army….”

For the Forty-sixth Siberian Artillery:

“The officers will not work with our Committees, they betray us to the
enemy, they apply the death penalty to our agitators; and the
counter-revolutionary Government supports them. We thought that the
Revolution would bring peace. But now the Government forbids us even to
talk of such things, and at the same time doesn’t give us enough food
to live on, or enough ammunition to fight with….”

From Europe came rumours of peace at the expense of Russia. (See App.
II, Sect. 6)…

News of the treatment of Russian troops in France added to the
discontent. The First Brigade had tried to replace its officers with
Soldiers’ Committees, like their comrades at home, and had refused an
order to go to Salonika, demanding to be sent to Russia. They had been
surrounded and starved, and then fired on by artillery, and many
killed. (See App. II, Sect. 7)…

On October 29th I went to the white-marble and crimson hall of the
Marinsky palace, where the Council of the Republic sat, to hear
Terestchenko’s declaration of the Government’s foreign policy, awaited
with such terrible anxiety by all the peace-thirsty and exhausted land.

A tall, impeccably-dressed young man with a smooth face and high
cheek-bones, suavely reading his careful, non-committal speech. (See
App. II, Sect. 8) Nothing…. Only the same platitudes about crushing
German militarism with the help of the Allies—about the “state
interests” of Russia, about the “embarrassment” caused by Skobeliev’s
_nakaz._ He ended with the key-note:

“Russia is a great power. Russia will remain a great power, whatever
happens. We must all defend her, we must show that we are defenders of
a great ideal, and children of a great power.”

Nobody was satisfied. The reactionaries wanted a “strong” imperialist
policy; the democratic parties wanted an assurance that the Government
would press for peace…. I reproduce an editorial in _Rabotchi i Soldat_
(Worker and Soldier), organ of the Bolshevik Petrograd Soviet:

THE GOVERNMENT’S ANSWER TO THE TRENCHES


The most taciturn of our Ministers, Mr. Terestchenko, has actually told
the trenches the following:

1. We are closely united with our Allies. (Not with the peoples, but
with the Governments.)

2. There is no use for the democracy to discuss the possibility or
impossibility of a winter campaign. That will be decided by the
Governments of our Allies.

3. The 1st of July offensive was beneficial and a very happy affair.
(He did not mention the consequences.)

4. It is not true that our Allies do not care about us. The Minister
has in his possession very important declarations. (Declarations? What
about deeds? What about the behaviour of the British fleet? (See App.
II, Sect. 9) The parleying of the British king with exiled
counter-revolutionary General Gurko? The Minister did not mention all
this.)

5. The _nakaz_ to Skobeliev is bad; the Allies don’t like it and the
Russian diplomats don’t like it. In the Allied Conference we must all
‘speak one language.’

And is that all? That is all. What is the way out? The solution is,
faith in the Allies and in Terestchenko. When will peace come? When the
Allies permit.

That is how the Government replied to the trenches about peace!

Now in the background of Russian politics began to form the vague
outlines of a sinister power—the Cossacks. _Novaya Zhizn_ (New Life),
Gorky’s paper, called attention to their activities:

At the beginning of the Revolution the Cossacks refused to shoot down
the people. When Kornilov marched on Petrograd they refused to follow
him. From passive loyalty to the Revolution the Cossacks have passed to
an active political offensive (against it). From the back-ground of the
Revolution they have suddenly advanced to the front of the stage….


Kaledin, _ataman_ of the Don Cossacks, had been dismissed by the
Provisional Government for his complicity in the Kornilov affair. He
flatly refused to resign, and surrounded by three immense Cossack
armies lay at Novotcherkask, plotting and menacing. So great was his
power that the Government was forced to ignore his insubordination.
More than that, it was compelled formally to recognise the Council of
the Union of Cossack Armies, and to declare illegal the newly-formed
Cossack Section of the Soviets….

In the first part of October a Cossack delegation called upon Kerensky,
arrogantly insisting that the charges against Kaledin be dropped, and
reproaching the Minister-President for yielding to the Soviets.
Kerensky agreed to let Kaledin alone, and then is reported to have
said, “In the eyes of the Soviet leaders I am a despot and a tyrant….
As for the Provisional Government, not only does it not depend upon the
Soviets, but it considers it regrettable that they exist at all.”

At the same time another Cossack mission called upon the British
ambassador, treating with him boldly as representatives of “the free
Cossack people.”

In the Don something very like a Cossack Republic had been established.
The Kuban declared itself an independent Cossack State. The Soviets of
Rostov-on-Don and Yekaterinburg were dispersed by armed Cossacks, and
the headquarters of the Coal Miners’ Union at Kharkov raided. In all
its manifestations the Cossack movement was anti-Socialist and
militaristic. Its leaders were nobles and great land-owners, like
Kaledin, Kornilov, Generals Dutov, Karaulov and Bardizhe, and it was
backed by the powerful merchants and bankers of Moscow….

Old Russia was rapidly breaking up. In Ukraine, in Finland, Poland,
White Russia, the nationalist movements gathered strength and became
bolder. The local Governments, controlled by the propertied classes,
claimed autonomy, refusing to obey orders from Petrograd. At
Helsingfors the Finnish Senate declined to loan money to the
Provisional Government, declared Finland autonomous, and demanded the
withdrawal of Russian troops. The bourgeois Rada at Kiev extended the
boundaries of Ukraine until they included all the richest agricultural
lands of South Russia, as far east as the Urals, and began the
formation of a national army. Premier Vinnitchenko hinted at a separate
peace with Germany—and the Provisional Government was helpless.
Siberia, the Caucasus, demanded separate Constituent Assemblies. And in
all these countries there was the beginning of a bitter struggle
between the authorities and the local Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies….

Conditions were daily more chaotic. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers
were deserting the front and beginning to move in vast, aimless tides
over the face of the land. The peasants of Tambov and Tver Governments,
tired of waiting for the land, exasperated by the repressive measures
of the Government, were burning manor-houses and massacring
land-owners. Immense strikes and lock-outs convulsed Moscow, Odessa and
the coal-mines of the Don. Transportation was paralysed; the army was
starving and in the big cities there was no bread.

The Government, torn between the democratic and reactionary factions,
could do nothing: when forced to act it always supported the interests
of the propertied classes. Cossacks were sent to restore order among
the peasants, to break the strikes. In Tashkent, Government authorities
suppressed the Soviet. In Petrograd the Economic Council, established
to rebuild the shattered economic life of the country, came to a
deadlock between the opposing forces of capital and labour, and was
dissolved by Kerensky. The old régime military men, backed by Cadets,
demanded that harsh measures be adopted to restore discipline in the
Army and the Navy. In vain Admiral Verderevsky, the venerable Minister
of Marine, and General Verkhovsky, Minister of War, insisted that only
a new, voluntary, democratic discipline, based on cooperation with the
soldiers’ and sailors’ Committees, could save the army and navy. Their
recommendations were ignored.

The reactionaries seemed determined to provoke popular anger. The trial
of Kornilov was coming on. More and more openly the bourgeois press
defended him, speaking of him as “the great Russian patriot.” Burtzev’s
paper, _Obshtchee Dielo_ (Common Cause), called for a dictatorship of
Kornilov, Kaledin and Kerensky!

I had a talk with Burtzev one day in the press gallery of the Council
of the Republic. A small, stooped figure with a wrinkled face, eyes
near-sighted behind thick glasses, untidy hair and beard streaked with
grey.

“Mark my words, young man! What Russia needs is a Strong Man. We should
get our minds off the Revolution now and concentrate on the Germans.
Bunglers, bunglers, to defeat Kornilov; and back of the bunglers are
the German agents. Kornilov should have won….”

On the extreme right the organs of the scarcely-veiled Monarchists,
Purishkevitch’s _Narodny Tribun_ (People’s Tribune), _Novaya Rus_ (New
Russia), and _Zhivoye Slovo_ (Living Word), openly advocated the
extermination of the revolutionary democracy….

On the 23rd of October occurred the naval battle with a German squadron
in the Gulf of Riga. On the pretext that Petrograd was in danger, the
Provisional Government drew up plans for evacuating the capital. First
the great munitions works were to go, distributed widely throughout
Russia; and then the Government itself was to move to Moscow. Instantly
the Bolsheviki began to cry out that the Government was abandoning the
Red Capital in order to weaken the Revolution. Riga had been sold to
the Germans; now Petrograd was being betrayed!

The bourgeois press was joyful. “At Moscow,” said the Cadet paper
_Ryetch_ (Speech), “the Government can pursue its work in a tranquil
atmosphere, without being interfered with by anarchists.” Rodzianko,
leader of the right wing of the Cadet party, declared in _Utro Rossii_
(The Morning of Russia) that the taking of Petrograd by the Germans
would be a blessing, because it would destroy the Soviets and get rid
of the revolutionary Baltic Fleet:

Petrograd is in danger (he wrote). I say to myself, “Let God take care
of Petrograd.” They fear that if Petrograd is lost the central
revolutionary organisations will be destroyed. To that I answer that I
rejoice if all these organisations are destroyed; for they will bring
nothing but disaster upon Russia….
    With the taking of Petrograd the Baltic Fleet will also be
    destroyed…. But there will be nothing to regret; most of the
    battleships are completely demoralised….


In the face of a storm of popular disapproval the plan of evacuation
was repudiated.

Meanwhile the Congress of Soviets loomed over Russia like a
thunder-cloud, shot through with lightnings. It was opposed, not only
by the Government but by all the “moderate” Socialists. The Central
Army and Fleet Committees, the Central Committees of some of the Trade
Unions, the Peasants’ Soviets, but most of all the _Tsay-ee-kah_
itself, spared no pains to prevent the meeting. _Izviestia_ and _Golos
Soldata_ (Voice of the Soldier), newspapers founded by the Petrograd
Soviet but now in the hands of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ fiercely assailed it,
as did the entire artillery of the Socialist Revolutionary party press,
_Dielo Naroda_ (People’s Cause) and _Volia Naroda_ (People’s Will).

Delegates were sent through the country, messages flashed by wire to
committees in charge of local Soviets, to Army Committees, instructing
them to halt or delay elections to the Congress. Solemn public
resolutions against the Congress, declarations that the democracy was
opposed to the meeting so near the date of the Constituent Assembly,
representatives from the Front, from the Union of Zemstvos, the
Peasants’ Union, Union of Cossack Armies, Union of Officers, Knights of
St. George, Death Battalions,[8] protesting…. The Council of the
Russian Republic was one chorus of disapproval. The entire machinery
set up by the Russian Revolution of March functioned to block the
Congress of Soviets….

[8] See Notes and Explanations.

On the other hand was the shapeless will of the proletariat—the
workmen, common soldiers and poor peasants. Many local Soviets were
already Bolshevik; then there were the organisations of the industrial
workers, the _Fabritchno-Zavodskiye Comitieti_—Factory-Shop Committees;
and the insurgent Army and Fleet organisations. In some places the
people, prevented from electing their regular Soviet delegates, held
rump meetings and chose one of their number to go to Petrograd. In
others they smashed the old obstructionist committees and formed new
ones. A ground-swell of revolt heaved and cracked the crust which had
been slowly hardening on the surface of revolutionary fires dormant all
those months. Only an spontaneous mass-movement could bring about the
All-Russian Congress of Soviets….

Day after day the Bolshevik orators toured the barracks and factories,
violently denouncing “this Government of civil war.” One Sunday we
went, on a top-heavy steam tram that lumbered through oceans of mud,
between stark factories and immense churches, to _Obukhovsky Zavod,_ a
Government munitions-plant out on the Schlüsselburg Prospekt.

The meeting took place between the gaunt brick walls of a huge
unfinished building, ten thousand black-clothed men and women packed
around a scaffolding draped in red, people heaped on piles of lumber
and bricks, perched high upon shadowy girders, intent and
thunder-voiced. Through the dull, heavy sky now and again burst the
sun, flooding reddish light through the skeleton windows upon the mass
of simple faces upturned to us.

Lunatcharsky, a slight, student-like figure with the sensitive face of
an artist, was telling why the power must be taken by the Soviets.
Nothing else could guarantee the Revolution against its enemies, who
were deliberately ruining the country, ruining the army, creating
opportunities for a new Konilov.

A soldier from the Rumanian front, thin, tragical and fierce, cried,
“Comrades! We are starving at the front, we are stiff with cold. We are
dying for no reason. I ask the American comrades to carry word to
America, that the Russians will never give up their Revolution until
they die. We will hold the fort with all our strength until the peoples
of the world rise and help us! Tell the American workers to rise and
fight for the Social Revolution!”

Then came Petrovsky, slight, slow-voiced, implacable: “Now is the time
for deeds, not words. The economic situation is bad, but we must get
used to it. They are trying to starve us and freeze us. They are trying
to provoke us. But let them know that they can go too far—that if they
dare to lay their hands upon the organisations of the proletariat we
will sweep them away like scum from the face of the earth!”

The Bolshevik press suddenly expanded. Besides the two party papers,
_Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat_ (Soldier), there appeared a new paper for
the peasants, _Derevenskaya Byednota_ (Village Poorest), poured out in
a daily half-million edition; and on October 17th, _Rabotchi i Soldat._
Its leading article summed up the Bolshevik point of view:

The fourth year’s campaign will mean the annihilation of the army and
the country…. There is danger for the safety of Petrograd….
Counter-revolutionists rejoice in the people’s misfortunes…. The
peasants brought to desperation come out in open rebellion; the
landlords and Government authorities massacre them with punitive
expeditions; factories and mines are closing down, workmen are
threatened with starvation…. The bourgeoisie and its Generals want to
restore a blind discipline in the army…. Supported by the bourgeoisie,
the Kornilovtsi are openly getting ready to break up the meeting of the
Constituent Assembly….


The Kerensky Government is against the people. He will destroy the
country…. This paper stands for the people and by the people—the poor
classes, workers, soldiers and peasants. The people can only be saved
by the completion of the Revolution… and for this purpose the full
power must be in the hands of the Soviets….

This paper advocates the following: All power to the Soviets—both in
the capital and in the provinces.

Immediate truce on all fronts. An honest peace between peoples.

Landlord estates—without compensation—to the peasants.

Workers’ control over industrial production.

A faithfully and honestly elected Constituent Assembly.

It is interesting to reproduce here a passage from that same paper—the
organ of those Bolsheviki so well known to the world as German agents:

The German kaiser, covered with the blood of millions of dead people,
wants to push his army against Petrograd. Let us call to the German
workmen, soldiers and peasants, who want peace not less than we do, to…
stand up against this damned war!

This can be done only by a revolutionary Government, which would speak
really for the workmen, soldiers and peasants of Russia, and would
appeal over the heads of the diplomats directly to the German troops,
fill the German trenches with proclamations in the German language….
Our airmen would spread these proclamations all over Germany….

In the Council of the Republic the gulf between the two sides of the
chamber deepened day by day.

“The propertied classes,” cried Karelin, for the Left Socialist
Revolutionaries, “want to exploit the revolutionary machine of the
State to bind Russia to the war-chariot of the Allies! The
revolutionary parties are absolutely against this policy….”

Old Nicholas Tchaikovsky, representing the Populist Socialists, spoke
against giving the land to the peasants, and took the side of the
Cadets: “We must have immediately strong discipline in the army…. Since
the beginning of the war I have not ceased to insist that it is a crime
to undertake social and economic reforms in war-time. We are committing
that crime, and yet I am not the enemy of these reforms, because I am a
Socialist.”

Cries from the Left, “We don’t believe you!” Mighty applause from the
Right….

Adzhemov, for the Cadets, declared that there was no necessity to tell
the army what it was fighting for, since every soldier ought to realise
that the first task was to drive the enemy from Russian territory.

Kerensky himself came twice, to plead passionately for national unity,
once bursting into tears at the end. The assembly heard him coldly,
interrupting with ironical remarks.

Smolny Institute, headquarters of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and of the
Petrograd Soviet, lay miles out on the edge of the city, beside the
wide Neva. I went there on a street-car, moving snail-like with a
groaning noise through the cobbled, muddy streets, and jammed with
people. At the end of the line rose the graceful smoke-blue cupolas of
Smolny Convent outlined in dull gold, beautiful; and beside it the
great barracks like façade of Smolny Institute, two hundred yards long
and three lofty stories high, the Imperial arms carved hugely in stone
still insolent over the entrance….

Under the old régime a famous convent-school for the daughters of the
Russian nobility, patronised by the Tsarina herself, the Institute had
been taken over by the revolutionary organisations of workers and
soldiers. Within were more than a hundred huge rooms, white and bare,
on their doors enamelled plaques still informing the passerby that
within was “Ladies’ Class-room Number 4” or “Teachers’ Bureau”; but
over these hung crudely-lettered signs, evidence of the vitality of the
new order: “Central Committee of the Petrograd Soviet” and
_“Tsay-ee-kah”_ and “Bureau of Foreign Affairs”; “Union of Socialist
Soldiers,” “Central Committee of the All-Russian Trade Unions,”
“Factory-Shop Committees,” “Central Army Committee”; and the central
offices and caucus-rooms of the political parties….

The long, vaulted corridors, lit by rare electric lights, were thronged
with hurrying shapes of soldiers and workmen, some bent under the
weight of huge bundles of newspapers, proclamations, printed propaganda
of all sorts. The sound of their heavy boots made a deep and incessant
thunder on the wooden floor…. Signs were posted up everywhere:
“Comrades! For the sake of your health, preserve cleanliness!” Long
tables stood at the head of the stairs on every floor, and on the
landings, heaped with pamphlets and the literature of the different
political parties, for sale….

The spacious, low-ceilinged refectory downstairs was still a
dining-room. For two rubles I bought a ticket entitling me to dinner,
and stood in line with a thousand others, waiting to get to the long
serving-tables, where twenty men and women were ladling from immense
cauldrons cabbage soup, hunks of meat and piles of _kasha,_ slabs of
black bread. Five kopeks paid for tea in a tin cup. From a basket one
grabbed a greasy wooden spoon…. The benches along the wooden tables
were packed with hungry proletarians, wolfing their food, plotting,
shouting rough jokes across the room….

[Graphic, page 33: text of placard in russian, translation follows]

COMRADES FOR THE SAKE OF YOUR HEALTH, PRESERVE CLEANLINESS.


Upstairs was another eating-place, reserved for the _Tsay-ee-kah—_
though every one went there. Here could be had bread thickly buttered
and endless glasses of tea….

In the south wing on the second floor was the great hall of meetings,
the former ball-room of the Institute. A lofty white room lighted by
glazed-white chandeliers holding hundreds of ornate electric bulbs, and
divided by two rows of massive columns; at one end a dais, flanked with
two tall many-branched light standards, and a gold frame behind, from
which the Imperial portrait had been cut. Here on festal occasions had
been banked brilliant military and ecclesiastical uniforms, a setting
for Grand Duchesses….

Just across the hall outside was the office of the Credentials
Committee for the Congress of Soviets. I stood there watching the new
delegates come in—burly, bearded soldiers, workmen in black blouses, a
few long-haired peasants. The girl in charge—a member of Plekhanov’s
_Yedinstvo_[9] group—smiled contemptuously. “These are very different
people from the delegates to the first _Siezd_ (Congress),” she
remarked. “See how rough and ignorant they look! The Dark People….” It
was true; the depths of Russia had been stirred, and it was the bottom
which came uppermost now. The Credentials Committee, appointed by the
old _Tsay-ee-kah,_ was challenging delegate after delegate, on the
ground that they had been illegally elected. Karakhan, member of the
Bolshevik Central Committee, simply grinned. “Never mind,” he said,
“When the time comes we’ll see that you get your seats….”

[9] See Notes and Explanations.

_Rabotchi i Soldat_ said:

The attention of delegates to the new All-Russian Congress is called to
attempts of certain members of the Organising Committee to break up the
Congress, by asserting that it will not take place, and that delegates
had better leave Petrograd…. Pay no attention to these lies…. Great
days are coming….

It was evident that a quorum would not come together by November 2, so
the opening of the Congress was postponed to the 7th. But the whole
country was now aroused; and the Mensheviki and Socialist
Revolutionaries, realising that they were defeated, suddenly changed
their tactics and began to wire frantically to their provincial
organisations to elect as many “moderate” Socialist delegates as
possible. At the same time the Executive Committee of the Peasants’
Soviets issued an emergency call for a Peasants’ Congress, to meet
December 13th and offset whatever action the workers and soldiers might
take…

What would the Bolsheviki do? Rumours ran through the city that there
would be an armed “demonstration,” a _vystuplennie_—“coming out” of the
workers and soldiers. The bourgeois and reactionary press prophesied
insurrection, and urged the Government to arrest the Petrograd Soviet,
or at least to prevent the meeting of the Congress. Such sheets as
_Novaya Rus_ advocated a general Bolshevik massacre.

Gorky’s paper, _Novaya Zhizn,_ agreed with the Bolsheviki that the
reactionaries were attempting to destroy the Revolution, and that if
necessary they must be resisted by force of arms; but all the parties
of the revolutionary democracy must present a united front.

As long as the democracy has not organised its principal forces, so
long as the resistance to its influence is still strong, there is no
advantage in passing to the attack. But if the hostile elements appeal
to force, then the revolutionary democracy should enter the battle to
seize the power, and it will be sustained by the most profound strata
of the people….

Gorky pointed out that both reactionary and Government newspapers were
inciting the Bolsheviki to violence. An insurrection, however, would
prepare the way for a new Kornilov. He urged the Bolsheviki to deny the
rumours. Potressov, in the Menshevik _Dien_ (Day), published a
sensational story, accompanied by a map, which professed to reveal the
secret Bolshevik plan of campaign.

As if by magic, the walls were covered with warnings, (See App. II,
Sect. 10) proclamations, appeals, from the Central Committees of the
“moderate” and conservative factions and the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ denouncing
any “demonstrations,” imploring the workers and soldiers not to listen
to agitators. For instance, this from the Military Section of the
Socialist Revolutionary party:

Again rumours are spreading around the town of an intended
_vystuplennie._ What is the source of these rumours? What organisation
authorises these agitators who preach insurrection? The Bolsheviki, to
a question addressed to them in the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ denied that they
have anything to do with it…. But these rumours themselves carry with
them a great danger. It may easily happen that, not taking into
consideration the state of mind of the majority of the workers,
soldiers and peasants, individual hot-heads will call out part of the
workers and soldiers on the streets, inciting them to an uprising…. In
this fearful time through which revolutionary Russia is passing, any
insurrection can easily turn into civil war, and there can result from
it the destruction of all organisations of the proletariat, built up
with so much labour…. The counter-revolutionary plotters are planning
to take advantage of this insurrection to destroy the Revolution, open
the front to Wilhelm, and wreck the Constituent Assembly…. Stick
stubbornly to your posts! Do not come out!

On October 28th, in the corridors of Smolny, I spoke with Kameniev, a
little man with a reddish pointed beard and Gallic gestures. He was not
at all sure that enough delegates would come. “If there _is_ a
Congress,” he said, “it will represent the overwhelming sentiment of
the people. If the majority is Bolshevik, as I think it will be, we
shall demand that the power be given to the Soviets, and the
Provisional Government must resign….”

Volodarsky, a tall, pale youth with glasses and a bad complexion, was
more definite. “The ‘Lieber-Dans’ and the other compromisers are
sabotaging the Congress. If they succeed in preventing its
meeting,—well, then we are realists enough not to depend on _that!_”

Under date of October 29th I find entered in my notebook the following
items culled from the newspapers of the day:

Moghilev (General Staff Headquarters). Concentration here of loyal
Guard Regiments, the Savage Division, Cossacks and Death Battalions.

The _yunkers_ of the Officers’ Schools of Pavlovsk, Tsarskoye Selo and
Peterhof ordered by the Government to be ready to come to Petrograd.
Oranienbaum _yunkers_ arrive in the city.

Part of the Armoured Car Division of the Petrograd garrism stationed in
the Winter Palace.


Upon orders signed by Trotzky, several thousand rifles delivered by the
Government Arms Factory at Sestroretzk to delegates of the Petrograd
workmen.

At a meeting of the City Militia of the Lower Liteiny Quarter, a
resolution demanding that all power be given to the Soviets.

This is just a sample of the confused events of those feverish days,
when everybody knew that something was going to happen, but nobody knew
just what.

At a meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in Smolny, the night of October
30th, Trotzky branded the assertions of the bourgeois press that the
Soviet contemplated armed insurention as “an attempt of the
reactionaries to discredit and wreck the Congress of Soviets…. The
Petrograd Soviet,” he declared, “had not ordered any _uystuplennie._ If
it is necessary we shall do so, and we will be supported by the
Petrogruad garrison…. They (the Government) are preparing a
counter-revolution; and we shall answer with an offensive which will be
merciless and decisive.”

It is true that the Petrograd Soviet had not ordered a demonstration,
but the Central Committee of the Bolshevik party was considering the
question of insurrection. All night long the 23d they met. There were
present all the party intellectuals, the leaders—and delegates of the
Petrograd workers and garrison. Alone of the intellectuals Lenin and
Trotzky stood for insurrection. Even the military men opposed it. A
vote was taken. Insurrection was defeated!

Then arose a rough workman, his face convulsed with rage. “I speak for
the Petrograd proletariat,” he said, harshly. “We are in favour of
insurrection. Have it your own way, but I tell you now that if you
allow the Soviets to be destroyed, _we’re through with you!_” Some
soldiers joined him…. And after that they voted again—insurrection
won….

However, the right wing of the Bolsheviki, led by Riazanov, Kameniev
and Zinoviev, continued to campaign against an armed rising. On the
morning of October 31st appeared in _Rabotchi Put_ the first instalment
of Lenin’s “Letter to the Comrades,” (See App. II, Sect. 11) one of the
most audacious pieces of political propaganda the world has ever seen.
In it Lenin seriously presented the arguments in favour of
insurrection, taking as text the objections of Kameniev and Riazonov.

“Either we must abandon our slogan, ‘All Power to the Soviets,’” he
wrote, “or else we must make an insurrection. There is no middle
course….”

That same afternoon Paul Miliukov, leader of the Cadets, made a
brilliant, bitter speech (See App. II, Sect. 12) in the Council of the
Republic, branding the Skobeliev _nakaz_ as pro-German, declaring that
the “revolutionary democracy” was destroying Russia, sneering at
Terestchenko, and openly declaring that he preferred German diplomacy
to Russian…. The Left benches were one roaring tumult all through….

On its part the Government could not ignore the significance of the
success of the Bolshevik propaganda. On the 29th joint commission of
the Government and the Council of the Republic hastily drew up two
laws, one for giving the land temporarily to the peasants, and the
other for pushing an energetic foreign policy of peace. The next day
Kerensky suspended capital punishment in the army. That same afternoon
was opened with great ceremony the first session of the new “Commission
for Strengthening the Republican Régime and Fighting Against Anarchy
and Counter-Revolution”—of which history shows not the slightest
further trace…. The following morning with two other correspondents I
interviewed Kerensky (See App. II, Sect. 13)—the last time he received
journalists.

“The Russian people,” he said, bitterly, “are suffering from economic
fatigue—and from disillusionment with the Allies! The world thinks that
the Russian Revolution is at an end. Do not be mistaken. The Russian
Revolution is just beginning….” Words more prophetic, perhaps, than he
knew.

Stormy was the all-night meeting of the Petrograd Soviet the 30th of
October, at which I was present. The “moderate” Socialist
intellectuals, officers, members of Army Committees, the _Tsay-ee-kah,_
were there in force. Against them rose up workmen, peasants and common
soldiers, passionate and simple.

A peasant told of the disorders in Tver, which he said were caused by
the arrest of the Land Committees. “This Kerensky is nothing but a
shield to the _pomieshtchiki_ (landowners),” he cried. “They know that
at the Constituent Assembly we will take the land anyway, so they are
trying to destroy the Constituent Assembly!”

A machinist from the Putilov works described how the superintendents
were closing down the departments one by one on the pretext that there
was no fuel or raw materials. The Factory-Shop Committee, he declared,
had discovered huge hidden supplies.

“It is a _provocatzia,”_ said he. “They want to starve us—or drive us
to violence!”

Among the soldiers one began, “Comrades! I bring you greetings from the
place where men are digging their graves and call them trenches!”

Then arose a tall, gaunt young soldier, with flashing eyes, met with a
roar of welcome. It was Tchudnovsky, reported killed in the July
fighting, and now risen from the dead.

“The soldier masses no longer trust their officers. Even the Army
Committees, who refused to call a meeting of our Soviet, betrayed us….
The masses of the soldiers want the Constituent Assembly to be held
exactly when it was called for, and those who dare to postpone it will
be cursed—and not only platonic curses either, for the Army has guns
too….”

He told of the electoral campaign for the Constituent now raging in the
Fifth Army. “The officers, and especially the Mensheviki and the
Socialist Revolutionaries, are trying deliberately to cripple the
Bolsheviki. Our papers are not allowed to circulate in the trenches.
Our speakers are arrested—”

“Why don’t you speak about the lack of bread?” shouted another soldier.

“Man shall not live by bread alone,” answered Tchudnovsky, sternly….

Followed him an officer, delegate from the Vitebsk Soviet, a Menshevik
_oboronetz._ “It isn’t the question of who has the power. The trouble
is not with the Government, but with the war…. and the war must be won
before any change—” At this, hoots and ironical cheers. “These
Bolshevik agitators are demagogues!” The hall rocked with laughter.
“Let us for a moment forget the class struggle—” But he got no farther.
A voice yelled, “Don’t you wish we would!”

Petrograd presented a curious spectacle in those days. In the factories
the committee-rooms were filled with stacks of rifles, couriers came
and went, the Red Guard[10] drilled…. In all the barracks meetings
every night, and all day long interminable hot arguments. On the
streets the crowds thickened toward gloomy evening, pouring in slow
voluble tides up and down the Nevsky, fighting for the newspapers….
Hold-ups increased to such an extent that it was dangerous to walk down
side streets…. On the Sadovaya one afternoon I saw a crowd of several
hundred people beat and trample to death a soldier caught stealing….
Mysterious individuals circulated around the shivering women who waited
in _queue_ long cold hours for bread and milk, whispering that the Jews
had cornered the food supply—and that while the people starved, the
Soviet members lived luxuriously….

[10] See Notes and Explanations.

At Smolny there were strict guards at the door and the outer gates,
demanding everybody’s pass. The committee-rooms buzzed and hummed all
day and all night, hundreds of soldiers and workmen slept on the floor,
wherever they could find room. Upstairs in the great hall a thousand
people crowded to the uproarious sessions of the Petrograd Soviet….

Gambling clubs functioned hectically from dusk to dawn, with champagne
flowing and stakes of twenty thousand rubles. In the centre of the city
at night prostitutes in jewels and expensive furs walked up and down,
crowded the cafés….

Monarchist plots, German spies, smugglers hatching schemes….

And in the rain, the bitter chill, the great throbbing city under grey
skies rushing faster and faster toward—what?




Chapter III
On the Eve


In the relations of a weak Government and a rebellious people there
comes a time when every act of the authorities exasperates the masses,
and every refusal to act excites their contempt….

The proposal to abandon Petrograd raised a hurricane; Kerensky’s public
denial that the Government had any such intention was met with hoots of
derision.

Pinned to the wall by the pressure of the Revolution (cried _Rabotchi
Put),_ the Government of “provisional” bourgeois tries to get free by
giving out lying assurances that it never thought of fleeing from
Petrograd, and that it didn’t wish to surrender the capital….

In Kharkov thirty thousand coal miners organised, adopting the preamble
of the I. W. W. constitution: “The working class and the employing
class have nothing in common.” Dispersed by Cossacks, some were locked
out by the mine-owners, and the rest declared a general strike.
Minister of Commerce and Industry Konovalov appointed his assistant,
Orlov, with plenary powers, to settle the trouble. Orlov was hated by
the miners. But the _Tsay-ee-kah_ not only supported his appointment,
but refused to demand that the Cossacks be recalled from the Don
Basin….

This was followed by the dispersal of the Soviet at Kaluga. The
Bolsheviki, having secured a majority in the Soviet, set free some
political prisoners. With the sanction of the Government Commissar the
Municipal Duma called in troops from Minsk, and bombarded the Soviet
headquarters with artillery. The Bolsheviki yielded, but as they left
the building Cossacks attacked them, crying, “This is what we’ll do to
all the other Bolshevik Soviets, including those of Moscow and
Petrograd!” This incident sent a wave of panic rage throughout Russia….

In Petrograd was ending a regional Congress of Soviets of the North,
presided over by the Bolshevik Krylenko. By an immense majority it
resolved that all power should be assumed by the All-Russian Congress;
and concluded by greeting the Bolsheviki in prison, bidding them
rejoice, for the hour of their liberation was at hand. At the same time
the first All-Russian Conference of Factory-Shop Committees (See App.
III, Sect. 1) declared emphatically for the Soviets, and continued
significantly,

After liberating themselves politically from Tsardom, the working-class
wants to see the democratic régime triumphant in the sphere of its
productive activity. This is best expressed by Workers’ Control over
industrial production, which naturally arose in the atmosphere of
economic decomposition created by the criminal policy of the dominating
classes….

The Union of Railwaymen was demanding the resignation of Liverovsky,
Minister of Ways and Communications….

In the name of the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ Skobeliev insisted that the _nakaz_
be presented at the Allied Conference, and formally protested against
the sending of Terestchenko to Paris. Terestchenko offered to resign….

General Verkhovsky, unable to accomplish his reorganisation of the
army, only came to Cabinet meetings at long intervals….

On November 3d Burtzev’s _Obshtchee Dielo_ came out with great
headlines:

Citizens! Save the fatherland!

I have just learned that yesterday, at a meeting of the Commission for
National Defence, Minister of War General Verkhovsky, one of the
principal persons responsible for the fall of Kornilov, proposed to
sign a separate peace, independently of the Allies.

That is treason to Russia!

Terestchenko declared that the Provisional Government had not even
examined Verkhovsky’s proposition.

“You might think,” said Terestchenko, “that we were in a madhouse!”

The members of the Commission were astounded at the General’s words.

General Alexeyev wept.

No! It is not madness! It is worse. It is direct treason to Russia!

Kerensky, Terestchenko and Nekrassov must immediately answer us
concerning the words of Verkhovsky.

Citizens, arise!

Russia is being sold!

Save her!

What Verkhovsky really said was that the Allies must be pressed to
offer peace, because the Russian army could fight no longer….

Both in Russia and abroad the sensation was tremendous. Verkhovsky was
given “indefinite leave of absence for ill-health,” and left the
Government. _Obshtchee Dielo_ was suppressed….

Sunday, November 4th, was designated as the Day of the Petrograd
Soviet, with immense meetings planned all over the city, ostensibly to
raise money for the organisation and the press; really, to make a
demonstration of strength. Suddenly it was announced that on the same
day the Cossacks would hold a _Krestny Khod_—Procession of the Cross—in
honour of the Ikon of 1612, through whose miraculous intervention
Napoleon had been driven from Moscow. The atmosphere was electric; a
spark might kindle civil war. The Petrograd Soviet issued a manifesto,
headed “Brothers—Cossacks!”

You, Cossacks, are being incited against us, workers and soldiers. This
plan of Cain is being put into operation by our common enemies, the
oppressors, the privileged classes—generals, bankers, landlords, former
officials, former servants of the Tsar…. We are hated by all grafters,
rich men, princes, nobles, generals, including your Cossack generals.
They are ready at any moment to destroy the Petrograd Soviet and crush
the Revolution….

On the 4th of November somebody is organising a Cossack religious
procession. It is a question of the free consciousness of every
individual whether he will or will not take part in this procession. We
do not interfere in this matter, nor do we obstruct anybody…. However,
we warn you, Cossacks! Look out and see to it that under the pretext of
a _Krestni Khod,_ your Kaledins do not instigate you against workmen,
against soldiers….

The procession was hastily called off….

In the barracks and the working-class quarters of the town the
Bolsheviki were preaching, “All Power to the Soviets!” and agents of
the Dark Forces were urging the people to rise and slaughter the Jews,
shop-keepers, Socialist leaders….

On one side the Monarchist press, inciting to bloody repression—on the
other Lenin’s great voice roaring, “Insurrection!…. We cannot wait any
longer!”

Even the bourgeois press was uneasy. (See App. III, Sect. 2) _Birjevya
Viedomosti_ (Exchange Gazette) called the Bolshevik propaganda an
attack on “the most elementary principles of society—personal security
and the respect for private property.”

[Graphic, page 46: Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet]

Appeal of the Petrograd Soviet to the Cosacks to call off their
_Krestny Khod_—the religious procession planned for November 4th (our
calendar). “Brothers—Cossacks!” it begins. “The Petrograd Soviet of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies addresses you.”

But it was the “moderate” Socialist journals which were the most
hostile. (See App. III, Sect. 3) “The Bolsheviki are the most dangerous
enemies of the Revolution,” declared _Dielo Naroda._ Said the Menshevik
_Dien,_ “The Government ought to defend itself and defend us.”
Plekhanov’s paper, _Yedinstvo_ (Unity) (See App. III, Sect. 4), called
the attention of the Government to the fact that the Petrograd workers
were being armed, and demanded stern measures against the Bolsheviki.

Daily the Government seemed to become more helpless. Even the Municipal
administration broke down. The columns of the morning papers were
filled with accounts of the most audacious robberies and murders, and
the criminals were unmolested.

On the other hand armed workers patrolled the streets at night, doing
battle with marauders and requisitioning arms wherever they found them.

On the first of November Colonel Polkovnikov, Military Commander of
Petrograd, issued a proclamation:

Despite the difficult days through which the country is passing,
irresponsible appeals to armed demonstrations and massacres are still
being spread around Petrograd, and from day to day robbery and disorder
increase.

This state of things is disorganising the life of the citizens, and
hinders the systematic work of the Government and the Municipal
Institutions.

In full consciousness of my responsibility and my duty before my
country, I command:

1. Every military unit, in accordance with special instructions and
within the territory of its garrison, to afford every assistance to the
Municipality, to the Commissars, and to the militia, in the guarding of
Government institutions.

2. The organisation of patrols, in co-operation with the District
Commander and the representatives of the city militia, and the taking
of measures for the arrest of criminals and deserters.

3. The arrest of all persons entering barracks and inciting to armed
demonstrations and massacres, and their delivery to the headquarters of
the Second Commander of the city.

4. To suppress any armed demonstration or riot at its start, with all
armed forces at hand.

5. To afford assistance to the Commissars in preventing unwarranted
searches in houses and unwarranted arrests.

6. To report immediately all that happens in the district under charge
to the Staff of the Petrograd Military District.

I call upon all Army Committees and organisations to afford their help
to the commanders in fulfilment of the duties with which they are
charged.

In the Council of the Republic Kerensky declared that the Government
was fully aware of the Bolshevik preparations, and had sufficient force
to cope with any demonstration. (See App. III, Sect. 5) He accused
_Novaya Rus_ and _Robotchi Put_ of both doing the same kind of
subversive work. “But owing to the absolute freedom of the press,” he
added, “the Government is not in a position to combat printed
lies.[11]….” Declaring that these were two aspects of the same
propaganda, which had for its object the counter-revolution, so
ardently desired by the Dark Forces, he went on:

“I am a doomed man, it doesn’t matter what happens to me, and I have
the audacity to say that the other enigmatic part is that of the
unbelievable provocation created in the city by the Bolsheviki!”

[11] This was not quite candid. The Provisional Government had
suppressed Bolshevik papers before, in July, and was planning to do so
again.

On November 2d only fifteen delegates to the Congress of Soviets had
arrived. Next day there were a hundred, and the morning after that a
hundred and seventy-five, of whom one hundred and three were
Bolsheviki…. Four hundred constituted a quorum, and the Congress was
only three days off….

I spent a great deal of time at Smolny. It was no longer easy to get
in. Double rows of sentries guarded the outer gates, and once inside
the front door there was a long line of people waiting to be let in,
four at a time, to be questioned as to their identity and their
business. Passes were given out, and the pass system was changed every
few hours; for spies continually sneaked through….

[Graphic, page 49: Russian Pass to Reed, translation follows]

Pass to Smolny Institute, issued by the Military Revolutionary
Committee, giving me the right of entry at any time. (Translation)

  Military Revolutionary Committee
           attached to the
  Petrograd Soviet of W. & S. D.
        Commandant’s office
  16th November, 1917
               No. 955
           Smolny Institute

PASS


Is given by the present to John Reed, correspondent of the American
Socialist press, until December 1, the right of free entry into Smolny
Institute. Commandant Adjutant

One day as I came up to the outer gate I saw Trotzky and his wife just
ahead of me. They were halted by a soldier. Trotzky searched through
his pockets, but could find no pass.

“Never mind,” he said finally. “You know me. My name is Trotzky.”

“You haven’t got a pass,” answered the soldier stubbornly.

“You cannot go in. Names don’t mean anything to me.”

“But I am the president of the Petrograd Soviet.”

“Well,” replied the soldier, “if you’re as important a fellow as that
you must at least have one little paper.”

Trotzky was very patient. “Let me see the Commandant,” he said. The
soldier hesitated, grumbling something about not wanting to disturb the
Commandant for every devil that came along. He beckoned finally to the
soldier in command of the guard. Trotzky explained matters to him. “My
name is Trotzky,” he repeated.

“Trotzky?” The other soldier scratched his head. “I’ve heard the name
somewhere,” he said at length. “I guess it’s all right. You can go on
in, comrade….”

In the corridor I met Karakhan, member of the Bolshevik Central
Committee, who explained to me what the new Government would be like.

“A loose organisation, sensitive to the popular will as expressed
through the Soviets, allowing local forces full play. At present the
Provisional Government obstructs the action of the local democratic
will, just as the Tsar’s Government did. The initiative of the new
society shall come from below…. The form of the Government will be
modelled on the Constitution of the Russian Social Democratic Labour
Party. The new _Tsay-ee-kah,_ responsible to frequent meetings of the
All-Russian Congress of Soviets, will be the parliament; the various
Ministries will be headed by _collegia_—committees—instead of by
Ministers, and will be directly responsible to the Soviets….”

On October 30th, by appointment, I went up to a small, bare room in the
attic of Smolny, to talk with Trotzky. In the middle of the room he sat
on a rough chair at a bare table. Few questions from me were necessary;
he talked rapidly and steadily, for more than an hour. The substance of
his talk, in his own words, I give here:

“The Provisional Government is absolutely powerless. The bourgeoisie is
in control, but this control is masked by a fictitious coalition with
the _oborontsi_ parties. Now, during the Revolution, one sees revolts
of peasants who are tired of waiting for their promised land; and all
over the country, in all the toiling classes, the same disgust is
evident. This domination by the bourgeoisie is only possible by means
of civil war. The Kornilov method is the only way by which the
bourgeoisie can control. But it is force which the bourgeoisie lacks….
The Army is with us. The conciliators and pacifists, Socialist
Revolutionaries and Mensheviki, have lost all authority—because the
struggle between the peasants and the landlords, between the workers
and the employers, between the soldiers and the officers, has become
more bitter, more irreconcilable than ever. Only by the concerted
action of the popular mass, only by the victory of proletarian
dictatorship, can the Revolution be achieved and the people saved….

“The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the people—perfect
in their revolutionary experience, in their ideas and objects. Based
directly upon the army in the trenches, the workers in the factories,
and the peasants in the fields, they are the backbone of the
Revolution.

“There has been an attempt to create a power without the Soviets—and
only powerlessness has been created. Counter-revolutionary schemes of
all sorts are now being hatched in the corridors of the Council of the
Russian Republic. The Cadet party represents the counter-revolution
militant. On the other side, the Soviets represent the cause of the
people. Between the two camps there are no groups of serious
importance…. It is the _lutte finale._ The bourgeois counter-revolution
organises all its forces and waits for the moment to attack us. Our
answer will be decisive. We will complete the work scarcely begun in
March, and advanced during the Kornilov affair….”

He went on to speak of the new Government’s foreign policy:

“Our first act will be to call for an immediate armistice on all
fronts, and a conference of peoples to discuss democratic peace terms.
The quantity of democracy we get in the peace settlement depends on the
quantity of revolutionary response there is in Europe. If we create
here a Government of the Soviets, that will be a powerful factor for
immediate peace in Europe; for this Government will address itself
directly and immediately to all peoples, over the heads of their
Governments, proposing an armistice. At the moment of the conclusion of
peace the pressure of the Russian Revolution will be in the direction
of ‘no annexations, no indemnities, the right of self-determination of
peoples,’ and a _Federated Republic of Europe._…

“At the end of this war I see Europe recreated, not by the diplomats,
but by the proletariat. The Federated Republic of Europe—the United
States of Europe—that is what must be. National autonomy no longer
suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national
frontiers. If Europe is to remain split into national groups, then
Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic of
Europe can give peace to the world.” He smiled—that fine, faintly
ironical smile of his. “But without the action of the European masses,
these ends cannot be realised—now….”

Now while everybody was waiting for the Bolsheviki to appear suddenly
on the streets one morning and begin to shoot down people with white
collars on, the real insurrection took its way quite naturally and
openly.

The Provisional Government planned to send the Petrograd garrison to
the front.

The Petrograd garrison numbered about sixty thousand men, who had taken
a prominent part in the Revolution. It was they who had turned the tide
in the great days of March, created the Soviets of Soldiers’ Deputies,
and hurled back Kornilov from the gates of Petrograd.

Now a large part of them were Bolsheviki. When the Provisional
Government talked of evacuating the city, it was the Petrograd garrison
which answered, “If you are not capable of defending the capital,
conclude peace; if you cannot conclude peace, go away and make room for
a People’s Government which can do both….”

It was evident that any attempt at insurrection depended upon the
attitude of the Petrograd garrison. The Government’s plan was to
replace the garrison regiments with “dependable” troops—Cossacks, Death
Battalions. The Army Committees, the “moderate” Socialists and the
_Tsay-ee-kah_ supported the Government. A wide-spread agitation was
carried on at the Front and in Petrograd, emphasizing the fact that for
eight months the Petrograd garrison had been leading an easy life in
the barracks of the capital, while their exhausted comrades in the
trenches starved and died.

Naturally there was some truth in the accusation that the garrison
regiments were reluctant to exchange their comparative comfort for the
hardships of a winter campaign. But there were other reasons why they
refused to go. The Petrograd Soviet feared the Government’s intentions,
and from the Front came hundreds of delegates, chosen by the common
soldiers, crying, “It is true we need reinforcements, but more
important, we must know that Petrograd and the Revolution are
well-guarded…. Do you hold the rear, comrades, and we will hold the
front!”

On October 25th, behind closed doors, the Central Committee of the
Petrograd Soviet discussed the formation of a special Military
Committee to decide the whole question. The next day a meeting of the
Soldiers’ Section of the Petrograd Soviet elected a Committee, which
immediately proclaimed a boycott of the bourgeois newspapers, and
condemned the _Tsay-ee-kah_ for opposing the Congress of Soviets. On
the 29th, in open session of the Petrograd Soviet, Trotzky proposed
that the Soviet formally sanction the Military Revolutionary Committee.
“We ought,” he said, “to create our special organisation to march to
battle, and if necessary to die….” It was decided to send to the front
two delegations, one from the Soviet and one from the garrison, to
confer with the Soldiers’ Committees and the General Staff.

At Pskov, the Soviet delegates were met by General Tcheremissov,
commander of the Northern Front, with the curt declaration that he had
ordered the Petrograd garrison to the trenches, and that was all. The
garrison committee was not allowed to leave Petrograd….

A delegation of the Soldiers’ Section of the Petrograd Soviet asked
that a representative be admitted to the Staff of the Petrograd
District. Refused. The Petrograd Soviet demanded that no orders be
issued without the approval of the Soldiers’ Section. Refused. The
delegates were roughly told, “We only recognise the _Tsay-ee-kah._ We
do not recognise you; if you break any laws, we shall arrest you.”

On the 30th a meeting of representatives of all the Petrograd regiments
passed a resolution: _“The Petrograd garrison no longer recognises the
Provisional Government. The Petrograd Soviet is our Government. We will
obey only the orders of the Petrograd Soviet, through the Military
Revolutionary Committee.”_ The local military units were ordered to
wait for instructions from the Soldiers’ Section of the Petrograd
Soviet.

Next day the _Tsay-ee-kah_ summoned its own meeting, composed largely
of officers, formed a Committee to cooperate with the Staff, and
detailed Commissars in all quarters of the city.

A great soldier meeting at Smolny on the 3d resolved:

Saluting the creation of the Military Revolutionary Committee, the
Petrograd garrison promises it complete support in all its actions, to
unite more closely the front and the rear in the interests of the
Revolution.

The garrison moreover declares that with the revolutionary proletariat
it assures the maintenance of revolutionary order in Petrograd. Every
attempt at provocation on the part of the Kornilovtsi or the
bourgeoisie will be met with merciless resistance.

Now conscious of its power, the Military Revolutionary Committee
peremptorily summoned the Petrograd Staff to submit to its control. To
all printing plants it gave orders not to publish any appeals or
proclamations without the Committee’s authorisation. Armed Commissars
visited the Kronversk arsenal and seized great quantities of arms and
ammunition, halting a shipment of ten thousand bayonets which was being
sent to Novotcherkask, headquarters of Kaledin….

Suddenly awake to the danger, the Government offered immunity if the
Committee would disband. Too late. At midnight November 5th Kerensky
himself sent Malevsky to offer the Petrograd Soviet representation on
the Staff. The Military Revolutionary Committee accepted. An hour later
General Manikovsky, acting Minister of war, countermanded the offer….

Tuesday morning, November 6th, the city was thrown into excitement by
the appearance of a placard signed, “Military Revolutionary Committee
attached to the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.”

To the Population of Petrograd. Citizens!

Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head. The Kornilovtsi are
mobilising their forces in order to crush the All-Russian Congress of
Soviets and break the Constituent Assembly. At the same time the
_pogromists_ may attempt to call upon the people of Petrograd for
trouble and bloodshed. The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’
Deputies takes upon itself the guarding of revolutionary order in the
city against counter-revolutionary and _pogrom_ attempts.

The Petrograd garrison will not allow any violence or disorders. The
population is invited to arrest hooligans and Black Hundred agitators
and take them to the Soviet Commissars at the nearest barracks. At the
first attempt of the Dark Forces to make trouble on the streets of
Petrograd, whether robbery or fighting, the criminals will be wiped off
the face of the earth!

Citizens! We call upon you to maintain complete quiet and
self-possession. The cause of order and Revolution is in strong hands.

List of regiments where there are Commissars of the Military
Revolutionary Committee….

On the 3rd the leaders of the Bolsheviki had another historic meeting
behind closed doors. Notified by Zalkind, I waited in the corridor
outside the door; and Volodarsky as he came out told me what was going
on.

Lenin spoke: “November 6th will be too early. We must have an
all-Russian basis for the rising; and on the 6th all the delegates to
the Congress will not have arrived…. On the other hand, November 8th
will be too late. By that time the Congress will be organised, and it
is difficult for a large organised body of people to take swift,
decisive action. We must act on the 7th, the day the Congress meets, so
that we may say to it, ‘Here is the power! What are you going to do
with it?’”

In a certain upstairs room sat a thin-faced, long-haired individual,
once an officer in the armies of the Tsar, then revolutionist and
exile, a certain Avseenko, called Antonov, mathematician and
chess-player; he was drawing careful plans for the seizure of the
capital.

On its side the Government was preparing. Inconspicuously certain of
the most loyal regiments, from widely-separated divisions, were ordered
to Petrograd. The _yunker_ artillery was drawn into the Winter Palace.
Patrols of Cossacks made their appearance in the streets, for the first
time since the July days. Polkovnikov issued order after order,
threatening to repress all insubordination with the “utmost energy.”
Kishkin, Minister of Public Instruction, the worst-hated member of the
Cabinet, was appointed Special Commissar to keep order in Petrograd; he
named as assistants two men no less unpopular, Rutenburg and
Paltchinsky. Petrograd, Cronstadt and Finland were declared in a state
of siege—upon which the bourgeois _Novoye Vremya_ (New Times) remarked
ironically:

Why the state of siege? The Government is no longer a power. It has no
moral authority and it does not possess the necessary apparatus to use
force…. In the most favourable circumstances it can only negotiate with
any one who consents to parley. Its authority goes no farther….

Monday morning, the 5th, I dropped in at the Marinsky Palace, to see
what was happening in the Council of the Russian Republic. Bitter
debate on Terestchenko’s foreign policy. Echoes of the
Burtzev-Verkhovski affair. All the diplomats present except the Italian
ambassador, who everybody said was prostrated by the Carso disaster….

As I came in, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Karelin was reading
aloud an editorial from the London _Times_ which said, “The remedy for
Bolshevism is bullets!” Turning to the Cadets he cried, “That’s what
_you_ think, too!”

Voices from the Right, “Yes! Yes!”

“Yes, I know you think so,” answered Karelin, hotly. “But you haven’t
the courage to try it!”

Then Skobeliev, looking like a matinée idol with his soft blond beard
and wavy yellow hair, rather apologetically defending the Soviet
_nakaz._ Terestchenko followed, assailed from the Left by cries of
“Resignation! Resignation!” He insisted that the delegates of the
Government and of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ to Paris should have a common point
of view—his own. A few words about the restoration of discipline in the
army, about war to victory…. Tumult, and over the stubborn opposition
of the truculent Left, the Council of the Republic passed to the simple
order of the day.

There stretched the rows of Bolshevik seats—empty since that first day
when they left the Council, carrying with them so much life. As I went
down the stairs it seemed to me that in spite of the bitter wrangling,
no real voice from the rough world outside could penetrate this high,
cold hall, and that the Provisional Government was wrecked—on the same
rock of War and Peace that had wrecked the Miliukov Ministry…. The
doorman grumbled as he put on my coat, “I don’t know what is becoming
of poor Russia. All these Mensheviki and Bolsheviki and Trudoviki….
This Ukraine and this Finland and the German imperialists and the
English imperialists. I am forty-five years old, and in all my life I
never heard so many words as in this place….”

In the corridor I met Professor Shatsky, a rat-faced individual in a
dapper frock-coat, very influential in the councils of the Cadet party.
I asked him what he thought of the much-talked-of Bolshevik
_vystuplennie._ He shrugged, sneering.

“They are cattle—_canaille,”_ he answered. “They will not dare, or if
they dare they will soon be sent flying. From our point of view it will
not be bad, for then they will ruin themselves and have no power in the
Constituent Assembly….

“But, my dear sir, allow me to outline to you my plan for a form of
Government to be submitted to the Constituent Assembly. You see, I am
chairman of a commission appointed from this body, in conjunction with
the Provisional Government, to work out a constitutional project…. We
will have a legislative assembly of two chambers, such as you have in
the United States. In the lower chamber will be territorial
representatives; in the upper, representatives of the liberal
professions, zemstvos, Cooperatives—and Trade Unions….”

Outside a chill, damp wind came from the west, and the cold mud
underfoot soaked through my shoes. Two companies of _yunkers_ passed
swinging up the Morskaya, tramping stiffly in their long coats and
singing an oldtime crashing chorus, such as the soldiers used to sing
under the Tsar…. At the first cross-street I noticed that the City
Militiamen were mounted, and armed with revolvers in bright new
holsters; a little group of people stood silently staring at them. At
the corner of the Nevsky I bought a pamphlet by Lenin, “Will the
Bolsheviki be Able to Hold the Power?” paying for it with one of the
stamps which did duty for small change. The usual street-cars crawled
past, citizens and soldiers clinging to the outside in a way to make
Theodore P. Shonts green with envy…. Along the sidewalk a row of
deserters in uniform sold cigarettes and sunflower seeds….

Up the Nevsky in the sour twilight crowds were battling for the latest
papers, and knots of people were trying to make out the multitudes of
appeals (See App. III, Sect. 6) and proclamations pasted in every flat
place; from the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ the Peasants’ Soviets, the “moderate”
Socialist parties, the Army Committees—threatening, cursing, beseeching
the workers and soldiers to stay home, to support the Government….

An armoured automobile went slowly up and down, siren screaming. On
every corner, in every open space, thick groups were clustered; arguing
soldiers and students. Night came swiftly down, the wide-spaced
street-lights flickered on, the tides of people flowed endlessly…. It
is always like that in Petrograd just before trouble….

The city was nervous, starting at every sharp sound. But still no sign
from the Bolsheviki; the soldiers stayed in the barracks, the workmen
in the factories…. We went to a moving picture show near the Kazan
Cathedral—a bloody Italian film of passion and intrigue. Down front
were some soldiers and sailors, staring at the screen in childlike
wonder, totally unable to comprehend why there should be so much
violent running about, and so much homicide….

From there I hurried to Smolny. In room 10 on the top floor, the
Military Revolutionary Committee sat in continuous session, under the
chairmanship of a tow-headed, eighteen-year-old boy named Lazimir. He
stopped, as he passed, to shake hands rather bashfully.

“Peter-Paul Fortress has just come over to us,” said he, with a pleased
grin. “A minute ago we got word from a regiment that was ordered by the
Government to come to Petrograd. The men were suspicious, so they
stopped the train at Gatchina and sent a delegation to us. ‘What’s the
matter?’ they asked. ‘What have you got to say? We have just passed a
resolution, “All Power to the Soviets.”’… The Military Revolutionary
Committee sent back word, ‘Brothers! We greet you in the name of the
Revolution. Stay where you are until further instructions!’”

All telephones, he said, were cut off: but communication with the
factories and barracks was established by means of military
telephonograph apparatus….

A steady stream of couriers and Commissars came and went. Outside the
door waited a dozen volunteers, ready to carry word to the farthest
quarters of the city. One of them, a gypsy-faced man in the uniform of
a lieutenant, said in French, “Everything is ready to move at the push
of a button….”

There passed Podvoisky, the thin, bearded civillian whose brain
conceived the strategy of insurrection; Antonov, unshaven, his collar
filthy, drunk with loss of sleep; Krylenko, the squat, wide-faced
soldier, always smiling, with his violent gestures and tumbling speech;
and Dybenko, the giant bearded sailor with the placid face. These were
the men of the hour—and of other hours to come.

Downstairs in the office of the Factory-Shop Committees sat Seratov,
signing orders on the Government Arsenal for arms—one hundred and fifty
rifles for each factory…. Delegates waited in line, forty of them….

In the hall I ran into some of the minor Bolshevik leaders. One showed
me a revolver. “The game is on,” he said, and his face was pale.
“Whether we move or not the other side knows it must finish us or be
finished….”

The Petrograd Soviet was meeting day and night. As I came into the
great hall Trotzky was just finishing.

“We are asked,” he said, “if we intend to have a _vystuplennie._ I can
give a clear answer to that question. The Petrograd Soviet feels that
at last the moment has arrived when the power must fall into the hands
of the Soviets. This transfer of government will be accomplished by the
All-Russian Congress. Whether an armed demonstration is necessary will
depend on… those who wish to interfere with the All-Russian Congress….

“We feel that our Government, entrusted to the personnel of the
Provisional Cabinet, is a pitiful and helpless Government, which only
awaits the sweep of the broom of History to give way to a really
popular Government. But we are trying to avoid a conflict, even now,
to-day. We hope that the All-Russian Congress will take… into its hands
that power and authority which rests upon the organised freedom of the
people. If, however, the Government wants to utilise the short period
it is expected to live—twenty-four, forty-eight, or seventy-two
hours—to attack us, then we shall answer with counter-attacks, blow for
blow, steel for iron!”

Amid cheers he announced that the Left Socialist Revolutionaries had
agreed to send representatives into the Military Revolutionary
Committee….

As I left Smolny, at three o’clock in the morning, I noticed that two
rapid-firing guns had been mounted, one on each side of the door, and
that strong patrols of soldiers guarded the gates and the near-by
street-corners. Bill Shatov[12] came bounding up the steps. “Well,” he
cried, “We’re off! Kerensky sent the _yunkers_ to close down our
papers, _Soldat_ and _Rabotchi Put._ But our troops went down and
smashed the Government seals, and now we’re sending detachments to
seize the bourgeois newspaper offices!” Exultantly he slapped me on the
shoulder, and ran in….

[12] Well known in the American labor movement.

On the morning of the 6th I had business with the censor, whose office
was in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Everywhere, on all the walls,
hysterical appeals to the people to remain “calm.” Polkovnikov emitted
_prikaz_ after _prikaz:_

I order all military units and detachments to remain in their barracks
until further orders from the Staff of the Military District…. All
officers who act without orders from their superiors will be
court-martialled for mutiny. I forbid absolutely any execution by
soldiers of instructions from other organisations….

The morning papers announced that the Government had suppressed the
papers _Novaya Rus, Zhivoye Slovo, Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat,_ and
decreed the arrest of the leaders of the Petrograd Soviet and the
members of the Military Revolutionary Committee….

As I crossed the Palace Square several batteries of _yunker_ artillery
came through the Red Arch at a jingling trot, and drew up before the
Palace. The great red building of the General Staff was unusually
animated, several armoured automobiles ranked before the door, and
motors full of officers were coming and going…. The censor was very
much excited, like a small boy at a circus. Kerensky, he said, had just
gone to the Council of the Republic to offer his resignation. I hurried
down to the Marinsky Palace, arriving at the end of that passionate and
almost incoherent speech of Kerensky’s, full of self-justification and
bitter denunciation of his enemies.

“I will cite here the most characteristic passage from a whole series
of articles published in _Rabotchi Put_ by Ulianov-Lenin, a state
criminal who is in hiding and whom we are trying to find…. This state
criminal has invited the proletariat and the Petrograd garrison to
repeat the experience of the 16th-18th of July, and insists upon the
immediate necessity for an armed rising…. Moreover, other Bolshevik
leaders have taken the floor in a series of meetings, and also made an
appeal to immediate insurrection. Particularly should be noticed the
activity of the present president of the Petrograd Soviet,
Bronstein-Trotzky….

“I ought to bring to your notice… that the expressions and the style of
a whole series of articles in _Rabotchi Put_ and _Soldat_ resemble
absolutely those of _Novaya Rus…._ We have to do not so much with the
movement of such and such political party, as with the exploitation of
the political ignorance and criminal instincts of a part of the
population, a sort of organisation whose object it is to provoke in
Russia, cost what it may, an inconscient movement of destruction and
pillage; for given the state of mind of the masses, any movement at
Petrograd will be followed by the most terrible massacres, which will
cover with eternal shame the name of free Russia….

“… By the admission of Ulianov-Lenin himself, the situation of the
extreme left wing of the Social Democrats in Russia is very
favourable.” (Here Kerensky read the following quotation from Lenin’s
article.):

Think of it!… The German comrades have only one Liebknecht, without
newspapers, without freedom of meeting, without a Soviet…. They are
opposed by the incredible hostility of all classes of society—and yet
the German comrades try to act; while we, having dozens of newspapers,
freedom of meeting, the majority of the Soviets, we, the best-placed
international proletarians of the entire world, can we refuse to
support the German revolutionists and insurrectionary organisations?…

Kerensky then continued:

“The organisers of rebellion recognise thus implicitly that the most
perfect conditions for the free action of a political party obtain now
in Russia, administered by a Provisional Government at the head of
which is, in the eyes of this party, ‘a usurper and a man who has sold
himself to the bourgeoisie, the Minister-President Kerensky….’

“… The organisers of the insurrection do not come to the aid of the
German proletariat, but of the German governing classes, and they open
the Russian front to the iron fists of Wilhelm and his friends…. Little
matter to the Provisional Government the motives of these people,
little matter if they act consciously or unconsciously; but in any
case, from this tribune, in full consciousness of my responsibility, I
quality such acts of a Russian political party as acts of treason to
Russia!

“… I place myself at the point of view of the Right, and I propose
immediately to proceed to an investigation and make the necessary
arrests.” (Uproar from the Left.) “Listen to me!” he cried in a
powerful voice. “At the moment when the state is in danger, because of
conscious or unconscious treason, the Provisional Government, and
myself among others, prefer to be killed rather than betray the life,
the honour and the independence of Russia….”

At this moment a paper was handed to Kerensky.

“I have just received the proclamation which they are distributing to
the regiments. Here is the contents.” Reading: _“‘The Petrograd Soviet
of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies is menaced. We order immediately the
regiments to mobilise on a war footing and to await new orders. All
delay or non-execution of this order will be considered as an act of
treason to the Revolution. The Military Revolutionary Committee. For
the President, Podvoisky. The Secretary, Antonov.’_

“In reality, this is an attempt to raise the populace against the
existing order of things, to break the Constituent and to open the
front to the regiments of the iron fist of Wilhelm….

“I say ‘populace’ intentionally, because the conscious democracy and
its _Tsay-ee-kah,_ all the Army organisations, all that free Russia
glorifies, the good sense, the honour and the conscience of the great
Russian democracy, protests against these things….

“I have not come here with a prayer, but to state my firm conviction
that the Provisional Government, which defends at this moment our new
liberty—that the new Russian state, destined to a brilliant future,
will find unanimous support except among those who have never dared to
face the truth….

“… The Provisional Government has never violated the liberty of all
citizens of the State to use their political rights…. But now the
Provisional Government…. declares: in this moment those elements of the
Russian nation, those groups and parties who have dared to lift their
hands against the free will of the Russian people, at the same time
threatening to open the front to Germany, must be liquidated with
decision!…

“Let the population of Petrograd understand that it will encounter a
firm power, and perhaps at the last moment good sense, conscience and
honour will triumph in the hearts of those who still possess them….”

All through this speech, the hall rang with deafening clamour. When the
Minister-President had stepped down, pale-faced and wet with
perspiration, and strode out with his suite of officers, speaker after
speaker from the Left and Centre attacked the Right, all one angry
roaring. Even the Socialist Revolutionaries, through Gotz:

“The policy of the Bolsheviki is demagogic and criminal, in their
exploitation of the popular discontent. But there is a whole series of
popular demands which have received no satisfaction up to now…. The
questions of peace, land and the democratization of the army ought to
be stated in such a fashion that no soldier, peasant or worker would
have the least doubt that our Government is attempting, firmly and
infallibly, to solve them….

“We Mensheviki do not wish to provoke a Cabinet crisis, and we are
ready to defend the Provisional Government with all our energy, to the
last drop of our blood—if only the Provisional Government, on all these
burning questions, will speak the clear and precise words awaited by
the people with such impatience….”

Then Martov, furious:

“The words of the Minister-President, who allowed himself to speak of
‘populace’ when it is question of the movement of important sections of
the proletariat and the army—although led in the wrong direction—are
nothing but an incitement to civil war.”

The order of the day proposed by the Left was voted. It amounted
practically to a vote of lack of confidence.

1. The armed demonstration which has been preparing for some days past
has for its object a _coup d’etat,_ threatens to provoke civil war,
creates conditions favourable to _pogroms_ and counterrevolution, the
mobilization of counter-revolutionary forces, such as the Black
Hundreds, which will inevitably bring about the impossibility of
convoking the Constituent, will cause a military catastrophe, the death
of the Revolution, paralyse the economic life of the country and
destroy Russia;

2. The conditions favourable to this agitation have been created by
delay in passing urgent measures, as well as objective conditions
caused by the war and the general disorder. It is necessary before
everything to promulgate at once a decree transmitting the land to the
peasants’ Land Committees, and to adopt an energetic course of action
abroad in proposing to the Allies to proclaim their peace terms and to
begin peace-parleys;

3. To cope with Monarchist manifestations and _pogromist_ movements, it
is indispensable to take immediate measures to suppress these
movements, and for this purpose to create at Petrograd a Committee of
Public Safety, composed of representatives of the Municipality and the
organs of the revolutionary democracy, acting in contact with the
Provisional Government….

It is interesting to note that the Mensheviki and Socialist
Revolutionaries all rallied to this resolution…. When Kerensky saw it,
however, he summoned Avksentiev to the Winter Palace to explain. If it
expressed a lack of confidence in the Provisional Government, he begged
Avksentiev to form a new Cabinet. Dan, Gotz and Avksentiev, the leaders
of the “compromisers,” performed their last compromise…. They explained
to Kerensky that it was not meant as a criticism of the Government!

At the corner of the Morskaya and the Nevsky, squads of soldiers with
fixed bayonets were stopping all private automobiles, turning out the
occupants, and ordering them toward the Winter Palace. A large crowd
had gathered to watch them. Nobody knew whether the soldiers belonged
to the Government or the Military Revolutionary Committee. Up in front
of the Kazan Cathedral the same thing was happening, machines being
directed back up the Nevsky. Five or six sailors with rifles came
along, laughing excitedly, and fell into conversation with two of the
soldiers. On the sailors’ hat bands were _Avrora_ and _Zaria
Svobody,_—the names of the leading Bolshevik cruisers of the Baltic
Fleet. One of them said, “Cronstadt is coming!”… It was as if, in 1792,
on the streets of Paris, some one had said: “The Marseillais are
coming!” For at Cronstadt were twenty-five thousand sailors, convinced
Bolsheviki and not afraid to die….

_Rabotchi i Soldat_ was just out, all its front page one huge
proclamation: SOLDIERS! WORKERS! CITIZENS!

The enemies of the people passed last night to the offensive. The
Kornilovists of the Staff are trying to draw in from the suburbs
_yunkers_ and volunteer battalions. The Oranienbaum _yunkers_ and the
Tsarskoye Selo volunteers refused to come out. A stroke of high treason
is being contemplated against the Petrograd Soviet…. The campaign of
the counter-revolutionists is being directed against the All-Russian
Congress of Soviets on the eve of its opening, against the Constituent
Assembly, against the people. The Petrograd Soviet is guarding the
Revolution. The Military Revolutionary Committee is directing the
repulse of the conspirators’ attack. The entire garrison and
proletariat of Petrograd are ready to deal the enemy of the people a
crushing blow.

The Military Revolutionary Committee decrees:

1. All regimental, division and battle-ship Committees, together with
the Soviet Commissars, and all revolutionary organisations, shall meet
in continuous session, concentrating in their hands all information
about the plans of the conspirators.

2. Not one soldier shall leave his division without permission of the
Committee.

3. To send to Smolny at once two delegates from each military unit and
five from each Ward Soviet.

4. All members of the Petrograd Soviet and all delegates to the
All-Russian Congress are invited immediately to Smolny for an
extraordinary meeting.

Counter-revolution has raised its criminal head.

A great danger threatens all the conquests and hopes of the soldiers
and workers.

But the forces of the Revolution by far exceed those of its enemies.

The cause of the People is in strong hands. The conspirators will be
crushed.

No hesitation or doubts! Firmness, steadfastness, discipline,
determination!

Long live the Revolution!

_The Military Revolutionary Committee._

The Petrograd Soviet was meeting continuously at Smolny, a centre of
storm, delegates falling down asleep on the floor and rising again to
take part in the debate, Trotzky, Kameniev, Volodarsky speaking six,
eight, twelve hours a day….

I went down to room 18 on the first floor where the Bolshevik delegates
were holding caucus, a harsh voice steadily booming, the speaker hidden
by the crowd: “The compromisers say that we are isolated. Pay no
attention to them. Once it begins they must be dragged along with us,
or else lose their following….”

Here he held up a piece of paper. “We are dragging them! A message has
just come from the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries! They say
that they condemn our action, but that if the Government attacks us
they will not oppose the cause of the proletariat!” Exultant shouting….

As night fell the great hall filled with soldiers and workmen, a
monstrous dun mass, deep-humming in a blue haze of smoke. The old
_Tsay-ee-kah_ had finally decided to welcome the delegates to that new
Congress which would mean its own ruin—and perhaps the ruin of the
revolutionary order it had built. At this meeting, however, only
members of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ could vote….

It was after midnight when Gotz took the chair and Dan rose to speak,
in a tense silence, which seemed to me almost menacing.

“The hours in which we live appear in the most tragic colours,” he
said. “The enemy is at the gates of Petrograd, the forces of the
democracy are trying to organise to resist him, and yet we await
bloodshed in the streets of the capital, and famine threatens to
destroy, not only our homogeneous Government, but the Revolution
itself….

“The masses are sick and exhausted. They have no interest in the
Revolution. If the Bolsheviki start anything, that will be the end of
the Revolution…” (Cries, “That’s a lie!)” “The counter-revolutionists
are waiting with the Bolsheviki to begin riots and massacres…. If there
is any _vystuplennie,_ there will be no Constituent Assembly….” (Cries,
“Lie! Shame!”)

“It is inadmissible that in the zone of military operations the
Petrograd garrison shall not submit to the orders of the Staff…. You
must obey the orders of the Staff and of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ elected by
you. All Power to the Soviets—that means death! Robbers and thieves are
waiting for the moment to loot and burn…. When you have such slogans
put before you, ‘Enter the houses, take away the shoes and clothes from
the bourgeoisie—’” (Tumult. Cries, “No such slogan! A lie! A lie!”)
“Well, it may start differently, but it will end that way!

“The _Tsay-ee-kah_ has full power to act, and must be obeyed…. We are
not afraid of bayonets…. The _Tsay-ee-kah_ will defend the Revolution
with its body….” (Cries, “It was a dead body long ago!”)

Immense continued uproar, in which his voice could be heard screaming,
as he pounded the desk, “Those who are urging this are committing a
crime!”

Voice: “You committed a crime long ago, when you captured the power and
turned it over to the bourgeoisie!”

Gotz, ringing the chairman’s bell: “Silence, or I’ll have you put out!”

Voice: “Try it!” (Cheers and whistling.)

“Now concerning our policy about peace.” (Laughter.) “Unfortunately
Russia can no longer support the continuation of the war. There is
going to be peace, but not permanent peace—not a democratic peace….
To-day, at the Council of the Republic, in order to avoid bloodshed, we
passed an order of the day demanding the surrender of the land to the
Land Committees and immediate peace negotiations….” (Laughter, and
cries, “Too late!”)

Then for the Bolsheviki, Trotzky mounted the tribune, borne on a wave
of roaring applause that burst into cheers and a rising house,
thunderous. His thin, pointed face was positively Mephistophelian in
its expression of malicious irony.

“Dan’s tactics prove that the masses—the great, dull, indifferent
masses—are absolutely with him!” (Titantic mirth.) He turned toward the
chairman, dramatically. “When we spoke of giving the land to the
peasants, you were against it. We told the peasants, ‘If they don’t
give it to you, take it yourselves!’ and the peasants followed our
advice. And now you advocate what we did six months ago….

“I don’t think Kerensky’s order to suspend the death penalty in the
army was dictated by his ideals. I think Kerensky was persuaded by the
Petrograd garrison, which refused to obey him….

“To-day Dan is accused of having made a speech in the Council of the
Republic which proves him to be a secret Bolshevik…. The time may come
when Dan will say that the flower of the Revolution participated in the
rising of July 16th and 18th…. In Dan’s resolution to-day at the
Council of the Republic there was no mention of enforcing discipline in
the army, although that is urged in the propaganda of his party….

“No. The history of the last seven months shows that the masses have
left the Mensheviki. The Mensheviki and the Socialist Revolutionaries
conquered the Cadets, and then when they got the power, they gave it to
the Cadets….

“Dan tells you that you have no right to make an insurrection.
Insurrection is the right of all revolutionists! When the down-trodden
masses revolt, it is their right….”

Then the long-faced, cruel-tongued Lieber, greeted with groans and
laughter.

“Engels and Marx said that the proletariat had no right to take power
until it was ready for it. In a bourgeois revolution like this…. the
seizure of power by the masses means the tragic end of the Revolution….
Trotzky, as a Social Democratic theorist, is himself opposed to what he
is now advocating….” (Cries, “Enough! Down with him!”)

Martov, constantly interrupted: “The Internationalists are not opposed
to the transmission of power to the democracy, but they disapprove of
the methods of the Bolsheviki. This is not the moment to seize the
power….”

Again Dan took the floor, violently protesting against the action of
the Military Revolutionary Committee, which had sent a Commissar to
seize the office of _Izviestia_ and censor the paper. The wildest
uproar followed. Martov tried to speak, but could not be heard.
Delegates of the Army and the Baltic Fleet stood up all over the hall,
shouting that the Soviet was _their_ Government….

Amid the wildest confusion Ehrlich offered a resolution, appealing to
the workers and soldiers to remain calm and not to respond to
provocations to demonstrate, recognising the necessity of immediately
creating a Committee of Public Safety, and asking the Provisional
Government at once to pass decrees transferring the land to the
peasants and beginning peace negotiations….

Then up leaped Volodarsky, shouting harshly that the _Tsay-ee-kah,_ on
the eve of the Congress, had no right to assume the functions of the
Congress. The _Tsay-ee-kah_ was practically dead, he said, and the
resolution was simply a trick to bolster up its waning power….

“As for us, Bolsheviki, we will not vote on this resolution!” Whereupon
all the Bolsheviki left the hall and the resolution was passed….

Toward four in the morning I met Zorin in the outer hall, a rifle slung
from his shoulder.

“We’re moving!” (See App. III, Sect. 7) said he, calmly but with
satisfaction. “We pinched the Assistant Minister of Justice and the
Minister of Religions. They’re down cellar now. One regiment is on the
march to capture the Telephone Exchange, another the Telegraph Agency,
another the State Bank. The Red Guard is out….”

On the steps of Smolny, in the chill dark, we first saw the Red Guard—a
huddled group of boys in workmen’s clothes, carrying guns with
bayonets, talking nervously together.

Far over the still roofs westward came the sound of scattered rifle
fire, where the _yunkers_ were trying to open the bridges over the
Neva, to prevent the factory workers and soldiers of the Viborg quarter
from joining the Soviet forces in the centre of the city; and the
Cronstadt sailors were closing them again….

Behind us great Smolny, bright with lights, hummed like a gigantic
hive….




Chapter IV
The Fall of the Provisional Government


Wednesday, November 7th, I rose very late. The noon cannon boomed from
Peter-Paul as I went down the Nevsky. It was a raw, chill day. In front
of the State Bank some soldiers with fixed bayonets were standing at
the closed gates.

“What side do you belong to?” I asked. “The Government?”

“No more Government,” one answered with a grin, “_Slava Bogu!_ Glory to
God!” That was all I could get out of him….

The street-cars were running on the Nevsky, men, women and small boys
hanging on every projection. Shops were open, and there seemed even
less uneasiness among the street crowds than there had been the day
before. A whole crop of new appeals against insurrection had blossomed
out on the walls during the night—to the peasants, to the soldiers at
the front, to the workmen of Petrograd. One read:

FROM THE PETROGRAD MUNICIPAL DUMA:


The Municipal Duma informs the citizens that in the extraordinary
meeting of November 6th the Duma formed a Committee of Public Safety,
composed of members of the Central and Ward Dumas, and representatives
of the following revolutionary democratic organizations: The
_Tsay-ee-kah,_ the All-Russian Executive Committee of Peasant Deputies,
the Army organisations, the _Tsentroflot,_ the Petrograd Soviet of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies (!), the Council of Trade Unions, and
others.

Members of the Committee of Public Safety will be on duty in the
building of the Municipal Duma. Telephones No. 15-40, 223-77, 138-36.

November 7th, 1917.

Though I didn’t realize it then, this was the Duma’s declaration of war
against the Bolsheviki.

I bought a copy of _Rabotchi Put,_ the only newspaper which seemed on
sale, and a little later paid a soldier fifty kopeks for a second-hand
copy of _Dien._ The Bolshevik paper, printed on large-sized sheets in
the conquered office of the _Russkaya Volia,_ had huge headlines: “ALL
POWER—TO THE SOVIETS OF WORKERS, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS! PEACE! BREAD!
LAND!” The leading article was signed “Zinoviev,”—Lenin’s companion in
hiding. It began:

Every soldier, every worker, every real Socialist, every honest
democrat realises that there are only two alternatives to the present
situation.

Either—the power will remain in the hands of the bourgeois-landlord
crew, and this will mean every kind of repression for the workers,
soldiers and peasants, continuation of the war, inevitable hunger and
death….

Or—the power will be transferred to the hands of the revolutionary
workers, soldiers and peasants; and in that case it will mean a
complete abolition of landlord tyranny, immediate check of the
capitalists, immediate proposal of a just peace. Then the land is
assured to the peasants, then control of industry is assured to the
workers, then bread is assured to the hungry, then the end of this
nonsensical war!…

_Dien_ contained fragmentary news of the agitated night. Bolsheviki
capture of the Telephone Exchange, the Baltic station, the Telegraph
Agency; the Peterhof _yunkers_ unable to reach Petrograd; the Cossacks
undecided; arrest of some of the Ministers; shooting of Chief of the
City Militia Meyer; arrests, counter-arrests, skirmishes between
clashing patrols of soldiers, _yunkers_ and Red Guards. (See App. IV,
Sect. 1)

On the corner of the Morskaya I ran into Captain Gomberg, Menshevik
_oboronetz,_ secretary of the Military Section of his party. When I
asked him if the insurrection had really happened he shrugged his
shoulders in a tired manner and replied, “_Tchort znayet!_ The devil
knows! Well, perhaps the Bolsheviki can seize the power, but they won’t
be able to hold it more than three days. They haven’t the men to run a
government. Perhaps it’s a good thing to let them try—that will furnish
them….”

The Military Hotel at the corner of St. Isaac’s Square was picketed by
armed sailors. In the lobby were many of the smart young officers,
walking up and down or muttering together; the sailors wouldn’t let
them leave….

Suddenly came the sharp crack of a rifle outside, followed by a
scattered burst of firing. I ran out. Something unusual was going on
around the Marinsky Palace, where the Council of the Russian Republic
met. Diagonally across the wide square was drawn a line of soldiers,
rifles ready, staring at the hotel roof.

“_Provacatzia!_ Shot at us!” snapped one, while another went running
toward the door.

At the western corner of the Palace lay a big armoured car with a red
flag flying from it, newly lettered in red paint: “S.R.S.D.” (_Soviet
Rabotchikh Soldatskikh Deputatov_); all the guns trained toward St.
Isaac’s. A barricade had been heaped up across the mouth of Novaya
Ulitza—boxes, barrels, an old bed-spring, a wagon. A pile of lumber
barred the end of the Moika quay. Short logs from a neighbouring
wood-pile were being built up along the front of the building to form
breastworks….

“Is there going to be any fighting?” I asked.

“Soon, soon,” answered a soldier, nervously. “Go away, comrade, you’ll
get hurt. They will come from that direction,” pointing toward the
Admiralty.

“Who will?”

“That I couldn’t tell you, brother,” he answered, and spat.

Before the door of the Palace was a crowd of soldiers and sailors. A
sailor was telling of the end of the Council of the Russian Republic.
“We walked in there,” he said, “and filled all the doors with comrades.
I went up to the counter-revolutionist Kornilovitz who sat in the
president’s chair. ‘No more Council,’ I says. ‘Run along home now!’”

There was laughter. By waving assorted papers I managed to get around
to the door of the press gallery. There an enormous smiling sailor
stopped me, and when I showed my pass, just said, “If you were Saint
Michael himself, comrade, you couldn’t pass here!” Through the glass of
the door I made out the distorted face and gesticulating arms of a
French correspondent, locked in….

Around in front stood a little, grey-moustached man in the uniform of a
general, the centre of a knot of soldiers. He was very red in the face.

“I am General Alexeyev,” he cried. “As your superior officer and as a
member of the Council of the Republic I demand to be allowed to pass!”
The guard scratched his head, looking uneasily out of the corner of his
eye; he beckoned to an approaching officer, who grew very agitated when
he saw who it was and saluted before he realised what he was doing.

“_Vashe Vuisokoprevoskhoditelstvo_—your High Excellency—” he stammered,
in the manner of the old régime, “Access to the Palace is strictly
forbidden—I have no right—”

An automobile came by, and I saw Gotz sitting inside, laughing
apparently with great amusement. A few minutes later another, with
armed soldiers on the front seat, full of arrested members of the
Provisional Government. Peters, Lettish member of the Military
Revolutionary Committee, came hurrying across the Square.

“I thought you bagged all those gentlemen last night,” said I, pointing
to them.

“Oh,” he answered, with the expression of a disappointed small boy.
“The damn fools let most of them go again before we made up our
minds….”

Down the Voskressensky Prospect a great mass of sailors were drawn up,
and behind them came marching soldiers, as far as the eye could reach.

We went toward the Winter Palace by way of the Admiralteisky. All the
entrances to the Palace Square were closed by sentries, and a cordon of
troops stretched clear across the western end, besieged by an uneasy
throng of citizens. Except for far-away soldiers who seemed to be
carrying wood out of the Palace courtyard and piling it in front of the
main gateway, everything was quiet.

We couldn’t make out whether the sentries were pro-Government or
pro-Soviet. Our papers from Smolny had no effect, however, so we
approached another part of the line with an important air and showed
our American passports, saying “Official business!” and shouldered
through. At the door of the Palace the same old _shveitzari,_ in their
brass-buttoned blue uniforms with the red-and-gold collars, politely
took our coats and hats, and we went up-stairs. In the dark, gloomy
corridor, stripped of its tapestries, a few old attendants were
lounging about, and in front of Kerensky’s door a young officer paced
up and down, gnawing his moustache. We asked if we could interview the
Minister-president. He bowed and clicked his heels.

“No, I am sorry,” he replied in French. “Alexander Feodorvitch is
extremely occupied just now….” He looked at us for a moment. “In fact,
he is not here….”

“Where is he?”

“He has gone to the Front. (See App. IV, Sect. 2) And do you know,
there wasn’t enough gasoline for his automobile. We had to send to the
English Hospital and borrow some.”

“Are the Ministers here?”

“They are meeting in some room—I don’t know where.’

“Are the Bolsheviki coming?”

“Of course. Certainly, they are coming. I expect a telephone call every
minute to say that they are coming. But we are ready. We have _yunkers_
in the front of the Palace. Through that door there.”

“Can we go in there?”

“No. Certainly not. It is not permitted.” Abruptly he shook hands all
around and walked away. We turned to the forbidden door, set in a
temporary partition dividing the hall and locked on the outside. On the
other side were voices, and somebody laughing. Except for that the vast
spaces of the old Palace were silent as the grave. An old _shveitzar_
ran up. “No, _barin,_ you must not go in there.”

“Why is the door locked?”

“To keep the soldiers in,” he answered. After a few minutes he said
something about having a glass of tea and went back up the hall. We
unlocked the door.

Just inside a couple of soldiers stood on guard, but they said nothing.
At the end of the corridor was a large, ornate room with gilded
cornices and enormous crystal lustres, and beyond it several smaller
ones, wainscoted with dark wood. On both sides of the parquetted floor
lay rows of dirty mattresses and blankets, upon which occasional
soldiers were stretched out; everywhere was a litter of
cigarette-butts, bits of bread, cloth, and empty bottles with expensive
French labels. More and more soldiers, with the red shoulder-straps of
the _yunker_-schools, moved about in a stale atmosphere of
tobacco-smoke and unwashed humanity. One had a bottle of white
Burgundy, evidently filched from the cellars of the Palace. They looked
at us with astonishment as we marched past, through room after room,
until at last we came out into a series of great state-salons, fronting
their long and dirty windows on the Square. The walls were covered with
huge canvases in massive gilt frames—historical battle-scenes…. “12
October 1812” and “6 November 1812” and “16/28 August 1813.” … One had
a gash across the upper right hand corner.

The place was all a huge barrack, and evidently had been for weeks,
from the look of the floor and walls. Machine guns were mounted on
window-sills, rifles stacked between the mattresses.

As we were looking at the pictures an alcoholic breath assailed me from
the region of my left ear, and a voice said in thick but fluent French,
“I see, by the way you admire the paintings, that you are foreigners.”
He was a short, puffy man with a baldish head as he removed his cap.

“Americans? Enchanted. I am Stabs—Capitan Vladimir Artzibashev,
absolutely at your service.” It did not seem to occur to him that there
was anything unusual in four strangers, one a woman, wandering through
the defences of an army awaiting attack. He began to complain of the
state of Russia.

“Not only these Bolsheviki,” he said, “but the fine traditions of the
Russian army are broken down. Look around you. These are all students
in the officers’ training schools. But are they gentlemen? Kerensky
opened the officers’ schools to the ranks, to any soldier who could
pass an examination. Naturally there are many, many who are
contaminated by the Revolution….”

Without consequence he changed the subject. “I am very anxious to go
away from Russia. I have made up my mind to join the American army.
Will you please go to your Consul and make arrangements? I will give
you my address.” In spite of our protestations he wrote it on a piece
of paper, and seemed to feel better at once. I have it
still—“_Oranien-baumskaya Shkola Praporshtchikov 2nd, Staraya
Peterhof._”

“We had a review this morning early,” he went on, as he guided us
through the rooms and explained everything. “The Women’s Battalion
decided to remain loyal to the Government.”

“Are the women soldiers in the Palace?”

“Yes, they are in the back rooms, where they won’t be hurt if any
trouble comes.” He sighed. “It is a great responsibility,” said he.

For a while we stood at the window, looking down on the Square before
the Palace, where three companies of long-coated _yunkers_ were drawn
up under arms, being harangued by a tall, energetic-looking officer I
recognised as Stankievitch, chief Military Commissar of the Provisional
Government. After a few minutes two of the companies shouldered arms
with a clash, barked three sharp shouts, and went swinging off across
the Square, disappearing through the Red Arch into the quiet city.

“They are going to capture the Telephone Exchange,” said some one.
Three cadets stood by us, and we fell into conversation. They said they
had entered the schools from the ranks, and gave their names—Robert
Olev, Alexei Vasilienko and Erni Sachs, an Esthonian. But now they
didn’t want to be officers any more, because officers were very
unpopular. They didn’t seem to know what to do, as a matter of fact,
and it was plain that they were not happy.

But soon they began to boast. “If the Bolsheviki come we shall show
them how to fight. They do not dare to fight, they are cowards. But if
we should be overpowered, well, every man keeps one bullet for
himself….”

At this point there was a burst of rifle-fire not far off. Out on the
Square all the people began to run, falling flat on their faces, and
the _izvoshtchiki,_ standing on the corners, galloped in every
direction. Inside all was uproar, soldiers running here and there,
grabbing up guns, rifle-belts and shouting, “Here they come! Here they
come!” … But in a few minutes it quieted down again. The _izvoshtchiki_
came back, the people lying down stood up. Through the Red Arch
appeared the _yunkers,_ marching a little out of step, one of them
supported by two comrades.

It was getting late when we left the Palace. The sentries in the Square
had all disappeared. The great semi-circle of Government buildings
seemed deserted. We went into the Hotel France for dinner, and right in
the middle of soup the waiter, very pale in the face, came up and
insisted that we move to the main dining-room at the back of the house,
because they were going to put out the lights in the café. “There will
be much shooting,” he said.

When we came out on the Morskaya again it was quite dark, except for
one flickering street-light on the corner of the Nevsky. Under this
stood a big armored automobile, with racing engine and oil-smoke
pouring out of it. A small boy had climbed up the side of the thing and
was looking down the barrel of a machine gun. Soldiers and sailors
stood around, evidently waiting for something. We walked back up to the
Red Arch, where a knot of soldiers was gathered staring at the
brightly-lighted Winter Palace and talking in loud tones.

“No, comrades,” one was saying. “How can we shoot at them? The Women’s
Battalion is in there—they will say we have fired on Russian women.”

As we reached the Nevsky again another armoured car came around the
corner, and a man poked his head out of the turret-top.

“Come on!” he yelled. “Let’s go on through and attack!”

The driver of the other car came over, and shouted so as to be heard
above the roaring engine. “The Committee says to wait. They have got
artillery behind the wood-piles in there….”

Here the street-cars had stopped running, few people passed, and there
were no lights; but a few blocks away we could see the trams, the
crowds, the lighted shop-windows and the electric signs of the
moving-picture shows—life going on as usual. We had tickets to the
Ballet at the Marinsky Theatre—all theatres were open—but it was too
exciting out of doors….

In the darkness we stumbled over lumber-piles barricading the Police
Bridge, and before the Stroganov Palace made out some soldiers wheeling
into position a three-inch field-gun. Men in various uniforms were
coming and going in an aimless way, and doing a great deal of talking….

Up the Nevsky the whole city seemed to be out promenading. On every
corner immense crowds were massed around a core of hot discussion.
Pickets of a dozen soldiers with fixed bayonets lounged at the
street-crossings, red-faced old men in rich fur coats shook their fists
at them, smartly-dressed women screamed epithets; the soldiers argued
feebly, with embarrassed grins…. Armoured cars went up and down the
street, named after the first Tsars—Oleg, Rurik, Svietoslav—and daubed
with huge red letters, “R. S. D. R. P.” _(Rossiskaya Partia_)[13]. At
the Mikhailovsky a man appeared with an armful of newspapers, and was
immediately stormed by frantic people, offering a rouble, five roubles,
ten roubles, tearing at each other like animals. It was _Rabotchi i
Soldat,_ announcing the victory of the Proletarian Revolution, the
liberation of the Bolsheviki still in prison, calling upon the Army
front and rear for support… a feverish little sheet of four pages,
running to enormous type, containing no news….

[13] (Russian Social Democratic Labor Party).

On the corner of the Sadovaya about two thousand citizens had gathered,
staring up at the roof of a tall building, where a tiny red spark
glowed and waned.

“See!” said a tall peasant, pointing to it. “It is a provocator.
Presently he will fire on the people….” Apparently no one thought of
going to investigate.

The massive façade of Smolny blazed with lights as we drove up, and
from every street converged upon it streams of hurrying shapes dim in
the gloom. Automobiles and motorcycles came and went; an enormous
elephant-coloured armoured automobile, with two red flags flying from
the turret, lumbered out with screaming siren. It was cold, and at the
outer gate the Red Guards had built themselves a bon-fire. At the inner
gate, too, there was a blaze, by the light of which the sentries slowly
spelled out our passes and looked us up and down. The canvas covers had
been taken off the four rapid-fire guns on each side of the doorway,
and the ammunition-belts hung snakelike from their breeches. A dun herd
of armoured cars stood under the trees in the court-yard, engines
going. The long, bare, dimly-illuminated halls roared with the thunder
of feet, calling, shouting…. There was an atmosphere of recklessness. A
crowd came pouring down the staircase, workers in black blouses and
round black fur hats, many of them with guns slung over their
shoulders, soldiers in rough dirt-coloured coats and grey fur _shapki_
pinched flat, a leader or so—Lunatcharsky, Kameniev—hurrying along in
the centre of a group all talking at once, with harassed anxious faces,
and bulging portfolios under their arms. The extraordinary meeting of
the Petrograd Soviet was over. I stopped Kameniev—a quick moving little
man, with a wide, vivacious face set close to his shoulders. Without
preface he read in rapid French a copy of the resolution just passed:

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, saluting the
victorious Revolution of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison,
particularly emphasises the unity, organisation, discipline, and
complete cooperation shown by the masses in this rising; rarely has
less blood been spilled, and rarely has an insurrection succeeded so
well.

The Soviet expresses its firm conviction that the Workers’ and
Peasants’ Government which, as the government of the Soviets, will be
created by the Revolution, and which will assure the industrial
proletariat of the support of the entire mass of poor peasants, will
march firmly toward Socialism, the only means by which the country can
be spared the miseries and unheard-of horrors of war.

The new Workers’ and Peasants’ Government will propose immediately a
just and democratic peace to all the belligerent countries.

It will suppress immediately the great landed property, and transfer
the land to the peasants. It will establish workmen’s control over
production and distribution of manufactured products, and will set up a
general control over the banks, which it will transform into a state
monopoly.

The Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies calls upon the
workers and the peasants of Russia to support with all their energy and
all their devotion the Proletarian Revolution. The Soviet expresses its
conviction that the city workers, allies of the poor peasants, will
assure complete revolutionary order, indispensable to the victory of
Socialism. The Soviet is convinced that the proletariat of the
countries of Western Europe will aid us in conducting the cause of
Socialism to a real and lasting victory.

“You consider it won then?”

He lifted his shoulders. “There is much to do. Horribly much. It is
just beginning….”

On the landing I met Riazanov, vice-president of the Trade Unions,
looking black and biting his grey beard. “It’s insane! Insane!” he
shouted. “The European working-class won’t move! All Russia—” He waved
his hand distractedly and ran off. Riazanov and Kameniev had both
opposed the insurrection, and felt the lash of Lenin’s terrible
tongue….

It had been a momentous session. In the name of the Military
Revolutionary Committee Trotzky had declared that the Provisional
Government no longer existed.

“The characteristic of bourgeois governments,” he said, “is to deceive
the people. We, the Soviets of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’
Deputies, are going to try an experiment unique in history; we are
going to found a power which will have no other aim but to satisfy the
needs of the soldiers, workers, and peasants.”

Lenin had appeared, welcomed with a mighty ovation, prophesying
world-wide Social Revolution…. And Zinoviev, crying, “This day we have
paid our debt to the international proletariat, and struck a terrible
blow at the war, a terrible body-blow at all the imperialists and
particularly at Wilhelm the Executioner….”

Then Trotzky, that telegrams had been sent to the front announcing the
victorious insurrection, but no reply had come. Troops were said to be
marching against Petrograd—a delegation must be sent to tell them the
truth.

Cries, “You are anticipating the will of the All-Russian Congress of
Soviets!”

Trotzky, coldly, “The will of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets has
been anticipated by the rising of the Petrograd workers and soldiers!”

So we came into the great meeting-hall, pushing through the clamorous
mob at the door. In the rows of seats, under the white chandeliers,
packed immovably in the aisles and on the sides, perched on every
window-sill, and even the edge of the platform, the representatives of
the workers and soldiers of all Russia waited in anxious silence or
wild exultation the ringing of the chairman’s bell. There was no heat
in the hall but the stifling heat of unwashed human bodies. A foul blue
cloud of cigarette smoke rose from the mass and hung in the thick air.
Occasionally some one in authority mounted the tribune and asked the
comrades not to smoke; then everybody, smokers and all, took up the cry
“Don’t smoke, comrades!” and went on smoking. Petrovsky, Anarchist
delegate from the Obukhov factory, made a seat for me beside him.
Unshaven and filthy, he was reeling from three nights’ sleepless work
on the Military Revolutionary Committee.

On the platform sat the leaders of the old _Tsay-ee-kah_—for the last
time dominating the turbulent Soviets, which they had ruled from the
first days, and which were now risen against them. It was the end of
the first period of the Russian revolution, which these men had
attempted to guide in careful ways…. The three greatest of them were
not there: Kerensky, flying to the front through country towns all
doubtfully heaving up; Tcheidze, the old eagle, who had contemptuously
retired to his own Georgian mountains, there to sicken with
consumption; and the high-souled Tseretelli, also mortally stricken,
who, nevertheless, would return and pour out his beautiful eloquence
for a lost cause. Gotz sat there, Dan, Lieber, Bogdanov, Broido,
Fillipovsky,—white-faced, hollow-eyed and indignant. Below them the
second _siezd_ of the All-Russian Soviets boiled and swirled, and over
their heads the Military Revolutionary Committee functioned white-hot,
holding in its hands the threads of insurrection and striking with a
long arm…. It was 10.40 P. M.

Dan, a mild-faced, baldish figure in a shapeless military surgeon’s
uniform, was ringing the bell. Silence fell sharply, intense, broken by
the scuffling and disputing of the people at the door….

“We have the power in our hands,” he began sadly, stopped for a moment,
and then went on in a low voice. “Comrades! The Congress of Soviets in
meeting in such unusual circumstances and in such an extraordinary
moment that you will understand why the _Tsay-ee-kah_ considers it
unnecessary to address you with a political speech. This will become
much clearer to you if you will recollect that I am a member of the
_Tsay-ee-kah,_ and that at this very moment our party comrades are in
the Winter Palace under bombardment, sacrificing themselves to execute
the duty put on them by the _Tsay-ee-kah.”_ (Confused uproar.)

“I declare the first session of the Second Congress of Soviets of
Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies open!”

The election of the presidium took place amid stir and moving about.
Avanessov announced that by agreement of the Bolsheviki, Left Socialist
Revolutionaries and Mensheviki Internationalists, it was decided to
base the presidium upon proportionality. Several Mensheviki leaped to
their feet protesting. A bearded soldier shouted at them, “Remember
what you did to us Bolsheviki when _we_ were the minority!” Result—14
Bolsheviki, 7 Socialist Revolutionaries, 3 Mensheviki and 1
Internationalist (Gorky’s group). Hendelmann, for the right and centre
Socialist Revolutionaries, said that they refused to take part in the
presidium; the same from Kintchuk, for the Mensheviki; and from the
Mensheviki Internationalists, that until the verification of certain
circumstances, they too could not enter the presidium. Scattering
applause and hoots. One voice, “Renegades, you call yourselves
Socialists!” A representative of the Ukrainean delegates demanded, and
received, a place. Then the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ stepped down, and in
their places appeared Trotzky, Kameniev, Lunatcharsky, Madame
Kollentai, Nogin…. The hall rose, thundering. How far they had soared,
these Bolsheviki, from a despised and hunted sect less than four months
ago, to this supreme place, the helm of great Russia in full tide of
insurrection!

The order of the day, said Kameniev, was first, Organisation of Power;
second, War and Peace; and third, the Constituent Assembly. Lozovsky,
rising, announced that upon agreement of the bureau of all factions, it
was proposed to hear and discuss the report of the Petrograd Soviet,
then to give the floor to members of the _Tsay-ee-kah_ and the
different parties, and finally to pass to the order of the day.

But suddenly a new sound made itself heard, deeper than the tumult of
the crowd, persistent, disquieting,—the dull shock of guns. People
looked anxiously toward the clouded windows, and a sort of fever came
over them. Martov, demanding the floor, croaked hoarsely, “The civil
war is beginning, comrades! The first question must be a peaceful
settlement of the crisis. On principle and from a political standpoint
we must urgently discuss a means of averting civil war. Our brothers
are being shot down in the streets! At this moment, when before the
opening of the Congress of Soviets the question of Power is being
settled by means of a military plot organised by one of the
revolutionary parties—” for a moment he could not make himself heard
above the noise, “All of the revolutionary parties must face the fact!
The first _vopros_ (question) before the Congress is the question of
Power, and this question is already being settled by force of arms in
the streets!… We must create a power which will be recognised by the
whole democracy. If the Congress wishes to be the voice of the
revolutionary democracy it must not sit with folded hands before the
developing civil war, the result of which may be a dangerous outburst
of counter-revolution…. The possibility of a peaceful outcome lies in
the formation of a united democratic authority…. We must elect a
delegation to negotiate with the other Socialist parties and
organisation….”

Always the methodical muffled boom of cannon through the windows, and
the delegates, screaming at each other…. So, with the crash of
artillery, in the dark, with hatred, and fear, and reckless daring, new
Russia was being born.

The Left Socialist Revolutionaries and the United Social Democrats
supported Martov’s proposition. It was accepted. A soldier announced
that the All-Russian Peasants’ Soviets had refused to send delegates to
the Congress; he proposed that a committee be sent with a formal
invitation. “Some delegates are present,” he said. “I move that they be
given votes.” Accepted.

Kharash, wearing the epaulets of a captain, passionately demanded the
floor. “The political hypocrites who control this Congress,” he
shouted, “told us we were to settle the question of Power—and it is
being settled behind our backs, before the Congress opens! Blows are
being struck against the Winter Palace, and it is by such blows that
the nails are being driven into the coffin of the political party which
has risked such an adventure!” Uproar. Followed him Gharra: “While we
are here discussing propositions of peace, there is a battle on in the
streets…. The Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviki refuse to be
involved in what is happening, and call upon all public forces to
resist the attempt to capture the power….” Kutchin, delegate of the
12th Army and representative of the Troudoviki: “I was sent here only
for information, and I am returning at once to the Front, where all the
Army Committees consider that the taking of power by the Soviets, only
three weeks before the Constituent Assembly, is a stab in the back of
the Army and a crime against the people—!” Shouts of “Lie! You lie!”…
When he could be heard again, “Let’s make an end of this adventure in
Petrograd! I call upon all delegates to leave this hall in order to
save the country and the Revolution!” As he went down the aisle in the
midst of a deafening noise, people surged in upon him, threatening….
Then Khintchuk, an officer with a long brown goatee, speaking suavely
and persuasively: “I speak for the delegates from the Front. The Army
is imperfectly represented in this Congress, and furthermore, the Army
does not consider the Congress of Soviets necessary at this time, only
three weeks before the opening of the Constituent—” shouts and
stamping, always growing more violent. “The Army does not consider that
the Congress of Soviets has the necessary authority—” Soldiers began to
stand up all over the hall.

“Who are you speaking for? What do you represent?” they cried.

“The Central Executive Committee of the Soviet of the Fifth Army, the
Second F— regiment, the First N— Regiment, the Third S— Rifles….”

“When were you elected? You represent the officers, not the soldiers!
What do the soldiers say about it?” Jeers and hoots.

“We, the Front group, disclaim all responsibility for what has happened
and is happening, and we consider it necessary to mobilise all
self-conscious revolutionary forces for the salvation of the
Revolution! The Front group will leave the Congress…. The place to
fight is out on the streets!”

Immense bawling outcry. “You speak for the Staff—not for the Army!”

“I appeal to all reasonable soldiers to leave this Congress!”

“Kornilovitz! Counter-revolutionist! Provocator!” were hurled at him.

On behalf of the Mensheviki, Khintchuk then announced that the only
possibility of a peaceful solution was to begin negotiations with the
Provisional Government for the formation of a new Cabinet, which would
find support in all strata of society. He could not proceed for several
minutes. Raising his voice to a shout he read the Menshevik
declaration:

“Because the Bolsheviki have made a military conspiracy with the aid of
the Petrograd Soviet, without consulting the other factions and
parties, we find it impossible to remain in the Congress, and therefore
withdraw, inviting the other groups to follow us and to meet for
discussion of the situation!”

“Deserter!” At intervals in the almost continuous disturbance
Hendelman, for the Socialist Revolutionaries, could be heard protesting
against the bombardment of the Winter Palace…. “We are opposed to this
kind of anarchy….”

Scarcely had he stepped down than a young, lean-faced soldier, with
flashing eyes, leaped to the platform, and dramatically lifted his
hand:

“Comrades!” he cried and there was a hush. “My _familia_ (name) is
Peterson—I speak for the Second Lettish Rifles. You have heard the
statements of two representatives of the Army committees; these
statements would have some value _if their authors had been
representatives of the Army_—” Wild applause. _“But they do not
represent the soldiers!”_ Shaking his fist. “The Twelfth Army has been
insisting for a long time upon the re-election of the Great Soviet and
the Army Committee, but just as your own _Tsay-ee-kah,_ our Committee
refused to call a meeting of the representatives of the masses until
the end of September, so that the reactionaries could elect their own
false delegates to this Congress. I tell you now, the Lettish soldiers
have many times said, ‘No more resolutions! No more talk! We want
deeds—the Power must be in our hands!’ Let these impostor delegates
leave the Congress! The Army is not with them!”

The hall rocked with cheering. In the first moments of the session,
stunned by the rapidity of events, startled by the sound of cannon, the
delegates had hesitated. For an hour hammer-blow after hammer-blow had
fallen from that tribune, welding them together but beating them down.
Did they stand then alone? Was Russia rising against them? Was it true
that the Army was marching on Petrograd? Then this clear-eyed young
soldier had spoken, and in a flash they knew it for the truth…. _This_
was the voice of the soldiers—the stirring millions of uniformed
workers and peasants were men like them, and their thoughts and
feelings were the same…

More soldiers … Gzhelshakh; for the Front delegates, announcing that
they had only decided to leave the Congress by a small majority, and
that _the Bolshevik members had not even taken part in the vote,_ as
they stood for division according to political parties, and not groups.
“Hundreds of delegates from the Front,” he said, “are being elected
without the participation of the soldiers because the Army Committees
are no longer the real representatives of the rank and file….”
Lukianov, crying that officers like Kharash and Khintchuk could not
represent the Army in this congress,—but only the high command. “The
real inhabitants of the trenches want with all their hearts the
transfer of Power into the hands of the Soviets, and they expect very
much from it!”… The tide was turning.

Then came Abramovitch, for the _Bund,_ the organ of the Jewish Social
Democrats—his eyes snapping behind thick glasses, trembling with rage.

“What is taking place now in Petrograd is a monstrous calamity! The
_Bund_ group joins with the declaration of the Mensheviki and Socialist
Revolutionaries and will leave the Congress!” He raised his voice and
hand. “Our duty to the Russian proletariat doesn’t permit us to remain
here and be responsible for these crimes. Because the firing on the
Winter Palace doesn’t cease, the Municipal Duma together with the
Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and the Executive Committee
of the Peasants’ Soviet, has decided to perish with the Provisional
Government, and we are going with them! Unarmed we will expose our
breasts to the machine guns of the Terrorists…. We invite all delegates
to this Congress—” The rest was lost in a storm of hoots, menaces and
curses which rose to a hellish pitch as fifty delegates got up and
pushed their way out….

Kameniev jangled the bell, shouting, “Keep your seats and we’ll go on
with our business!” And Trotzky, standing up with a pale, cruel face,
letting out his rich voice in cool contempt, “All these so-called
Socialist compromisers, these frightened Mensheviki, Socialist
Revolutionaries, _Bund_—let them go! They are just so much refuse which
will be swept into the garbage-heap of history!”

Riazanov, for the Bolsheviki, stated that at the request of the City
Duma the Military Revolutionary Committee had sent a delegation to
offer negotiations to the Winter Palace. “In this way we have done
everything possible to avoid blood-shed….”

We hurried from the place, stopping for a moment at the room where the
Military Revolutionary Committee worked at furious speed, engulfing and
spitting out panting couriers, despatching Commissars armed with p

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