25 June - 1 July 1917
- By Mark Sutcliffe
- •
- 01 Jul, 2017
- •
The lesson of the Russian Revolution is that there is no
escape for the masses from the iron grip of war, famine and enslavement to the
landlords and capitalists, unless they completely break with the
Socialist-Revolutionary and Menshevik parties, unless they clearly recognise
the treacherous role of the latter, unless they renounce all compromise with
the bourgeoisie and decidedly come over to the side of the revolutionary
workers. Only the revolutionary workers, if supported by the poor peasants, can
smash the resistance of the capitalists.
(V.I. Lenin, Lessons of the Revolution, The Russian Revolution
by V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, London 1938)
25 June
Letter to working women from Maria Kutsko, a worker at the
Petrograd Munitions Work
Comrade Women workers! Not long ago we won higher wages for
women at the Munitions Works, and this ought to show us how great is the
strength and significance of organization. What would we have achieved if we
acted alone, by ourselves? Absolutely nothing! Until 7 June we women workers
got only four roubles [a day], which … was hard for many to live on, especially
for working women with families whose husbands were in the war … The general
meeting went very well. Only one comrade expressed an idea that it is
completely impossible to agree with. He said that women will work in the
factories only until the end of the war, but after the war is over, they will
in all likelihood quit the factories. But we are sure, comrades, that this will
not be the case. Where can those women workers go whose husbands, fathers and
brothers return home as cripples, unfit for labour? Who will support their
helpless families and children if not we working women? Further, this comrade
said that we women workers should not do dirty work in the factories, that we
ought to ‘beautify the lives of men’ … But, comrade workers, one can beautify your
life not only at home by the stove but also at the factory. We women workers
can beautify your life at the workbench, working hand in hand with you to
improve our common working lives, to make this life more beautiful, pure and
bright for ourselves, for our children, and for the whole working class. This,
it seems to me, is the real beauty and meaning of life.
(Mark D. Steinberg, Voices of Revolution, 1917, New Haven and London 2001)
26 June
Diary entry of Nicholas II
Gave Alexei a geography lesson. We cut down a huge pine tree
not far from the orangerie fence. The sentries even wanted to help us. In the
evening I finished reading
The Count of
Monte-Cristo.
(Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion, London 1996)
27 June
Diary entry of Nicholas II
I forgot to write that on the 26 June our troops made
another breakthrough and captured: 131 officers, 7000 lower ranks and 48
cannons, including 12 heavy ones. In the morning all the girls went out to
collect the mown grass. I went for my usual walk.
(Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion, London 1996)
After all his urgent and frenetic interventions, Lenin was
exhausted to the point of illness. His family were concerned. His comrades
persuaded him that he needed to take a rest. On the 27th, accompanied by his
sister Maria, he left Petrograd. They travelled together across the border to
the Finnish village of Neivola, where his comrade Bonch-Bruevich had a country
cottage. There they spent the days relaxing, swimming in a lake, strolling in
the sun.
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)
Report on an American Mission to Russia
The Mission has accomplished what it came here to do, and we
are greatly encouraged. We found no organic or incurable malady in the Russian
Democracy … The solid admirable traits in the Russian character will pull the
nation through the present crisis. Natural love of law and order and capacity
for local self-government have been demonstrated every day since the
Revolution.
(Russian-American Relations: March 1917-March 1920, New York 1920)
Letter to ‘Comrade Patriots’ from soldiers in the trenches
Certain Bolshevik Anarchists from the Petrograd garrison …
are now travelling up and down the front with the following slogans: ‘Down with
the war’, ‘Down with the offensive’. And they are running to the ignorant mass
of soldiers with these false words: ‘You should trust and believe only us and,
generally, all the Bolsheviks and their parties – we alone will save you, we
will lead you out onto the true path without bloodshed or carnage!’ and instead
of leading us out onto the path of salvation, they send us into Anarchy; they
want us to become Anarchists … But no, Comrades! We are not Anarchists or
monarchists, not Nicholas II or Grishka Rasputin … We are position soldiers,
trench rats! We do not recognise Bolshevik Anarchists or their henchmen, but we
have always and only trusted the socialist minister Kerensky and the Soviet of
Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies.
(Mark D. Steinberg, Voices of Revolution, 1917, New Haven and London 2001)
28 June
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
Russia is definitely the land of surprise. At the moment
when everybody believed the army to be completely breaking up, every day brings
news of fresh victories … There is something immoral about the victory of this
disorganised, louse-ridden army, led by a petty little socialist lawyer. All
our ideas about discipline … are contradicted by this herd, in which each man
does as he pleases, where officers are murdered, where each company has a
soviet of delegates, and where even the plans of campaign are argued about …
But this can hardly last, and we shall have a terrible awakening when the
tovariches have to face the Germans, with their machine-guns and their heavy
cannon, instead of the Austrians who have decidedly ‘had enough of it’.
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917-1918, London 1969)
29 June
Diary entry of Alexander Benois, artist and critic
Went home on foot past the Stock Exchange. The whole area
from the Lunapark to the fortress looked wonderful, it had a magical effect. A
blueish mist outlined separately the
long perspectives and created an unusual richness and variety of forms that I
hadn’t seen before. We talked about the general state of chaos. [Benois’s wife]
Akitsa, as a result of all kinds of domestic trials, has completely ‘moved to the right’ and talks
almost like the common man, complaining about the soldiers and other
‘proletarians who’ve got too big for their boots’.
(Alexander Benois, Diary 1916-1918, Moscow 2006)
30 June
Diary entry of an anonymous Englishman
Woke up at 11 a.m. No one answered my bell. Found hotel
servants on strike, except cooks. Dressed, made my own bed, cleaned my bath,
swept my room. I did the same for a rheumatic old lady in my corridor who was
much upset by the strike … Dinner at Felix Yusupov’s in the room where Rasputin
was killed; sat next to Lady Muriel Paget. Took an izvoschik home; paid him a
rouble for a 40-kopek fare. He called me a Jew!
(The Russian Diary of an Englishman, Petrograd 1915-1917, New York 1919)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 July 2017
Maria Kutsko’s appeal to fellow women to ‘beautify’ their
lives at the workbench as well as the stove, to discover the ‘real beauty and
meaning of life’, was written just days after the legendary Maria Bochkareva,
commander of the Women’s Death Battalion, was honoured by Kerensky and Kornilov
in front of St Isaac’s Cathedral with an officer’s belt, a gold-handled
revolver and a sabre, as a token of the nation’s appreciation. Bochkareva
witnessed the disintegration of the Russian army at the front and created her
own ‘shock battalion’ of women. ‘We will go wherever men refuse to go, we will
fight when they run. The women will lead the men back to the trenches.’ In June
Emmeline Pankhurst was visiting Russia. She described Bochkareva as ‘the
greatest thing in history since Joan of Arc’, but the battalion was often
derided by men, and in particular by their fellow soldiers who felt their
courage was being questioned. And perhaps rightly so, as Pankhurst described in
a telegraph to England: ‘First Women’s Battalion number two hundred and fifty.
Took place of retreating troops. In counter attack made one hundred prisoners
including troops. Only five weeks training. Their leader wounded. Have earned
undying fame, moral effect great. More women soldiers training, also marines.
Pankhurst.’
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.