12-18 March 1917

Revolution meant to the small professional man in the crowd that peace with victory was not far off, that he would then be able to return to the same quiet life as he led before the war, retire to a dacha and end his days in peace, undisturbed by mobilization orders and oppressive food restrictions. But Revolution meant to the haggard workmen something very different. It meant that the war indeed would soon be over, but that he would not return to the condition he was in before … The Revolution meant to the peasant soldier … that the memories of his life between 1914 and 1917 would be as a bad dream, and that land … would be at his disposal as soon as he arrived in his village. Beneath the enthusiasm of the common rejoicing in those street meetings one could see that at least three different social types were interpreting the Revolution in three different senses. Which of these types would lead the Revolution? Would it be the well-dressed man with the money-bag, or the timid little professional man, hankering after the paradise that had disappeared? Or would something pale, ragged, hungry – yes, if you like, brutal and raw – build the new altar and make it the shrine of Holy Russia from that day forth?
(M. Philips Price, former correspondent of the Manchester Guardian in Russia, My Reminiscences of the Russian Revolution , London 1921)

12 March

Diary of Nicholas II, Tsarskoe Selo
We spent this feast day [Annunciation] in unbelievable conditions – under arrest in our own house and without the slightest possibility of communicating either with Mama or our relatives!
(Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion , London 1996)

Letter from Lord Stamfordham, George V's private secretary, to the Foreign Secretary, A.J. Balfour
My dear Balfour,
Every day the King is becoming more concerned about the question of the Emperor and Empress of Russia coming to this country. His Majesty receives letters from people in all classes of life, known or unknown to him, saying how much the matter is being discussed, not only in Clubs but by working men, and that Labour Members in the House of Commons are expressing adverse opinions to the proposal. As you know from the first the King has thought the presence of the Imperial Family (especially of the Empress) in this country would raise all sorts of difficulties, and I feel sure that you appreciate how awkward it will be for our Royal Family who are closely connected both with the Emperor and Empress.

Later the same day:

My dear Balfour,
The King wishes me to write again on the subject of my letter of this morning. He must beg you to represent to the Prime Minister that from all he hears and reads in the Press, the residence in this country of the Ex-Emperor and Empress would be strongly resented by the public, and would undoubtedly compromise the position of the King and Queen from whom it is already generally supposed the invitation has emanated … Buchanan ought to be instructed to tell Milyukov that the opposition to the Emperor and Empress coming here is so strong that we must be allowed to withdraw from the consent previously given to the Russian Government’s proposal.
Yours very truly, Stamfordham
(Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion , London 1996)

13 March

Diary entry of Alexander Benois, artist and critic
Went over to Paléologue, having long ago agreed to visit the World of Art exhibition with him, but instead of that we sat for an hour and a half in his study going through the latest events. He is seriously scared. Against my insistence that universal peace must be sought as soon as possible, he set out a whole scenario of how the entire burden of the war would in this case land on Russia, because whereas the other Allies have a bargaining chip – Mesopotamia, colonies and so forth – Russia doesn’t. At the same time he outlined what he sees as the hopeless situation the country is in, its total disorganisation and effective inability to continue the war. … Suing unilaterally for peace would result in bankruptcy as we wouldn’t benefit from the commercial opportunities with Germany that would come after its final destruction … Some pages or junkers rare on duty at the Embassy. They salute you with particular zeal when you come across them. For some reason I felt very sorry for them. If something were to happen to the Embassy, they’d be the first to perish
(Alexander Benois, Diary 1916-1918, Moscow 2006)

Diary entry of Georges-Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia
Alexander Nicolaievitch Benois, the painter and historian of art and a friend of whom I see quite a good deal, has given me an unexpected call. Descended from a French family which settled in Russia somewhere about 1820, he is the most cultivated man whom I know here, and one of the most distinguished … His personal opinions, which are always judicious and far-sighted, are all the more valuable in my eyes because he is eminently representative of that active and well-informed class of professors, savants, doctors, artists, men of letters and publicists which is styled the intelligentsia. He came to see me about three o’clock, just as I was preparing to go out. He looked grave and sat down with a weary sigh: ‘Forgive me if I inconvenience you, but yesterday evening some of my friends and I were indulging in such gloomy reflections that I couldn’t help coming to tell you about them.’ Then he gave me a vivid and, alas, only too accurate picture of he effects of anarchy on the people, the prevailing apathy of the governing classes and the loss of discipline in the army. He ended with the observation: ‘However painful such an admission must be to me, I feel I’m only doing my duty in coming to tell you that the war cannot go on. Peace must be made at the earliest possible moment.’ … My answer was as follows: ‘… In the first place you should know that, whatever may happen, France and England will carry on the war to complete victory. Defection on the part of Russia would probably prolong the struggle, but would not change the result … you may be quite sure that the moment Russia betrays her allies, they will repudiate her. Germany will thus have full license to seek compensation at your expense for the sacrifices imposed on her elsewhere. I certainly do not imagine that you are founding any hopes on the magnanimity of William II … You will therefore lose – as a minimum – Courland, Lithuania, Poland, Galicia and Bessarabia, to say nothing of your prestige in the East and your designs on Constantinople.’ … He continued: ‘There’s no reply to you, alas! Yet we simply cannot continue the war! Honestly, we simply cannot!’ And with those words he left me, the tears standing in his eyes. I have met with the same pessimism on all sides during the last few days.
(Maurice Paléologue,  An Ambassador's Memoirs 1914-1917, London 1973) 

14 March

Petrograd Soviet: Call to the Peoples of the World
Comrade-proletarians, and toilers of all countries:
We, Russian workers and soldiers, united in the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, send you warmest greetings and announce the great event. The Russian democracy has shattered in the dust the age-long despotism of the Tsar and enters your family of nations as an equal, and as a mighty force in the struggle for our common liberation. Our victory is a great victory for the free­dom and democracy of the world. The chief pillar of reaction in the world, the 'Gendarme of Europe', is no more. May the earth turn to heavy granite on his grave! Long live freedom! Long live the international solidarity of the proletariat, and its struggle for final victory! Our work is not yet finished: the shades of the old order have not yet been dispersed, and not a few enemies are gathering their forces against the Russian revolution. Nevertheless our achievement so far is tremendous. The people of Russia will express their will in the Constituent Assembly, which will be called as soon as possible on the basis of universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage. And it may already be said without a doubt that a democratic republic will triumph in Russia. The Russian people now possess full political liberty. They can now assert their mighty power in the internal government of the country and in its foreign policy. And, appealing to all people who are being destroyed and ruined in the monstrous war, we announce that the time has come to start a decisive struggle against the grasping ambitions of the governments of all countries; the time has come for the people to take into their own hands the decision of the question of war and peace… We are appealing to our brother-proletarians of the Austro-German coalition, and, first of all, to the German proletariat. From the first days of the war, you were assured that by raising arms against autocratic Russia, you were defending the culture of Europe from Asiatic despotism. Many of you saw in this a justification of that support which you were giving to the war. Now even this justification is gone: democratic Russia cannot be a threat to liberty and civilization. We will firmly defend our own liberty from all reactionary attempts from within, as well as from without. The Russian revolution will not retreat before the bayonets of conquerors, and will not allow itself to be crushed by foreign military force. But we are calling to you: Throw off the yoke of your semi-autocratic rule, as the Russian people have shaken off the Tsar's autocracy; refuse to serve as an instrument of conquest and violence in the hands of kings, landowners, and bankers — and then by our united efforts we will stop the horrible butchery, which is disgracing humanity and is beclouding the great days of the birth of Russian freedom. Toilers of all countries: We hold out to you the hand of brotherhood across the mountains of our brothers' corpses, across rivers of innocent blood and tears, over the smoking ruins of cities and villages, over the wreckage of the treasuries of civilization; — we appeal to you for the reestablishment and strengthening of international unity. In it is the pledge of our future victories and the complete liberation of humanity.
Proletarians of all countries, unite!
(Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, Izvestiia)

Diary of Nicholas II, Tsarskoe Selo
We started to fast, but this fast did not begin happily. After church, Kerensky arrived and asked us to limit our meetings to meal times and to sit separately from the children; this is apparently necessary to appease the famous Workers’ Soviet and the Soldiers’ Deputies! We had to agree, in order to avoid the use of force.
(Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion , London 1996)

Diary entry of Georges-Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia
At Tsarskoe Selo a closer watch is being kept over the fallen sovereigns. The Emperor still presents an extraordinary spectacle of indifference and imperturbability. He spends, in his calm and casual way, his day skimming the papers, smoking cigarettes, doing puzzles, playing with his children and sweeping up snow in the garden. He seems to find a kind of relief in being at length free of the burden of supreme power. The Empress, on the other hand, has taken to mystical exaltation; she is always saying: ‘It is God who has sent us this ordeal; I accept it thankfully for my eternal salvation.’
(Maurice Paléologue,  An Ambassador's Memoirs 1914-1917, London 1973) 

15 March

From A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes
There was a new stress on the workers’ own sense of dignity. They were now aware of themselves as ‘citizens’ , and of the fact that they had ‘made the revolution’ (or had at least played a leading part in it), and they were no longer willing to be treated with any disrespect by either foremen or managers. This was often a spark for violence: offensive factory officials would be symbolically ‘carted out’, sometimes literally in a wheelbarrow, and then beaten up or thrown into the canal or cesspool. Many strikers demanded respectful treatment. Waiters and waitresses in Petrograd marched with banners bearing the demands: WE INSIST ON RESPECT FOR WAITERS AS HUMAN BEINGS! DOWN WITH TIPS: WAITERS ARE CITIZENS! … During the February Revolution a wide range of workers’ armed brigades had sprung up its own militias in the cities. So there was a dual system of police – with the city militias in the middle-class districts and the workers’ brigades in the industrial suburbs – which mirrored the dual power structure in Petrograd. Gradually the workers’ brigades were, albeit loosely, unified under the direction of the district Soviets. But from the start it was the Bolsheviks who had the dominant influence on them.
(Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy, London 1996)

Memoir by the Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov
I was called out of the Ex. Com. and told that Kamenev [Lev Kamenev, a Bolshevik and at this time one of Lenin’s closest colleagues] wanted to talk to me in the Catherine Hall … I began asking Kamenev what was being done in general and in which direction a ‘line’ was being defined in his party circles. What was Lenin thinking and writing? We strolled about the Catherine Hall for a long time, with Kamenev trying at some length to persuade me that his party was taking up or ready to take up a most ‘reasonable’ (from my point of view) position. … Lenin? Lenin thought that up to now the revolution was being accomplished quite properly and that a bourgeois Government was now historically indispensable. ‘Does that mean you are not going to overthrow the bourgeois Government yet and don’t insist on an immediate democratic regime?’ I tried to get this out of Kamenev. … ‘We here don’t insist on that, nor does Lenin over there. He writes that our immediate task now is to organize and mobilize our forces.’ ‘But what do you think about current foreign policy? What about an immediate peace?’ ‘You know that for us the question cannot be put that way. Bolshevism has always maintained that the World War can only be ended by a world proletarian revolution. And as long as that has not taken place, as long as Russia continues the war, we shall be against any disorganisation and for maintaining the front.’
(N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: a Personal Record,  Oxford 1955)

16 March

Speech by Alexander Kerensky in Finland
I came here not only to greet you but to bring the Finnish people the news of its freedom, which the liberated Russian peasant, worker and soldier has given you. From now, comrades, all doubt is dispelled … Comrades, let me tell you today that the enemies of the old regime, all citizens of Finland who carried out political crimes, are from this moment our brothers, and I declare a full amnesty.
(A.F. Kerensky, Diary of a Politician, Moscow 2007)

17 March

Diary entry of Georges-Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia
The most dangerous germ involved in the revolution has been developing during the last few days with the most alarming rapidity. Finland, Livonia, Esthonia, Poland, Lithuania, the Ukraine, Georgia and Siberia, are demanding their independence, or, failing that, complete autonomy. That Russia is doomed to federalism is highly probable.
(Maurice Paléologue,  An Ambassador's Memoirs 1914-1917, London 1973) 

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18 March 2017

The British monarchy's ability to see which way the wind is blowing has often been cited as a reason for its longevity. Sometimes it gets it spectacularly wrong, as with the death of Princess Diana twenty years ago this September, when public opinion turned against it and the Queen was forced into a statement she seemed anything but keen to make. Eighty years before that it would seem they made an even worse decision over whether to give sanctuary to Nicholas II and his family. Certainly, knowing the fate of the Russian royal family just over a year later, it's hard to conclude otherwise. And yet it could be argued that this was another example of the British royals' chilly instinct for self-preservation, deciding to withdraw an earlier offer to their Russian cousins in the face of growing public opposition and an increasingly republican tone to public discourse. In a recent doctoral dissertation, Claire McKee tells how the British ambassador in Petrograd, George Buchanan, reported back to London the threat of 'serious consequences' issued by a visiting socialist politician, William Thorne, if Nicholas and Alexandra were allowed to come to England. A few weeks later H.G. Wells was writing 'The tsar is not an evil figure, he is not a strong figure but he is the sort that trails revolution in its wake. He has ended one dynasty already. Our royal family owes it to itself that he brings not the infection of his misfortunes thither.' 

Post-script 1. A bit late for the February anniversary (not untypically – a few years ago a friend and I arrived for a Nabokov conference in St Petersburg exactly a week late), but the city this week (hence the slightly tangential image that heads this post) has been an eye-opener. Not sure what I was expecting – not necessarily banners across Nevsky Prospekt proclaiming the end of empire, but certainly … something. Instead, there is almost universal indifference. A small exhibition here, a private ceremony marking the Provisional Government there, but nothing that comes close to matching the Royal Academy show or the level of interest in the West. Revolutionary fervour in the cradle of the revolution, it seems, is in short supply. The analysis of two Russian friends couldn’t have been more different: nobody has much appetite for celebrating something that has little direct bearing on life today, said one, and in any case is it a cause for celebration, does the Russian government really want to mark a popular uprising that toppled a tsar? You’re too early, said the other, everyone’s gearing up for October (or November new style). So I’ll just have to head out again and find out who’s right. And try not to miss it.

Post-script 2: It's been noted that the comments on this blog are disabled, which I admit was a conscious decision but perhaps a rather cowardly one. So I'm enabling them and let's see what happens (cue deafening silence...).