26 November - 2 December 1917
- By Mark Sutcliffe
- •
- 11 Dec, 2017
- •
26 November
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
Last night the tovariches looted the cellars of the Winter Palace, where
there were thousands of bottles. Naturally, the drinkers expressed their joy by
letting off their guns; all these people walk about with rifles and bayonets
all day long, and these become rather dangerous toys when handled by drunkards.
All the same, a few willing firemen were found to smash what remained of the
bottles and flood the cellar, in order to prevent further attempts. A certain
number of tovariches remained prostrate in the middle of this ‘abundance’, and
perished there. It is sickening to see such good stuff thrown away: there were
bottles of Tokay there of the time of Catherine the Great, and it has all been
gulped down by these Vodka swiggers.
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917–1918, London 1969)
27 November
Diary entry of Alexander Benois, artist and critic
[Museum preservation commissar Grigory] Yatmanov suggested at our meeting
that we come up with conservation measures in view of the fact that the
Military Revolutionary Committee had already decreed that all stocks of wine in
St Petersburg should be destroyed — as if the city’s artistic treasures would
not be at risk as a result (it came out at this point that on Thursday/Friday
night drunken soldiers got into the Winter Palace and created a certain amount
of mayhem, they went to the church singing gallery, got as far as [Catherine
the Great’s] Library and went on the rampage in the New Hermitage) …
Finally Lunacharsky turned up. He immediately began assuring us that the whole
thing was exaggerated and that he was planning to sell all the wine abroad, in
exchange for gold and ‘textiles’, which were so needed by the proletariat.
(Alexander Benois, Diary 1916–1918, Moscow 2006)
Diary entry of Joshua Butler Wright,
Counselor of the American Embassy, Petrograd
Although this unpleasant town seems quiet, it is ominously so! The long
feared excesses are beginning, for on Thursday night last the soldiers of the
regiment guarding the Winter Palace broke into the wine cellars of the palace
and made off with a fair share of the 300,000 bottles there … One can
smell the wine and spirits this afternoon more than a block away. Intoxication
is noticeably increasing.
(Witness to Revolution: The Russian Revolution Diary and Letters of J. Butler
Wright, London 2002)
28 November
Parliamentary report headed ‘Mr Churchill on a Perilous Moment’
Mr Churchill, the Minister of Munitions, addressed a large meeting last
night in the Corn Exchange, Bedford…
‘Anyone can see for himself what has happened in Russia. Russia has been
thoroughly beaten by the Germans. Her great heart has been broken, not only by
German might, but by German intrigue; not only by German steel, but by German
gold. Russia has fallen on the ground prostrate in exhaustion and in agony. No
one can tell what fearful vicissitudes will come to Russia or how or when she
will arise, but arise she will. (Cheers.) It is this melancholy event which has
prolonged the war, that has robbed the French and the British and the Italian
armies of the prize that was, perhaps, almost within their reach this summer;
it is this event, and this event alone, that has exposed us to perils and
sorrows and sufferings which we have not deserved, which we cannot avoid, but
under which we shall not bend.’ (Loud cheers.)
(Report in The Times)
29 November
Stalin’s Speech at the Congress of the Finnish Social Democratic Labour Party
I would like first of all to bring you the joyous news of the victories of
the Russian Revolution … Bondage to the landlords has been broken, for
power in the rural districts has passed into the hands of the peasants. The
power of the generals has been broken, for power in the army is now
concentrated in the hands of the soldiers. A curb has been put on the
capitalists, for workers’ control is rapidly being established over the
factories, works and banks. The whole country, the towns and villages, the rear
and the front, is studded with revolutionary committees of workers, soldiers
and peasants who are taking the reins of government in their own hands.
(V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, The Russian Revolution: Writings and Speeches
from the February Revolution to the October Revolution, 1917, London 1938)
Diary entry of Louis de Robien,
attaché at the French Embassy
If one had to describe the regime which Russia is suffering from at the
moment, one could call it a ‘soldiers’ dictatorship’. It was the soldiers who
supported the Bolsheviks, because they promised peace: now they tend to go even
further than them and to carry Lenin along with them, in the unleashed flood of
their animal instincts … Yesterday, on the corner of the Liteiny Prospekt
and Furchtadskaya Street, two soldiers were bargaining for apples with an old
woman street vendor. Deciding that the price was too high, one of them shot her
in the head while the other ran her through with his bayonet. Naturally, nobody
dared to do anything to the two soldier murderers, who went quietly on their
way watched by an indifferent crowd and munching the apples which they had
acquired so cheaply.
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917–1918, London 1969)
30 November
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
They are still plundering the wine-cellars: and in the morning the snow
outside the ransacked shops is a purplish colour and smells of stale
dregs … Among the cellar-wreckers there are also some men with good
intentions who are trying to smash the bottles of wine to prevent drunkenness
and disorder.
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917–1918, London 1969)
The Bolshevik government continued to
try and destroy wine stores before the mob got to them: in the Duma cellars
36,000 bottles of brandy were smashed; three million rubles worth of champagne
was destroyed elsewhere. There was, however, one unforeseen consequence of the
job of the official bottle-smashers: even if they piously refrained from
drinking any of the wine themselves, they became hopelessly inebriated from all
the fumes.
(Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd 1917, London 2017)
1 December
Diary entry of Joshua Butler Wright, Counselor of the
American Embassy, Petrograd
Another night of continual shooting, seemingly centred in this part of the
city and this morning we find that the wine and general provision shop on the
corner of the next street was ransacked — as was the shoe shop next to it! The
looting is spreading!! The same sort of thing is reported from all over the
city. Accosted by a very drunk individual as Amerikanski tovarishch late this
afternoon but managed to shake him off … Dined at Norwegian legation. A
large diplomatic dinner strangely enough. Missed Harriet fearfully.
(Witness to Revolution: The Russian Revolution Diary and Letters of J. Butler
Wright, London 2002)
2 December
The writer Maksim Gorky to his wife, E.P. Peshkova
I was not exactly ill, although I was a little unwell. A little discomfort
in the lungs is nothing; I’ve had two sessions of X-ray treatment already and
I’m feeling better. But my nerves are completely shattered. Completely. I can’t
sleep and my mood is so miserable that it’s simply awful. I’m trying to hide
from those around me, but how does one do that? Things are bad for Russia,
bad! … I hope you aren’t going to the Crimea! Wait a bit!
(Maksim Gorky: Selected Letters, Oxford 1997)
2 December 2017
I hadn’t clocked the extent of the wine episodes, post- both revolutions.
It’s understandable that everyone should go a bit mad, particularly soldiers
desensitised by their recent experience at the front. But the scale of it,
described in these entries, is pretty extraordinary, with even the pious
intentions of the bottle-smashers leading to inebriation! There’s a new book
out by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa called Crime and Punishment in the Russian
Revolution (Harvard University Press) that looks at the rise in
violent crime between March 1917 and March 1918. He ascribes this partly to the
new municipal police force that replaced the tsarist police and which was
infiltrated, he claims, by former criminals. There was no proper judicial
system and the prison system broke down. With people taking the law into their
own hands, mob justice began to rule — something Lenin, according to Hasegawa,
felt was an expression of justifiable popular anger against the bourgeois order…
until it got out of hand, as the wine pogroms reveal, and the Bolsheviks
‘resorted to draconian measures: shoot to kill any criminals on the spot’. The
author’s thesis is that the need to clamp down on this violent lawlessness led
to all common crimes being deemed counter-revolutionary acts (and therefore
under Cheka control) — and that ultimately this was an important factor in the
establishment of a totalitarian state. Whether you accept this or not, it’s
interesting to consider the role of alcohol in framing the Soviet century:
wine — a symbol, perhaps, of bourgeois decadence — leading to tighter controls
in the early days of Bolshevik rule; vodka — the scourge of the working
man — playing its nefarious part in the system’s demise many decades later.
as per the Gregorian calendar. 5 November 2017
8 October
Letter from Lenin to the Bolshevik Comrades attending the Regional Congress of
the Soviets of the Northern Region
Comrades, Our revolution is passing through a highly critical period …
A gigantic task is being imposed upon the responsible leaders of our Party,
failure to perform which will involve the danger of a total collapse of the
internationalist proletarian movement. The situation is such that verily,
procrastination is like unto death … In the vicinity of Petrograd and in
Petrograd itself — that is where the insurrection can, and must, be decided on
and effected … The fleet, Kronstadt, Viborg, Reval, can and must advance
on Petrograd; they must smash the Kornilov regiments, rouse both the capitals,
start a mass agitation for a government which will immediately give the land to
the peasants and immediately make proposals for peace, and must overthrow
Kerensky’s government and establish such a government. Verily, procrastination
is like unto death.
(V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, The Russian Revolution: Writings and Speeches
from the February Revolution to the October Revolution, 1917, London 1938)
9 October
Report in The Times
The Maximalist [Bolshevik], M. Trotsky, President of the Petrograd Soviet,
made a violent attack on the Government, describing it as irresponsible and
assailing its bourgeois elements, ‘who,’ he continued, ‘by their attitude are
causing insurrection among the peasants, increasing disorganisation and trying
to render the Constituent Assembly abortive.’ ‘The Maximalists,’ he declared,
‘cannot work with the Government or with the Preliminary Parliament, which I am
leaving in order to say to the workmen, soldiers, and peasants that Petrograd,
the Revolution, and the people are in danger.’ The Maximalists then left the
Chamber, shouting, ‘Long live a democratic and honourable peace! Long live the
Constituent Assembly!’
(‘Opening of Preliminary Parliament’, The Times)
10 October
As Sukhanov left his home for the Soviet on the morning of the 10th, his
wife Galina Flakserman eyed nasty skies and made him promise not to try to
return that night, but to stay at his office … Unlike her diarist husband,
who was previously an independent and had recently joined the Menshevik left,
Galina Flakserman was a long-time Bolshevik activist, on the staff of Izvestia.
Unbeknownst to him, she had quietly informed her comrades that comings and
goings at her roomy, many-entranced apartment would be unlikely to draw
attention. Thus, with her husband out of the way, the Bolshevik CC came
visiting. At least twelve of the twenty-one-committee were there … There
entered a clean-shaven, bespectacled, grey-haired man, ‘every bit like a
Lutheran minister’, Alexandra Kollontai remembered. The CC stared at the
newcomer. Absent-mindedly, he doffed his wig like a hat, to reveal a familiar
bald pate. Lenin had arrived.
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)
Memoir by the Menshevik Nikolai
Sukhanov
Oh, the novel jokes of the merry muse of History! This supreme and decisive
session took place in my own home … without my knowledge … For such a
cardinal session not only did people come from Moscow, but the Lord of Hosts
himself, with his henchman, crept out of the underground. Lenin appeared in a
wig, but without his beard. Zinoviev appeared with a beard, but without his
shock of hair. The meeting went on for about ten hours, until about 3 o’clock
in the morning … However, I don’t actually know much about the exact
course of this meeting, or even about its outcome. It’s clear that the question
of an uprising was put … It was decided to begin the uprising as quickly
as possible, depending on circumstances but not on the Congress.
(N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: a Personal Record, Oxford 1955)
11 October
British Consul Arthur Woodhouse in a letter home
Things are coming to a pretty pass here. I confess I should like to be out
of it, but this is not the time to show the white feather. I could not ask for
leave now, no matter how imminent the danger. There are over 1,000 Britishers
here still, and I and my staff may be of use and assistance to them in an
emergency.
(Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd 1917, London 2017)
Memoir of Fedor Raskolnikov, naval
cadet at Kronstadt
The proximity of a proletarian rising in Russia, as prologue to the world
socialist revolution, became the subject of all our discussions in
prison … Even behind bars, in a stuffy, stagnant cell, we felt instinctively
that the superficial calm that outwardly seemed to prevail presaged an
approaching storm … At last, on October 11, my turn [for release]
came … Stepping out of the prison on to the Vyborg-Side embankment and
breathing in deeply the cool evening breeze that blew from the river, I felt
that joyous sense of freedom which is known only to those who have learnt to
value it while behind bards. I took a tram at the Finland Station and quickly
reached Smolny … In the mood of the delegates to the Congress of Soviets
of the Northern Region which was taking place at that time .. an unusual
elation, an extreme animation was noticeable … They told me straightaway
that the CC had decided on armed insurrection. But there was a group of
comrades, headed by Zinoviev and Kamenev, who did not agree with this decision
and regarded a rising a premature and doomed to defeat.
(F.F. Raskolnikov, Kronstadt and Petrograd in 1917, New York 1982, first
published 1925)
12 October
Sir George Buchanan, British Ambassador to Russia
On [Kerensky] expressing the fear that there was a strong anti-Russian
feeling both in England and France, I said that though the British public was
ready to make allowances for her difficulties, it was but natural that they
should, after the fall of Riga, have abandoned all hope of her continuing to
take an active part in the war … Bolshevism was at the root of all the
evils from which Russia was suffering, and if he would but eradicate it he
would go down to history, not only as the leading figure of the revolution, but
as the saviour of his country. Kerensky admitted the truth of what I had said,
but contended that he could not do this unless the Bolsheviks themselves
provoked the intervention of the Government by an armed uprising.
(Sir George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia, London 1923)
13 October
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
Kerensky is becoming more and more unpopular, in spite of certain grotesque
demonstrations such as this one: the inhabitants of a district in Central
Russia have asked him to take over the supreme religious power, and want to
make him into a kind of Pope as well as a dictator, whereas even the Tsar was
really neither one nor the other. Nobody takes him seriously, except in the
Embassy. A rather amusing sonnet about him has appeared, dedicated to the beds
in the Winter Palace, and complaining that they are reserved for hysteria
cases … for Alexander Feodorovich (Kerensky’s first names) and then
Alexandra Feodorovna (the Empress).
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917–1918, London 1969)
14 October 2017
The BBC2 semi-dramatisation of how the Bolsheviks took power, shown this week,
was a curious thing. Talking heads in the form of Figes, Mieville, Rappaport,
Sebag-Montefiore, Tariq Ali, Martin Amis and others were interspersed with
moody reconstructions of late-night meetings, and dramatic moments such as
Lenin’s unbearded return to the Bolshevik CC (cf Sukhanov above). The programme
felt rather staged and unconvincing, with a lot of agonised expressions and
fist-clenching by Lenin, but the reviewers liked it. Odd, though, that
Eisenstein’s storming of the Winter Palace is rolled out every time, with a
brief disclaimer that it’s a work of fiction and yet somehow presented as
historical footage. There’s a sense of directorial sleight of hand, as if the
rather prosaic taking of the palace desperately needs a re-write. In some
supra-historical way, Eisenstein’s version has become the accepted version.
John Reed’s Ten Days that Shook the World
, currently being
serialised on Radio 4, is also presented with tremendous vigour, and properly
so as the book is nothing if not dramatic. Historical truth, though, is often
as elusive in a book that was originally published — in 1919 — with an
introduction by Lenin. ‘Reed was not’, writes one reviewer, ‘an ideal observer.
He knew little Russian, his grasp of events was sometimes shaky, and his facts
were often suspect.’ Still, that puts him in good company, and Reed is
undoubtedly a good read.
