16-22 July 1917
- By Mark Sutcliffe
- •
- 22 Jul, 2017
- •
We would like to know, why did [Kerensky] consider it
necessary to move into the Winter Palace? Why was it necessary to eat and sleep
like a tsar: to tread on
elegance and luxury when the only real right to do this was the people’s; for in the
future it was to be theirs, as the Museum of Alexander III, as the Hermitage
and Tretyakov Gallery. Had Kerensky not been in the palace, the people’s rage
wouldn’t have touched a single trinket. Did the prime minister really not know
that the political struggle could, at any moment, fling him if not from
Nicholas II’s couch, then at least from his chair, that he was putting artistic
treasures in the most perilous danger by daring to live amongst them.
(L.M. Reisner in A.F.
Kerensky: Pro et Contra, St Petersburg 2016)
16 July
Diary entry of an anonymous Englishman
I believe the Emperor and his family have been sent to
Siberia. I heard this last night. I wonder what effect it will have on the
people. I think Kerenski will make himself dictator.
(The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Petrograd 1915-1917, New York 1919)
17 July
Memoir by the Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov
Now the question that naturally and inevitably arose was
that of a dictatorship. Indeed, three days after Kerensky’s ‘appointment’ as
Premier, the Star Chamber appeared before the Central Executive Committee with
a demand for a dictatorship.
(N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: a Personal Record, Oxford 1955)
18 July
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
I met Kerensky again today, in his khaki uniform (he still
does not dare dress like a Cossack), installed like the Emperor in the Imperial
Rolls-Royce, with an aide-de-camp covered in shoulder-knots on his left, and a
soldier sitting next to the chauffeur … the great man of the Russian revolution
is in reality nothing but an inspired fanatic, a case, and a madman: he acts
through intuition and personal ambition, without reasoning and without weighing
up his actions, in spite of his undoubted intelligence, his forcefulness and,
above all, the eloquence with which he knows how to lead the mob – all of which
shows how dangerous he is … Fortunately, the career of a personality such as
this can only be precarious. Nevertheless, for the moment he is the only man on
whom we can base our hope of seeing Russia continue to fight the war, so
therefore we must make use of him ... but I fear that he has some terrible
disappointments in store for us, in spite of his blustering and in spite of the
Draconian measures he has proclaimed. And yet, in Russia you never can tell …
perhaps the people will lie down like good dogs as soon as they see the stick.
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917-1918, London 1969)
19 July
Diary of Nicholas II
It’s three years since Germany declared war on us; it’s as
if we had lived a whole lifetime in those three years! Lord, help and save
Russia!
(Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion, London 1996)
Statement by the Provisional Government to the Allied Powers
In the inflexible decision to continue the war until the
complete victory of ideals proclaimed by the Russian Revolution, Russia will
not retreat before any difficulties … We know that upon the result of this
struggle depends our freedom and the freedom of humanity.
(Russian-American Relations:
March 1917-March 1920, New York 1920)
Around the country, peasant revolts grew in violence and
anarchy continued, especially over the hated war, the catastrophic offensive
costing hundreds of thousands of lives. On 19 July, in Atarsk, a district
capital in Saratov, a group of angry ensigns waiting for a train to the front
smashed the station lanterns and went hunting their superiors, guns at the
ready, until a popular ensign took charge, and ordered the officers’ arrest.
Rioting soldiers detained, threatened and even killed their officers … By the
19th … the new commander-in-chief [Kornilov] bluntly demanded total
independence of operational procedures, with reference only ‘to conscience and
to the people as a whole’ … Kerensky began to fear that he had created a
monster. He had.
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)
20 July
Diary entry of Joshua Butler Wright, Counselor of the American Embassy, Petrograd
The shadow of a military dictator grows larger and larger –
and I am not disinclined to believe that it is the solution of the question.
(Witness to Revolution: The Russian Revolution Diary and Letters of J. Butler Wright, London 2002)
Diary entry of an anonymous Englishman
Kislovodsk. The Grand Duchess [Vladimir] received me in her
cabinet de travail, and we counted the money which I had brought her in my
boots from Petrograd! It was in revolutionary thousand-rouble notes, which she
had never seen before.
(The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Petrograd 1915-1917, New York 1919)
21 July
Resolution from soldiers of the 2nd Caucasus Engineering
Regiment
[Our regiment] has allowed its ranks to commit a series of
tortures and murders of our citizens over nothing but freedom of speech. Within
its ranks there are ignorant men who have trampled upon all the Great human and
civil rights; they have dragged speakers off tribunes and even beaten up those
who suffered under the old regime for trying to attain freedom … We propose
immediately discovering the direct participants in all the crimes … and
arresting them and handing them over for trial without mercy or leniency. We
will not and cannot allow ignorant people who beat freedom fighters to death in
free Russia to go unpunished.
(Mark D. Steinberg, Voices of
Revolution, 1917, New Haven and London 2001)
22 July
Diary entry of Joshua Butler Wright, Counselor of the American Embassy, Petrograd
We awoke to an extraordinary situation of no government this
morning! The ministry all resigned last night – being in session until 5.00 AM
this morning.
(Witness to Revolution: The Russian Revolution Diary and Letters of J. Butler Wright, London 2002)
Arthur Ransome in a letter to his family in England
You do not see the bones sticking through the skin of the
horses in the street. You do not have your porter’s wife beg for a share in
your bread allowance because she cannot get enough to feed her children. You do
not go to a tearoom to have tea without cakes, without bread, without butter,
without milk, without sugar, because there are none of these things. You do not
pay seven shillings and ninepence a pound for very second-rate meat. You do not
pay forty-eight shillings for a pound of tobacco. If ever I do get home, my
sole interest will be gluttony.
(Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution, London 2017)
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22 July 2017
Lenin called Kerensky a ‘Bonapartist’, other contemporary
commentators referred to him as a ‘little Napoleon’. The references to
dictatorship in this week’s extracts are compelling. In retrospect, Kerensky's decision to move into the Winter Palace
in July 1917 on becoming prime minister seems a bit strange. He occupied
the former rooms of Alexander III, and was soon nicknamed ‘Alexander IV’.
Rumours that he slept in the imperial bed were not true; in fact Kerensky
removed the grandest pieces of furniture and portraits, and went around in his
trademark semi-military jacket. In his Interpreting
the Russian Revolution, Orlando Figes describes the care Kerensky took over
his personal appearance as ‘all part of his vanity – and of his awareness of
the importance of public image to the revolutionary minister’. He even wore his
right arm in a sling during his tours of the Front, the result, people joked,
of too much hand-shaking. He was often photographed in this ‘Napoleonic pose’.
Perhaps the imperial instinct was not entirely foreign to Kerensky. The wife of
the ex-minister of Justice (whom Kerensky replaced) recalled him expressing a
change of attitude after visiting the tsar in Tsarskoe Selo, even admitting
regret that people had not really appreciated Nicholas II’s qualities. (There
were later rumours of Kerensky helping to fund an unsuccessful attempt to free the
imperial family a few weeks later, when they were already in Tobolsk – but
these remain unsubstantiated.) A ‘little Napoleon’, assuming the trappings of
office, making speeches in royal palaces – perhaps M. Macron, the new president
of France, should take heed…
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.