“ALL THE POWER TO THE SOVIET”
About the first thing I saw on the morning of my arrival in Petrograd last spring was a group of young men, about twenty in number, I should think, marching through the street in front of my hotel, carrying a scarlet banner with an inscription in large white letters.
“What does that banner say?” I asked the hotel commissionaire who stood beside me.
“It says ‘All the Power to the Soviet,’” was the answer.
“What is the soviet?” I asked, and he replied briefly:
“It is the only government we have in Russia now.”
And he was right. The soviets, or councils of soldiers’ and workmen’s delegates, which have spread like wildfire throughout the country, are the nearest thing to a government that Russia has known since the very early days of the revolution.
The most striking parallel between the French and the Russian revolutions lies in the facility with which both were snatched away from the sane and intelligent men who began them and placed in the hands of fanatics, who turned them into mad orgies of blood and terror. The first French revolutionists rebelled against the theory of the divine right of kings to govern or misgovern the people. They wanted a constitution and a government by consent of the governed. But the mob came in and took possession of the situation, and the result was the guillotine and the reign of terror. Miliukoff, Rodzianko, Lvoff, and their associates in the Russian Duma, rebelled against a stupid, cruel autocrat who was doing his best to lose the war and to bring the country to ruin and dishonor. They wanted a constitution for Russia, and, for the time being at least, a figurehead king who would leave government in the hands of responsible ministers. But the Petrograd council of soldiers’ and workmen’s delegates came in and took possession of the situation, and the result is a country torn with anarchy, brought to the verge of bankruptcy, and ready, unless something happens between now and next spring, to fall into the hands of the Germans.
These councils of workmen are not new. In the upheaval of 1905-06 a man named Khrustaliov, a labor leader, became the head of an organization called the Petrograd Council of Workmen’s Deputies. It was made up of elected delegates from all the principal factories in and near the capital, and during the general strike which forced Nicholas to convene the first Duma, the council assumed general control of the whole labor situation, managing matters with rare good sense and firmness. Witte, who became premier in those days, negotiated with Khrustaliov as with an equal. For a time he and his council were a real power in the empire. A dozen cities formed similar organizations. There were councils of workmen’s deputies, peasants’ deputies, even, in some places, of soldiers’ deputies. The reaction which came in July, 1906, swept them all into oblivion, and I never found anybody who knew what became of Khrustaliov. But the tradition of the council of workmen’s deputies was unforgotten. Perhaps the council even existed still in secret; I do not know. It was quickly revived in March, 1917, and before the political revolution was fairly accomplished it had added soldiers to its title and had curtly informed the provisional government and the Duma that no laws could be made or enforced without first having received the approval of the working people’s representatives. No policy in peace or war could be announced or put into practice; no orders could be given the army; no treaties concluded with the allies; in short, nothing could be done without first consulting the 1,500 men and women—five women—who made up the Council of Workmen´s and Soldiers’ Delegates.
If the country had been in a condition of peace instead of war this would not have been at all a bad thing. The working people of Russia, under the electoral system devised by the old régime, had very little representation in the Duma, and they had a perfect right to demand a voice in the organization of the new government. But unfortunately the country was at war; and more unfortunately still, the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates was made up in large part of extreme radicals to whom the war was a matter of entire indifference. The revolution to them meant an opportunity to put into practice new economic theories, the socialistic state. They conceived the vast dream of establishing a new order of society, not only for Russia but for the whole world. They were going to dictate terms of peace, and call on the working people of every country to join them in enforcing that peace. After that they were going to do away with all capitalists, bankers, investors, property owners. Armies and navies were to be scrapped. I don’t know what they purposed doing with the constitution of the United States, but “capitalistic” America was to be made over with the rest of the world.
Many members of this council are well-meaning theorists, dreamers, exactly like thousands in this country who read no books or newspapers except those written by their own kind, who “express themselves” by wearing red ties and long hair, and who exist in a cloudy world of their own. These people are honest and they are capable of being reasoned with. In Russia they are known as Minsheviki, meaning small claims. A noisy and troublesome and growing minority in the council are called Bolsheviki (big claims), because they demand everything and will not even consider compromise. They want a separate peace, entirely favorable to Germany. I talked to a number of these men, but I could never get one of them to explain the reason of this friendship for Germany. Vaguely they seemed to feel that socialism was a German doctrine and, therefore, as soon as Russia put it into practice, the Germans would follow suit. Not all the council members are working people. Some have never done a hand’s turn of manual work in their lives. Many of the soldier members have never seen service and never will. The Jewish membership is very large, and in Russia the Jews have never been allowed any practice of citizenship.
Lastly the council is liberally sprinkled with German spies and agents. Every once in a while one of these men is unmasked and put out. But it is more than likely that his place is quickly filled. It is a most difficult thing to convince the council that any “Tavarish,” which is the Russian word for comrade, can be guilty of double dealing. The council defended Lenine up to the last moment. Even after he fled the country the Socialist newspapers, Isvestia, Pravda, and Maxim Gorki’s Nova Jisn, declared him to be the victim of an odious calumny. It was this Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates that first claimed a consultive position in the government, and within a few months was parading the streets with banners demanding “All the Power to the Soviet.”
I cannot say that I unreservedly blame them. They were people who had never known any kind of freedom, they had been poor and oppressed and afraid of their lives. All of a sudden they were freed. And when they went in numbers to the Duma and claimed a right to a voice in their own future, men like Kerensky and others, who are honest dreamers, others plain demagogues and office seekers, came out and lauded them to the skies, told them that the world was theirs, that they alone had brought about the revolution and therefore had a right to take possession of the country. The effect of this on soldiers and on the working people was immediate and disastrous.
If Kerensky was not the author of the famous Order No. 1, which was the cause of most of the riot and bloodshed in the army, he at least signed it and defended it. This order provided for regimental government by committees, the election of officers by the soldiers, the doing away with all saluting of superiors by enlisted men and the abolition of the title “your nobility,” which was the form of address used to officers. In place of this form the soldiers were henceforth to address their officers as Gospodeen (meaning mister), captain, colonel, general, as the case might be. Order No. 1 was a plain license to disband the Russian army. Abolishing the custom of saluting may seem a small thing. A member of the Root mission expressed himself thus to me soon after his arrival in Petrograd: “This talk of anarchy is all nonsense,” he said. “A lot of peacock officers are sore because the men don’t salute them any more. Why should the men salute?”
Perhaps I don’t know why they should, but I know that when they don’t they speedily lose all their soldierly bearing and slouch like tired subway diggers. They throw courtesy, kindness, consideration to the winds. The soldiers of other countries look on them with disgust and horror. At Tornea, the port of entry into Finland, I got my first glimpse of this “free” Russian soldier. He was handing some papers to a trim British Tommy, who was straight as an arrow, clean cut and soldierly. The Russian slouched up to him, stuck out the papers in a dirty paw and blew a mouthful of cigarette smoke in his face. What the Tommy said to him was in English, and I am afraid was lost on the Russian, who walked off looking quite pleased with himself. In Petrograd I saw two of these “free” soldiers address, without even touching their caps, a French officer who spoke their language. The conversation was repeated to me thus: “Is it true that in your country, which calls itself a democracy, the soldiers have to stand in the presence of officers? Is it true that they——” The interrogation proceeded no further, for the Frenchman replied quickly: “In the first place French soldiers do not walk up to an officer and begin a conversation uninvited, so I find it impossible to answer your questions.”
If he had been a Russian officer he would probably have been murdered on the spot. The death penalty having been abolished, and the police force having been reduced to an absurdity, murder has been made a safe and pleasant diversion. Murder of officers is so common that it is seldom even reported in the newspapers. When the truth is finally and officially published, if it ever is, it will be found that the brutal and horrible butchery of officers exceeds anything the outside world has ever imagined. I met a woman whose daughter went insane after her husband was killed in the fortress of Kronstadt, the port of Petrograd. He with a number of officers was imprisoned there, and some of the women went to the commander and begged permission to see and speak to their men. He grinned at them, and said: “They are just finishing their dinner. In a few minutes you may see them.” Shortly afterwards they were summoned to a room where the men sat around a table. They were tied in their chairs, and were all dead, with evidences of having been tortured.
In the beginning of the revolution the soldiers of Kronstadt killed the old officer commandant. They began by gouging out his eyes. When he was quite finished they brought in the second officer in command and his young son, a lieutenant in the navy. “Will you join us, embrace the glorious revolution, or shall we kill you?” they demanded. “My duty is to command this garrison,” replied the officer. “If you are going to kill me do it at once.” They shot him, and threw his corpse on a pile of others in a ditch. The son they spared, and a few nights later the young man rescued his father’s body and brought it home to be buried. This story was related under oath by him, but in the face of it and hundreds more like it the death penalty was abolished; nor would Kerensky consent to restore it, except for desertion at the front.
At the Moscow congress, held in August, Kerensky said, apologizing for even this small concession: “As minister of justice I did away with the death penalty. As president of the provisional government I have asked for its reinstatement in case of desertion under fire.” There was a burst of applause, and Kerensky exclaimed: “Do not applaud. Don’t you realize that we lose part of our souls when we consent to the death penalty? But if it is necessary to lose our souls to save Russia we must make the sacrifice.”
Petrograd and Moscow are literally running over with idle soldiers, many of whom have never done any fighting, and who loudly declare that they never intend to do any. They are supported by the government, wear the army uniform, claim all the privileges of the soldier and live in complete and blissful idleness. The street cars are crowded with soldiers, who of course pay no fares. It is impossible for a woman to get a seat in a car. She is lucky if the soldiers permit her to stand in the aisle or on a platform. “Get off and walk, you boorzhoi,” said a soldier to my interpreter one day when she was hastening to keep an appointment with me. She got off and walked. I heard but one person dispute with a soldier. She was a street car conductor, one of the many women who have taken men’s places since the war. She turned on a car full of these idlers riding free and littering the floor with sunflower seeds, which they eat as Americans eat peanuts, and told them exactly what she thought of them. It must have been extremely unflattering, for the other passengers looked joyful and only one soldier ventured any reply. “Now, comrade,” said he, “you must not be hard on wounded men.”
“Wounded men!” exclaimed the woman. “If you ever get a wound it will be in the mouth from a broken bottle.” There was a burst of laughter, in which even the soldiers joined. But after it subsided one of the men said defiantly: “Just the same, comrades, it was we who sent the Czar packing.” This opinion is shared by the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates. They have completely forgotten that the Duma had anything to do with the revolution. At their national congress of Soviets held in July, they solemnly debated whether or not they would permit the Duma to meet again, and it was a very small majority that decided in favor. But only on condition that the national body worked under the direction of the councils.