6-12 August 1917
- By Mark Sutcliffe
- •
- 12 Aug, 2017
- •
(Edmund Walsh, 'The Last Days of the Romanovs', The Atlantic, March 1928)
6 August
Memoir of Pierre Gilliard, tutor to the tsar's children
What reasons had the Council of Ministers for transporting
the Imperial family to Tobolsk? It is difficult to say definitely. When
Kerensky told the Tsar of the proposed transfer he explained the necessity by
saying that the Provisional Government had resolved to take energetic measures
against the Bolsheviks; this would result in a period of disturbance and armed
conflict of which the Imperial family might be the first victims; it was
therefore his duty to put them out of danger. It has been claimed in other
quarters that it was an act of weakness in face of the Extremists, who, uneasy
at seeing in the army the beginnings of a movement in favour of the Tsar,
demanded his exile to Siberia. However this may be, the journey of the Imperial
family from Tsarskoe Selo to Tobolsk was effected under comfortable conditions
and without any noteworthy incidents.
(Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion , London 1996)
7 August
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
We only know a few details about the Imperial family’s
journey. The departure from Tsarskoye took place in the early morning … The
town of Tobolsk, where the Tsar and his family are to be interned, is a long
way from the railway. Rasputin was born near there. The Grand Duchesses are
supposed to have told Kerensky that the Empress’s dearest wish is to build a
big church there, so that people can pray to God for the martyr … Saint Grischa
Rasputin, the patron saint of the tovariches
… it’s just what they need. In fact, one had to admit that there is something
impressive about the fulfilment of the prophecies of this man who never ceased
to foretell that, if he met with a violent death, the Empire would collapse
during the month after his disappearance.
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917-1918, London 1969)
9 August
Train 293 for Finland arrived at Udelnaya Station. The
driver was Guro Jalava, railywayman, conspirator, committed Marxist. ‘I came to
the edge of the platform’, he later recalled, ‘whereat a man strode from among
the trees and hoisted himself up into the cab. It was, of course, Lenin,
although I hardly recognised him. He was to be my stoker.’ The photograph in
the fake passport with which Lenin – ‘Konstantin Petrovich Ivanov’ – travelled
has become famous. With a cap perched high on a curly wig, the contours of his
beardless mouth unfamiliar, wryly upturned, his deep small eyes are all that is
recognisable.
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)
Letter to the Central Executive Committee of Soviets on
behalf of positional soldiers
Comrade Soldiers and Workers,
All of us positional troops ask you as our comrades to
explain to us who these Bolsheviks are and what party they belong to because we
don’t know them or their opinion. Our provisional government has come out very
much against the Bolsheviks. But we, positional soldiers, don’t find any fault
with them at all … We are little by little going over entirely to the side of
the Bolsheviks. But in order for us to find out exactly about the Bolsheviks,
we are turning to you, comrades, as our advisors – explain all this to us.
With respect, all the positional Soldiers, 9 August 1917,
Active Army, Sirebrov, Soldier
(Mark D. Steinberg, Voices of Revolution, 1917, New Haven and London 2001)
10 August
Mistrust between prime minister [Kerensky] and general
[Kornilov] was such that Kornilov arrived with a substantial and provocative
bodyguard. This was a body of Turkmen fighters from the so-called Savage
Division of volunteer soldiers from across the Caucasus … As Kerensky watched
in alarm from the Winter Palace, the red-robed warriors came jogging into view
down the wide streets, surrounding Kornilov’s car, brandishing scimitars and
machine-guns. They took up positions around the palace door like enemies
preparing for a parlay.
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)
Resolution of the Conference of Public Figures
[representatives of business and industry, the nobility, educated society and
former officers, convened in Moscow between 8-10 August]
The time has come openly to admit that the country … is on
the verge of ruin. The government, if it realises its duty, must acknowledge
that it has led the state on the wrong road, which must be abandoned at once
for the sake of saving the country and freedom … The only government is one
that cuts itself free of all traces of dependence on committees, soviets and
other similar organisations.
(The Russian Revolution 1917-1921, ed. Ronald
Kowalski, London 1997)
11 August
Memoir by the Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov
I got into a train at one of the stations before Yaroslavl
but the train was already overflowing, and in all classes you had to stand up
all night. In Yaroslavl, by using my title of Central Ex. Com. member, I
penetrated into an almost empty military carriage. I was delighted at my
success, but something rather disagreeable happened as a result. I was naïve
enough to remove my boots, which were gone when I happened to wake up an hour
or two later … In Moscow, astounding the crowd with my stockinged feet, I made
my way to the station-master and spent about two hours telephoning to people at
random, to see whether some friend could bring a pair of boots to the station
for me. This was all quite typical of travelling at this time.
(N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: a Personal Record, Oxford 1955)
12 August
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
There is again a certain amount of excitement in the town.
Cossack patrols and machine-gun carriers are massed in the Winter Palace
square, ready to intervene. During the last few days one has felt that things
were going badly again. … One feels it, like one does when one knows that a
storm is coming, even though one cannot yet hear the thunder.
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917-1918, London 1969)
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12 August 2017
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.