THIS discredited Monarch, and his hated and despised Empress, by whom were they surrounded during those eventful days which preceded their fall? Who were the people whom they trusted, and on whom they relied? Whom do we see advising them? Only a handful of flatterers, of sycophants, always ready to turn against him and to betray them at the first opportunity, together with Ministers devoid of any political sense, and without any knowledge or comprehension of the position into which the country had been allowed to drift; without any courage or energy, incapable of imposing themselves or their opinions upon the masses, and of convincing them of the soundness of their views; incapable even of subduing these masses by the use of sheer force. Apart from these flatterers and these weak advisers, whom could Nicholas II. and his Consort trust and believe in? Whom had they got beside them? A discontented army, that was too thoroughly weary of seeing itself neglected and passed over like a negligible quantity, whilst it was fighting for dear life on the frontiers, and who had lost all wish to go on with what appeared to it to have become a hopeless struggle; a few functionaries who cared for nothing but their own advantage or advancement; a handful of adventurers in quest of places, influence and riches, especially of the latter; a police always ready to listen to every kind of low denunciation; that had abused its power, that had destroyed, thanks to its criminal activity, every sense of personal security in the nation, and that prosecuted only those who did not pay it sufficiently to leave them alone. Blackmailers, spies, and valets; this was all that was left to the Czar of All the Russias, to watch over him. They were the only people on whom he could rely, and even they would only remain faithful to him as long as the supreme power would remain, at least nominally, in his hands. His family, as we have seen, detested the Empress, and was ready and prepared to side against him on the first notice of his downfall, which it effectively did. What was left in Petrograd of aristocracy had withdrawn itself from him, lamenting over evils which it knew itself powerless to allay, and had come to the sad conclusion that the further it kept from Tsarskoie Selo the better it would be for everybody. The Emperor stood alone, forsaken by all those who under different circumstances would have considered themselves but too honoured to die for him, let alone defend him against his foes. Alexandra Feodorovna had created a desert around her husband, and, thanks to her, there was hardly a Russian left in the world who did not for some reason or other curse the Sovereign whom Providence had destined to become in all human probability the last of the Romanoff’s crowned in Moscow. Nicholas II. imagined that he could rely on the devotion and the loyalty of his army. He forgot that this army was no longer the one that had acclaimed him with such enthusiasm at the beginning of the war. Most of the officers who had been in command of it at the time had fallen on some battle field or other; the soldiers too had disappeared, and the young recruits who had taken their place had been reared in different ideas, and were ignorant of the old discipline which had inspired the former regiments whose original contingents had been slain. The army had become a national one from the Imperialist it had been before; it was composed of the same elements of discontented minds who before they had been called to the colours had freely discussed the conditions under which the war was being fought, and who had noticed better than it would have been possible for them to do at the front, the mistakes of those in command, the remorseless dilapidation of the Public Exchequer which was going on everywhere, together with all the faults and the carelessness that had brought about all the disasters which had fallen upon the nation. This army could no longer nurse, in regard to the Czar, the veneration and almost religious respect which had animated it in earlier days. It had perceived at last that he was not at the height of the duties and responsibilities which had devolved upon him, and as a natural consequence of the fall of the scales from its eyes it had sided against him, together with the Duma, from which it was hoping and expecting the salvation which its masters of the present hour were unable to procure for it.
But whilst the whole of Russia was aware of this state of things, Nicholas II. alone refused to see it. He felt afraid of appearing as the weak man that he really was; he refused all the urgent entreaties which were addressed to him, to appeal to his people, and to appoint a popular and responsible Ministry, capable once he had called it to power of requiring from him the fulfilment of his former promises, which he had determined beforehand never to keep. He threw himself from right to left, and from left to right, in quest of councillors after his own heart, or rather after the heart of the Empress, because it was she who finally decided everything; and he changed his Ministers with a facility which was the more deplorable that those of the morrow did not differ from the ones whom he had dismissed the day before, until at last, thanks to his irresolution and to his obstinacy, he contrived to discredit, not only in Russia, but also abroad and among his Allies, the government of which he was the head, together with his own person and the great Imperial might which he personified. At last even the extreme conservative parties, who until then had been on his side, joined the ranks of his enemies, and this defection of theirs made the disaster an irremediable one, and the fatal catastrophe inevitable.
England at this moment made an effort to save the Czar, together with his dynasty. Lord Milner, who had repaired to Petrograd to attend the conference of the Allies which was being held there, tried to open the eyes of Nicholas II. as to the dangers which surrounded him, and to persuade him to grant at last a constitutional government to his people, and to entrust the interests of the country to a Cabinet in possession of its confidence. His representations proved absolutely useless. The Emperor replied to him that if the troubled state of public opinion persisted, he would establish a military dictature. He forgot in saying so that in order to carry an attempt of the kind it is indispensable to have at one’s hand a man strong enough to accept the responsibility of such a post, and an army faithful and loyal enough to back him up. Protopopoff, whom the Empress consulted as to the wisdom of the decision which Lord Milner had implored the Czar to take, declared that he thought it would be an extremely dangerous one to adopt, and that the only thing which could and ought to be done, in the present circumstances, was to resort to rigorous measures; to prorogue the Duma and the Council of State; and to repress without the least mercy every demonstration against the government. He added that he was quite ready to assume the responsibility of the repression which he advised, and if the necessity for doing so presented itself, to give orders to the police to fire on the crowds. At the same time he inundated the capital, and even the provinces, with a whole army of spies, whose only occupation consisted in denouncing to him all the people who did not pay them sufficiently well to leave them alone. A kind of committee of public safety, such as had existed in France at the time of the Terror, became, thanks to Mr. Protopopoff, the sole master of the Russian Empire, and it disposed, according to its fancy, of the existence as well as of the property and liberty of the most peaceful citizens. During one night, fifty workmen belonging to the group that was sitting in the industrial war committee, entrusted with the fabrication of ammunitions, as representatives of the labour party, were arrested, without any other apparent reason than the fact that they had allowed themselves to discuss in public the debates which had taken place in the Duma, and had been overheard by some spy or other.
This Assembly had met on the 27th of February, 1917, as had already been settled before the resignation of Mr. Sturmer, and the appointment of Prince Galitzyne as Prime Minister in his place. It became evident from the very first day the Session was opened that most violent discussions were about to take place, and that the government would never be able to command a majority, because even the ultra Conservatives who had backed it up before had forsaken it. One more reason for discontent with it had arisen: the almost total lack of food in Petrograd, where, thanks to the mismanagement of the railways and the lack of tracks, no provisions of any kind could arrive. Riots of a more or less serious character took place in different quarters of the town; the population clamoured for bread, and broke the windows in the bakers’ and butchers’ shops, wherever it could do so. This was one more complication added to all those already existing. The Duma thought it indispensable to make an energetic manifestation of its want of confidence in the government’s power to grapple with the difficulties of the situation. The parties composing the moderate left, together with the Cadets that had recently united themselves into one group denominated the “Bloc,” declared by the mouth of their leader, Mr. Chidlovsky, that it was indispensable to call together a Cabinet comprising really national elements, in possession of the confidence of the country as well as that of the Sovereign, because the one in existence was entirely discredited, even among its former supporters. During the debates which followed upon this motion, the socialist deputies, among others Mr. Tcheidze, expressed themselves in most violent terms, and said, among other things, that the government then in power would never understand the wishes or the needs of the nation, or become reconciled with it, and that between it and the country there existed an abyss which nothing in the world could ever fill. It had against it the whole of Russia, and it had done nothing and was doing nothing to smooth over the difficulties which it had itself created, and for which it was alone responsible. And Mr. Tcheidze concluded his speech by expressing his conviction that a compromise was no longer possible, and that only a great national movement of revolt could overturn the Cabinet and replace it by another one better able to understand the needs of the country and of the army.
One of the leaders of the extreme right who, up to that time, had been famous for his reactionary opinions and sympathies, Mr. Pourichkievitsch, went even further than his socialist colleague, and proceeded to sketch the character of Mr. Protopopoff, accusing him of spending his time in suspecting everybody (the zemstvos, the aristocracy, the Duma, and even the Council of State) of conspiracies against his person, and of meditating the suppression of these two institutions within a short time. Mr. Pourichkievitsch added that in what concerned the Duma he was personally convinced that it would prefer a dissolution to the alternative of a blind submission to a tyrant like the Minister of the Interior, and of keeping silent when it knew that the Fatherland was in danger.
Another speaker of great talent, Mr Efremoff, said that he had come with great regret to the conclusion that all means at the disposal of a parliamentary assembly to fight the government had been exhausted, and that the whole country was a prey to deep dissatisfaction with the existing order of things. It was high time, he added, that the system which had ruled Russia for such a long time should give way before a responsible cabinet, the constitution of which was claimed imperatively by public opinion. It was only such a cabinet that would be able to encourage the country to go on with the struggle in which it found itself engaged, against a foe who had obtained so many advantages over it, thanks to the mistakes and to the crimes of the administration represented by Mr. Protopopoff, and by his friends.
But it was the leader of the Cadets, Mr. Miliukoff, the greatest statesman that Russia possesses at the present moment, who dealt the last blow to the Ministry, thanks to the acerb criticisms which he addressed to the Sovereign and to the latter’s advisers, and to his indignant protest against the arbitrary imprisonment of the delegates of the workmen of Petrograd, who had been chosen by them to represent their interests in the industrial war commission. The vice president of this commission, Mr. Konovaloff, joined him in this protest, whilst another deputy belonging to the extreme left, whose name was to become famous very soon, Mr. Kerensky, in language of a violence such as had never been heard before in the Duma, prophesied that the time would soon come when this Duma would find itself compelled to fight for its rights and for the liberty of the nation, and would adopt decisive measures to put an end to the danger which was threatening the great work of the national defence, if it was allowed to remain in the hands and under the control of people who had so badly understood its claims and its necessities.
After these debates, during which had been voted by an immense majority the immediate release of the arrested workmen, Mr. Protopopoff rushed to Tsarskoie Selo, the metropolitan Pitirim, and Mr. Sturmer (who had remained a persona grata at Court, notwithstanding the fact that he had been compelled to resign his former functions of Prime Minister) accompanied him. A conference took place between them and the Empress, towards the close of which Nicholas II. was asked to come in and to listen to the decisions that had been arrived at, which he was requested to sanction. This conference decided that the negotiations already engaged with Germany in view of the conclusion of a separate peace should be hastened; that the Duma should be prorogued for an indefinite period of time, and the police armed with machine guns, in order to be able to crush at once, by a display of its forces, every popular manifestation that might be attempted in favour of a change of government, should such manifestation take place in the capital.
Here I am touching in this short sketch of the Russian Revolution upon a point which is still dark, the point concerning this separate peace with Germany, about which there arose at that time so much talk in Petrograd. The idea of a step of that kind, which would have constituted an arrant treason in regard to the Allies of Russia, had been conceived first in the brain of Mr. Sturmer, to whom most probably it had been suggested by his confidential friend and secretary, Mr. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, about whom I have already spoken in the first part of this book, and who, after the murder of Rasputin, had been finally brought to trial and sentenced to eighteen months hard labour for blackmail. He had always been in the employ of Germany, and he had spoken to his patron of the necessity for putting an end to a war which, if it went on much longer, might endanger the very existence of the dynasty. Mr. Sturmer had also sympathies for the “Vaterland,” and he was but too glad to act according to the hints which were given to him by a man in whom he had every confidence. He found an unexpected ally in Rasputin, who in his turn induced the Empress through Madame Vyroubieva to rally herself to his opinion, which was a relatively easy thing to do, considering the fact that she had been already, of her own accord, working towards a reconciliation between the Romanoffs and the Hohenzollerns, the only people whom she thought of any consequence in the whole affair. The difficulty consisted, however, in finding a person willing and disposed to act as intermediary in so grave a matter. Rasputin knew Protopopoff, discussed the subject with him, and found him quite ready to enter into the views which he expounded to him.
At that time Mr. Protopopoff was vice president of the Duma. No one knew exactly how he had contrived to secure his election as such, considering his reputation of reactionary and especially of opportunist. He had, however, succeeded in getting himself appointed, and the fact that he held this position gave him a certain weight and prestige abroad. He was given very precise instructions as to what he was to do, and started with several of his colleagues of the Duma for England, under the pretext of returning the visit which some members of the English House of Commons had paid to Petrograd a few months earlier. On his way back, he stopped at Stockholm as I have already related, conferred there with an agent of the German Foreign Office called Mr. Warburg, and settled with him the conditions under which an eventual peace could be concluded. After this Protopopoff returned to Russia, where, however, the story of his Swedish intrigues had already become known so that he was awarded a very poor welcome by his friends. People believed then that his political career had come to an end, when, just at this juncture, the most important post in the Russian Empire, that of Minister of the Interior, became vacant, thanks to the dismissal of Mr. Chvostoff who had tried to get rid of Rasputin with the help of the monk Illiodore, and, to the general stupefaction of the world, the place was offered to Mr. Protopopoff by the Empress herself.
By that time one had become used in Russia to every possible surprise in regard to the appointment of Ministers, and nothing that could happen in that line astonished those (and they were legion) who knew that it was a gang of adventurers that was ruling the country. The rise of Mr. Protopopoff was not therefore considered by them as something out of the way, but in parliamentary circles it gave rise to deep indignation; an indignation which eventually found its way into the press, where, however, it was very quickly suppressed by the censor, and also in the various speeches uttered in the Duma, during which allusions were made for the first time to the unhealthy influence exercised by the Empress over her husband.
The former was triumphant. As soon as she became aware of the conditions under which the German government would consent to conclude peace with Russia, she set herself, in conjunction with her friends, to try to persuade Nicholas II. that his duty in regard to his people required him to put an end to a hopeless conflict during which the best blood in Russia was being spilt for a cause doomed beforehand. She made him observe that if the war went on much longer, the revolutionary elements in the country would wax stronger, in proportion to the sacrifices entailed upon the nation, and that it was quite possible, the latter, exasperated by their magnitude, would attempt to get rid of a government that had not succeeded in restoring to it the tranquillity which it so sorely needed. It did not take her a long time to convert the Czar to her point of view, and the negotiations officiously inaugurated by Mr. Protopopoff were officially continued by him together with Mr. Sturmer, whom Alexandra Feodorovna personally entreated to assume their direction in conjunction with her own self.
In spite of the extreme secrecy which had presided at these different conferences between the Empress and her favourites, something of their purport had transpired among the general public, and threats had been proferred against those who had accepted to play the sad part of Judas in regard to their country. These threats had been whispered in the corridors of the Duma, and Mr. Protopopoff had been informed of their purport by his spies. It became therefore one of his principal aims to get rid of an opposition which, he knew but too well, would only increase in violence as well as in importance as the sorry work he was bent upon performing would come out in the light of day and become known to his numerous adversaries. Apart from this, he thought it would be better to present himself later on before the Duma with an accomplished fact behind him. He therefore persuaded the Empress that whilst he would be pressing with the utmost speed the negotiations with the Kaiser, begun already, it would be advisable to bring from the front a considerable number of troops to Petrograd, so as to be able with their help to crush any effort at resistance attempted either by the population of the capital or by its garrison, about whose state of mind the minister did not feel quite sure. The Cabinet was so badly informed, in spite of its numerous spies, of what was going on in the army that it imagined the latter would only feel grateful and happy to see the campaign come to an end and be able to go back to its homes, and that in consequence it would lend itself with the greatest pleasure to any attempt made by the Monarch and the government to put an end to a struggle for which it did not feel any longer any enthusiasm at heart.
The men who reasoned thus were absolutely mistaken. The army had made up its mind to win the war; the workmen whose importance was increasing with every day that went by, also wished it, because they hoped that out of this victory they were longing for might result a radical change in the form of the administration they had begun to despise more and more as its incapacity became more and more apparent. The person of the Czar did not inspire respect or enthusiasm any longer, but on the other hand love for the Fatherland had made considerable progress since the beginning of the war, and the national sentiment which, up to that time, had only existed in the state of an Utopia had become a reality, especially since one had perceived the great strength which it had communicated to Russia’s allies, to France among others, where the Republic, which many people were already seeing loom in the distance as a possibility in the land of the Czars, had inspired so much patriotism to its citizens.
Neither Mr. Sturmer, nor Mr. Protopopoff, nor those who shared their opinions and their views, were able to understand what was going on in the heart and in the soul of the Russian nation. They were far too much absorbed in their own petty, personal interests, to be able to give a thought to such a subject. For them the conclusion of a peace with Germany meant the strengthening of their influence and of their power, together with honours, dignities, and the possibility to enrich themselves, and to have a few more stars attached to the golden embroideries of their uniforms. It meant also the possibility of getting rid once for all of this spectre of a responsible ministry, of which they stood in such dread. They therefore threw themselves in the struggle against the Duma with an ardour that grew as they saw the increasing difficulties with which the accomplishment of their designs was going to encounter in that Assembly, and, as a first step in the course of action they had determined to follow, they submitted to the signature of Nicholas II. the fatal decree which prorogued the Duma together with the Council of State, and which was to give the signal for the conflagration of which they were to become themselves the first victims.
Traitors are always to be found in hours of great national peril. Among the people who resided in the palace of Tsarskoie Selo, there was a person who, becoming acquainted by chance of what was going on there, rushed to communicate the news which he had heard to Mr. Kerensky, the leader of the extreme left party in the Duma. The latter did not lose one moment in communicating to his colleague the news which had come to his knowledge, and also to the president of the Assembly, Mr. Rodzianko.
Photograph, International Film Service, Inc.
ALEXANDER KERENSKY
Mr. Rodzianko was about the last man whom one would have suspected of being possessed of the necessary determination to resort to a “Coup d’Etat.” He was a Chamberlain of the Czar; he had been brought up in monarchical traditions, and during his whole life he had submitted to the one which, in Russia, placed the Sovereign in the light of something holy and sacred before his subjects. He was respected but did not enjoy an immense authority in the Chamber that had never taken quite kindly to him, not thinking him possessed of sufficient courage to fight its battles with efficiency. It is probable that he felt terrified rather than anything else, at the prospect which the communication of Mr. Kerensky opened before him, but things had advanced too far for him to be able to withdraw. There was no alternative left but to perish oneself, or to destroy others. Mr. Rodzianko called together a meeting of several deputies belonging to the moderate parties, with whom he discussed the situation. They very quickly came to the conclusion that if one entered into a struggle with the government in this all important question of war and peace, one would be backed up by the whole country, which did not wish to see the war come to an end until the enemy had been driven out of Russian territory. There was also another thing which added itself to all the different questions roused by the discovery of the intentions of the Court. It was the determination of the radical groups of the Duma to proceed to the “Coup d’Etat” on their own accord, and no matter under what conditions, with or without the help of the moderate elements in the Assembly. This might have become extremely dangerous, as they had behind them the whole mass of the working population of the capital. The question had therefore to be considered as to whether the Revolution was to be made with the concurrence of all the parties represented in the Duma, or by the radical socialists alone, who, in the latter case, would have become the absolute masters of the situation, and might have pressed for the immediate proclamation of a Republic which could easily have degenerated into an anarchy, and which in the best of cases would have lacked the necessary dignity, capable of giving it prestige and authority at home and abroad. Mr. Rodzianko found himself placed in the presence of a dilemma of a most difficult kind and nature. He took the only decision possible under the circumstances, he boldly placed himself at the head of the movement and constituted a provisional government, in place of the one that had foundered under the weight of the contempt of the whole nation.
The first thing that was done by the Duma was to refuse to disperse and to resist the ukaze of the Czar that had prorogued its debates for an indefinite time. The socialist deputies went about trying to get the population of Petrograd to join in the vast movement of revolt they meant to bring about. The latter was but too willing to do so, and the want of provisions was the pretext which the people took to organise vast meetings, and a strike in all the factories. Great masses of men and women paraded the streets, and were dispersed by a formidable police force which had been assembled by Mr. Protopopoff and armed with machine guns that were used against the crowds, whenever these did not obey immediately the injunctions to disperse given to them by special constables and Cossacks gathered together in all the principal streets and squares of the capital. The regular troops had been consigned in their barracks and ordered to keep themselves ready to lend a hand to the police. But the unexpected happened. The soldiers had been worked upon by delegates from the workmen, and they declared that they would not obey orders, should any be given to them, to fire upon the populace assembled in the streets. The latter seemed quite sure of impunity, because notwithstanding the preparations made by the police to quell the revolutionary movement, the existence of which was already recognised everywhere, it refused to disperse, and on the contrary proceeded to commit the only acts of violence which were performed during the course of the mutiny. It threw itself on the prisons where political offenders were confined, plundered and burned them, and liberated their inmates. A few other excesses were performed, upon which the Duma constituted itself an executive committee, which assumed the task of restoring order in Petrograd.
In the meanwhile, the Czar who had been kept in total ignorance of what was going on in the capital, had left Tsarskoie Selo for headquarters, after having signed the prorogation of the Chambers. In his absence, it was the Empress who was left sole mistress of the situation, and it is to her and to Protopopoff that were due all the attempts at repression which happily for all parties concerned were not allowed to be executed, at least not in their entirety.
Mr. Rodzianko telegraphed to the Czar. He informed him that the position was getting extremely serious, that the population of Petrograd was absolutely without any food, that riots were taking place, and that the troops were firing at one another. He implored the Sovereign in the interests of the dynasty to send away Protopopoff and his crew, and he drew his notice to the fact that every hour was precious, and that every delay might bring about a catastrophe. At the same time he telegraphed to the principal commanders at the front, asking them to uphold his request for a responsible government capable of putting an end to the complete anarchy that was reigning in the capital, an anarchy which threatened to extend itself all over the country. The commanders replied that they would do what he asked them to perform. Nicholas II. alone made no sign. It was related afterwards that he had telegraphed to the Empress, asking her what she advised him to do. But it is more likely that the telegram of the President of the Duma was never handed to him. Mr. Rodzianko, however, sent another despatch to headquarters which contained the following warning: “The position is getting more and more alarming. It is indispensable to take measures to put an end to it, or to-morrow it may be too late. This is the last moment during which may be decided the fate of the nation and of the dynasty.” To this message also no reply was received. The Czar seemed unable to understand the gravity of the situation. Others did, however, in his place, and on that same day, the 12th of March, the troops composing the garrison of Petrograd went over to the cause of the Revolution. They marched to the Duma in a long procession, beginning with the Volynsky regiment, one of the crack ones in the army, to which joined themselves almost immediately the famous Preobragensky Guards, and they declared themselves ready to stand by the side of the new government. The President of the Duma received them, and declared to them that the executive committee which had been constituted was going to appoint a provisional government; of the Czar, there was no longer any question. It had become evident that his army would no longer support his authority or fight for him and for his dynasty. Soon the troops composing the garrisons of Tsarskoie Selo, Peterhof, and Gatschina left their quarters and joined the mutineers. The Revolution had become an accomplished fact.
Copyright, International Film Service, Inc.
REVOLUTIONARY CROWD IN PETROGRAD
The new executive committee displayed considerable patriotism at this juncture. It might have provoked enormous enthusiasm in its favour had it revealed what it knew concerning the peace negotiations entered into by the Empress, but this might have given a pretext