After the murder of its "Friend" the monarchy survived in all ten weeks. But this short s.p.a.ce of time was still its own. Rasputin was no longer, but his shadow continued to rule. Contrary to all the expectations of the conspirators, the royal pair began after the murder to promote with special determination the most scorned members of the Rasputin clique. In revenge for Rasputin, a notorious scoundrel was named Minister of Justice. A number of grand dukes were banished from the capital. It was rumoured that Protopopov took up spiritualism, calling up the ghost of Rasputin. The noose of hopelessness was drawing tighter.
The murder of Rasputin played a colossal role, but a very different one from that upon which its perpetrators and inspirers had counted. It did not weaken the crisis, but sharpened it. People talked of the murder everywhere: in the palaces, in the staffs, at the factories, and in the peasant"s huts. The inference drew itself: even the grand dukes have no other recourse against the leprous camarilla except poison and the revolver. The poet Blok wrote of the murder of Rasputin: "The bullet which killed him reached the very heart of the rul-ing dynasty." * Robespierre once reminded the Legislative a.s.sembly that the opposition of the n.o.bility, by weakening the monarchy, had roused the bourgeoisie, and after them the popular ma.s.ses. Robespierre gave warning at the same time that in the rest of Europe the revolution could not develop so swiftly as in France, for the privileged cla.s.ses of other countries, taught by the experience of the French n.o.bility, would not take the revolutionary initiative. In giving this admirable a.n.a.lysis, Robespierre was mistaken only in his a.s.sump-tion that with its oppositional recklessness the French n.o.bility had given a lesson once for all to other countries. Russia proved again, both in 1905 and yet more in 1917, that a revolution directed against an autocratic and half-feudal rgime, and consequently against a n.o.bility, meets in its .rst step an unsystematic and inconsistent but nevertheless very real co-operation not only from the rank and .le n.o.bility, but also from its most privileged upper circles, including here even members of the dynasty. This remarkable historic phe-nomenon may seem to contradict the cla.s.s theory of society, but in reality it contradicts only its vulgar interpretation.
A revolution breaks out when all the antagonisms of a society have reached their highest tensions. But this makes the situation unbearable even for the cla.s.ses of the old society that is, those who are doomed to break up. Although I do not want to give a biological a.n.a.logy more weight than it deserves, it is worth remarking that the natural act of birth becomes at a certain moment equally unavoidable both for the maternal organism and for the offspring. The opposition put up by the privileged cla.s.ses expresses the incompatibility of their traditional social position with the demands of the further existence of society. Everything seems to slip out of the hands of the ruling bureaucracy. The aristocracy .nding itself in the focus of a general hostility lays the blame upon the bureaucracy, the latter blames the aristocracy, and then together, or separately, they direct their discontent against the monarchical summit of their power.
Prince Sherbatov, summoned into the ministry for a time from his service in the heredi-tary inst.i.tutions of the n.o.bility, said: "Both Samarin and I are former heads of the n.o.bility in our provinces. Up till now n.o.body has ever considered us as Lefts and we do not consider ourselves so. But we can neither of us understand a situation in a state where the monarch and his government .nd themselves in radical disagreement with all reasonable (we are not talking here of revolutionary intrigue) society with the n.o.bility, the merchants, the cities, the zemstvos, and even the army. If those above do not want to listen to our opinion, it is our duty to withdraw."
The n.o.bility sees the cause of all its misfortunes in the fact that the monarchy is blind or has lost its reason. The privileged caste cannot believe that no policy whatever is possible which would reconcile the old society with the new. In other words, the n.o.bility cannot accept its own doom and converts its death-weariness into opposition against the most sacred power of the old rgime, that is, the monarchy. The sharpness and irresponsibility of the aristocratic opposition is explained by history"s having made spoiled children of the upper circles of the n.o.bility, and by the unbearableness to them of their own fears in face of revolution. The unsystematic and inconsistent character of the n.o.ble discontent is explained by the fact that it is the opposition of a cla.s.s which has no future. But as a lamp before it goes out .ares up with a bright although smoky light, so the n.o.bility before disappearing gives out an oppositional .ash, which performs a mighty service for its mortal enemy. Such is the dialectic of this process, which is not only consistent with the cla.s.s theory of society, but can only by this theory be explained.
CHAPTER 6.
THE DEATH AGONY OF THE MONARCHY.
The dynasty fell by shaking, like rotten fruit, before the revolution even had time to ap-proach its .rst problems. Our portrayal of the old ruling cla.s.s would remain incomplete if we did not try to show how the monarchy met the hour of its fall.
The czar was at headquarters at Moghilev, having gone there not because he was needed, but in .ight from the Petrograd disorders. The court chronicler, General Dubensky, with the czar at headquarters, noted in his diary: "A quiet life begins here. Everything will remain as before. Nothing will come of his (the czar"s) presence. Only accidental external causes will change anything . . ." On February 24, the czarina wrote Nicholas at headquarters, in English as always: "I hope that Duma man Kedrinsky (she means Kerensky) will be hung for his horrible speeches-it is necessary (war time law) and it will be an example. All are thirsting and beseeching that you show your .rmness." On February 25, a telegram came from the Minister of War that strikes were occurring in the capital, disorders beginning among the workers, but measures had been taken and there was nothing serious. In a word: "It isn"t the .rst time, and won"t be the last"
The czarina, who had always taught the czar not to yield, here too tried to remain .rm. On the 26th, with an obvious desire to hold up the shaky courage of Nicholas, she telegraphs him: "It is calm in the city." But in her evening telegram she has to confess: "Things are not going at all well in the city." In a letter she says: "You must say to the workers that they must not declare strikes, if they do, they will be sent to the front as a punishment. There is no need at all of shooting. Only order is needed, and not to let them cross the bridges." Yes, only a little thing is needed, only order! But the chief thing is not to admit the workers into the city-let them choke in the raging impotence of their suburbs.
On the morning of the 27th, General Ivanov moves from the front with the Battalion of St. George, entrusted with dictatorial powers-which he is to make public, however, only upon occupying Tsarskoe Selo. "It would be hard to imagine a more unsuitable person." General Denikin will recall later, himself having taken a turn at military dictatorship, " a .abby old man, meagrely grasping the political situation, possessing neither strength, nor energy, nor will, nor austerity." The choice fell upon Ivanov through memories of the .rst revolution. Eleven years before that he had subdued Kronstadt. But those years had left their traces; the subduers had grown .abby, the subdued, strong. The northern and western fronts were ordered to get ready troops for the march on Petrograd; evidently everybody thought there was plenty of time ahead. Ivanov himself a.s.sumed that the affair would be ended soon and successfully; he even remembered to send out an adjutant to buy provisions in Moghilev for his friends in Petrograd.
On the morning of February 27, Rodzianko sent the czar a new telegram, which ended with the words: "The last hour has come when the fate of the fatherland and the dynasty is being decided." The czar said to his Minister of the Court, Frederiks: "Again that fat-bellied Rodzianko has written me a lot of nonsense, which I won"t even bother to answer." But no. It was not nonsense. He will have to answer.
About noon of the 27th, headquarters received a report from Khabalov of the mutiny of the Pavlovsky, Volynsky, Litovsky and Preobrazhensky regiments, and the necessity of sending reliable troops from the front. An hour later from the War Ministry came a most rea.s.suring telegram: "The disorders which began this morning in certain military units are being .rmly and energetically put down by companies and battalions loyal to their duty . . . I am .rmly convinced of an early restoration of tranquillity." However, a little after seven in the evening, the same minister, Belyaev, is reporting that "We are not succeeding in putting down the military rebellion with the few detachments that remain loyal to their duty," and requesting a speedy dispatch of really reliable troops-and that too in suf.cient numbers "for simultaneous activity in different parts of the city."
The Council of Ministers deemed this a suitable day to remove from their midst the presumed cause of all misfortunes-the half-crazy Minister of the Interior Protopopov. At the same time General Khabalov issued an edict-prepared in secrecy from the government-declaring Petrograd, on His Majesty"s orders, under martial law. So here too was an attempt to mix hot with cold-hardly intentional, however, and anyway of no use. They did not even succeed in pasting up the declaration of martial law through the city: the burgomaster, Balka, could .nd neither paste nor brushes. Nothing would stick together for those func-tionaries any longer; they already belonged to the kingdom of shades.
The princ.i.p.al shade of the last czarist ministry was the seventy-year old Prince Golytsin, who had formerly conducted some sort of eleemosynary inst.i.tutions of the czarina, and had been advanced by her to the post of head of the government in a period of war and revolution. When friends asked this "good-natured Russian squire, this old weakling "as the liberal Baron Nolde described him-why he accepted such a troublesome position, Golytsin answered: "So as to have one more pleasant recollection." This aim, at any rate, he did not achieve. How the last czarist government felt in those hours is attested by Rodzianko in the following tale: With the .rst news of the movement of a crowd toward the Mariinsky Palace, where the Ministry was in session, all the lights in the building were immediately put out. (The government wanted only one thing-that the revolution should not notice it.) The rumour, however, proved false; the attack did not take place; and when the lights were turned on, one of the members of the czarist government was found "to his own surprise" under the table. What kind of recollections he was acc.u.mulating there has not been established.
But Rodzianko"s own feelings apparently were not at their highest point. After a long but vain hunt for the government by telephone, the President of the Duma tries again to ring up Prince Golytsin. The latter answers him: "I beg you not to come to me with anything further, I have resigned." Hearing this news, Rodzianko, according to his loyal secretary, sank heavily in an armchair and covered his face with both hands.
My "G.o.d, how horrible! . . . Without a government... Anarchy . . . Blood . . ." and softly wept. At the expiring of the senile ghost of the czarist power Rodzianko felt unhappy, desolate, orphaned. How far he was at that moment from the thought that to-morrow he would have to " head" a revolution!
The telephone answer of Golytsin is explained by the fact that on the evening of the 27th the Council of Ministers had de.nitely acknowledged itself incapable of handling the situation, and proposed to the czar to place at the head of the government a man enjoying general con.dence. The czar answered Golytsin: "In regard to changes in the personal staff in the present circ.u.mstances, I consider that inadmissible. Nicholas." Just what cir-c.u.mstances was he waiting for? At the same time the czar demanded that they adopt "the most decisive measures" for putting down the rebellion. That was easier said than done.
On the next day, the 28th, even the untamable czarina at last loses heart. "Concessions are necessary," she telegraphs Nicholas. "The strikes continue; many troops have gone over to the side of the revolution. Alex."
It required an insurrection of the whole guard, the entire garrison, to compel this Hessian zealot of autocracy to agree that concessions are necessary." Now the czar also begins to suspect that the " fat-bellied Rodzianko" had not telegraphed non-sense. Nicholas decides to join his family. It is possible that he is a little gently pushed from behind by the generals of the staff, too, who are not feeling quite comfortable.
The czar"s train travelled at .rst without mishap. Local chiefs and governors came out as usual to meet him. Far from the revolutionary whirlpool, in his accustomed royal car, surrounded by the usual suite, the czar apparently again lost a sense of the close coming crisis. At three o"clock on the 28th, when the events had already settled his fate, he sent a telegram to the czarina from Vyazma: "Wonderful weather. Hope you are well and calm. Many troops sent from the front. With tender love. Niki." Instead of the concessions, upon which even he czarina is insisting, the tenderly loving czar is sending troops from the front. But in spite of that "wonderful weather," in just a few hours the czar will stand face to face with the revolutionary storm. His train went as far as the Visher station. The railroad workers would not let it go farther: "The bridge is damaged." Most likely this pretext was invented by the courtiers themselves in order to soften the situation. Nicholas tried to make his way, or they tried to get him through, by way of Bologoe on the Nikolaevsk railroad; but here too the workers would not let the train pa.s.s. This was far more palpable than all the Petrograd telegrams. The czar had broken away from headquarters, and could not make his way to the capital. With its simple railroad "p.a.w.ns" the revolution had cried "check" to the king!
The court historian Dubensky, who accompanied the czar in his train, writes in his diary: " Everybody realises that this midnight turn at Visher is a historical night . . . To me it is perfectly clear that the question of a const.i.tution is settled; it will surely be introduced . . . Everybody is saying that it is only necessary to strike a bargain with them, with the members of the Provisional Government." Facing a lowered semaph.o.r.e, behind which mortal danger is thickening, Count Frederiks, Prince Dolgoruky, Count Leuchtenberg, all of them, all those high lords, are now for a const.i.tution. They no longer think of struggling. It is only necessary to strike a bargain, that is, try to fool them again as in 1905.
While the train was wandering and .nding no road, the czarina was sending the czar telegram after telegram, appealing to him to return as soon as possible. But her telegrams came back to her from the of.ce with the inscription in blue pencil: "Whereabouts of the addressee unknown." The telegraph clerks were unable to locate the Russian czar.
The regiments marched with music and banners to the Tauride Palace. A company of the Guards marched under the command of Cyril Vladimirovich, who had quite suddenly, according to Countess Kleinmichel, developed a revolutionary streak. The sentries disap-peared. The intimates were abandoning the palace. "Everybody was saving himself who could," relates Vyrubova. Bands of revolutionary soldiers wandered about the palace and with eager curiosity looked over everything. Before they had decided up above what should be done, the lower ranks were converting the palace of the czar into a museum.
The czar-his location unknown-turns back to Pskov, to the headquarters of the northern front, commanded by the old General Ruszky. In the czar"s suite one suggestion follows an-other. The czar procrastinates. He is still reckoning in days and weeks, while the revolution is keeping its count in minutes.
The poet Blok characterised the czar during the last months of the monarchy as follows: "Stubborn, but without will; nervous, but insensitive to everything; distrustful of people, taut and cautious in speech, he was no longer master of himself. He had ceased to un-derstand the situation, and did not take one clearly conscious step, but gave himself over completely into the hands of those whom he himself had placed in power." And how much these traits of tautness and lack of will, cautiousness and distrust, were to increase during the last days of February and .rst days of March!
Nicholas .nally decided to send-and nevertheless evidently did not send-a telegram to the hated Rodzianko stating that for the salvation of the fatherland he appointed him to form a new ministry, reserving, however, the ministries of foreign affairs, war and marine for himself. The czar still hoped to bargain with "them" : the "many troops," after all, were on their way to Petrograd.
General Ivanov actually arrived without hindrance at Tsarskoe Selo: evidently the rail-road workers did not care to come in con.ict with the Battalion of St. George. The general confessed later that he had three or four times found it necessary on the march to use fa-therly in.uence with the lower ranks, who were impudent to him: he made them get down on their knees. Immediately upon the arrival of the "dictator" in Tsarskoe Selo, the local authorities informed him that an encounter between the Battalion of St. George and the troops would mean danger to the czar"s family. They were simply afraid for themselves, and advised the dictator to go back without detraining.
General Ivanov telegraphed to the other "dictator," Khabalov, in Petrograd ten questions, to which he received succinct answers: We will quote them in full, for they deserve it: Ivanov"s questions": Khabalov"s replies: 1. How many troops are in the order and how many are misbehaving? 1. I have at my disposal in the Admiralty building four corn companies of the Guard, .ve squadrons of cavalry and Cossacks, and two batteries the rest of the troops have gone over to the revolutionists, or by agreement with them are remaining neutral. Soldiers are wandering through the towns singly or in bands disarming of.cers.
2. Which railroad stations are guarded? 2. All the stations are in the hands of the revolutionists and strictly guarded by them.
3. In what parts of the city is order preserved? 3. The whole city is in the hands of the revolutionists. The telephone is not working, there is no communication between different parts of the city.
4. What authorities are governing the different parts of the city? 4. I cannot answer this question?
5. Are all the ministries functioning properly? 5. The ministers have been arrested by the revolutionists.
6. What police forces are at your disposal at the present moment? 6. None whatever.
7. What technical and supply inst.i.tutions of the War Department are now in your control? 7. I have none.
8. What quant.i.ty of provisions at is at your disposal? 8. There are no provisions my disposal. In the city on February 5 there were 5,600,000 pounds of .our in store.
9. Have many weapons, artillery and military stores fallen . into the hands of the mutineers? 9. All the artillery establishments are in the hands of the revolutionists.
10. What military forces and the staffs are in your control? 10. The chief of the Staff of District is in my personal control. With the other district administrations I have no connections.
Having received this unequivocal illumination as to the situation, General Ivanov "agreed" to turn back his echelon without detraining to the station "Dno." [1] . "Thus," concludes one of the chief personages of the staff, General Lukomsky, "nothing came of the expedi-tion of General Ivanov with dictatorial powers but a public disgrace."
That disgrace, incidentally, was a very quiet one, sinking unnoticed in the billowing events. The dictator, we may suppose, delivered the provisions to his friends in Petro-grad, and had a long chat with the czarina. She referred to her self-sacri.cing work in the hospitals, and complained of the ingrat.i.tude of the army and the people.
During this time news was arriving at Pskov by way of Moghilev, blacker and blacker. His Majesty"s own bodyguard, in which every soldier was known by name and coddled by the royal family, turned up at the State Duma asking permission to arrest those of.cers who had refused to take part in the insurrection. Vice-Admiral Kurovsky reported that he found it impossible to take any measures to put down the insurrection at Kronstadt, since he could not vouch for the loyalty of a single detachment. Admiral Nepenin telegraphed that the Baltic Fleet had recognised the Provisional Committee of the State Duma. The Moscow commander-in-chief, Mrozovsky, telegraphed: "A majority of the troops have gone over with artillery to the revolutionists. The whole town is therefore in their hands. The burgomaster and his aide have left the city hall." Have left means that they .ed.
All this was communicated to the czar on the evening of March 1. Deep into the night they coaxed and argued about a responsible ministry. Finally, at two o"clock in the morning the czar gave his consent, and those around him drew a sigh of relief. Since they took it for granted that this would settle the problem of the revolution, an order was issued at the same time that the troops which had been sent to Petrograd to put down the insurrection should return to the front. Ruszky hurried at dawn to convey the good news to Rodzianko. But the czar"s clock was way behind. Rodzianko in the Tauride Palace, already buried under a pile of democrats, socialists, soldiers, workers" deputies, replied to Ruszky: "Your proposal is not enough; it is now a question of the dynasty itself. . . . Everywhere the troops are taking the side of the Duma, and the people are demanding an abdication in favour of the Heir with Mikhail Alexandrovich as regent." Of course. the troops never thought of demanding either the Heir or Mikhail Alexandrovich. Rodzianko merely attributed to the troops and the people that slogan upon which the Duma was still hoping to stop the revolution. But in either case the czar"s concession had come too late: "The anarchy has reached such pro-portions that I (Rodzianko) was this night compelled to appoint a Provisional Government. Unfortunately, the edict has come too late. . . ." These majestic words bear witness that the President of the Duma had succeeded in drying the tears shed over Golytsin. The czar read the conversation between Rodzianko and Ruszky, and hesitated, read it over again, and decided to wait. But now the military chiefs had begun to sound the alarm: the matter concerned them too a little !
General Alexeiev carried out during the hours of that night a sort of plebiscite among the commanders-in-chief at the fronts. It is a good thing present-day revolutions are ac-complished with the help of the telegraph, so that the very .rst impulses and reactions of those in power are preserved to history on the tape. The conversations of the czarist .eld-marshals on the night of March 1-2 are an incomparable human doc.u.ment. Should the czar abdicate or not? The commander-in-chief of the western front, General Evert, consented to give his opinion only after Generals Ruszky and Brussilov had expressed themselves. The commander-in-chief of the Roumanian front, General Sakharov, demanded that be-fore he express himself the conclusions of all the other commanders-in-chief should be communicated to him. After long delays this valiant chieftain announced that his warm love for the monarch would not permit his soul to reconcile itself with an acceptance of the "base suggestion"; nevertheless, "with sobs" he advised the czar to abdicate in order to avoid still viler pretensions." Adjutant-General Evert quite reasonably explained the ne-cessity for capitulation: "I am taking all measures to prevent information as to the present situation in the capital from penetrating the army, in order to protect it against indubitable disturbances. No means exist for putting down the revolution in the capitals." Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolajevich on the Caucasian front beseeched the czar on bended knee to adopt the "supermeasure" and renounce the throne. A similar prayer came from Generals Alex-eiev and Brussilov and Admiral Nepenin. Ruszky spoke orally to the same effect. The generals respectfully presented seven revolver barrels to the temple of the adored monarch. Fearing to let slip the moment for reconciliation with the new power, and no less fearing their own troops, these military chieftains, accustomed as they were to surrendering posi-tions, gave the czar and the High Commander-in-Chief a quite unanimous counsel: Retire without .ghting. This was no longer distant Petrograd against which, as it seemed, one might send troops ; this was the front from which the troops had to be borrowed.
Having listened to this suggestively circ.u.mstanced report, the czar decided to abdicate the throne which he no longer possessed. A telegram to Rodzianko suitable to the occa-sion was drawn up: "There is no sacri.ce that I would not make in the name of the real welfare and salvation of my native mother Russia. Thus I am ready to abdicate the throne in favour of my son, and in order that he may remain with me until he is of age, under the regency of my brother, Mikhail Alexandrovich. Nicholas." This telegram too, how-ever, was not despatched, for news came from the capital of the departure for Pskov of the deputies Guchkov and Shulgin. This offered a new pretext to postpone the decision. The czar ordered the telegram returned to him. He obviously dreaded to sell too cheap, and still hoped for comforting news-or more accurately, hoped for a miracle. Nicholas re-ceived the two deputies at twelve o"clock midnight March 2-8. The miracle did not come, and it was impossible to evade longer. The czar unexpectedly announced that he could not part with his son-what vague hopes were then wandering in his head?-and signed an abdication in favour of his brother. At the same time edicts to the Senate were signed, nam-ing Prince Lvov President of the Council of Ministers, and Nikolai Nikolaievich Supreme Commander-in-Chief. The family suspicions of the czarina seemed to have been justi.ed: the hated "Nikolasha" came back to power along with the conspirators. Guchkov appar-ently seriously believed that the revolution would accept the Most August War Chief. The latter also accepted his appointment in good faith. He even tried for a few days to give some kind of orders and make appeals for the ful.lment of patriotic duty. However the revolution painlessly removed him.
In order to preserve the appearance of a free act, the abdication was dated three o"clock in the afternoon, on the pretence that the original decision of the czar to abdicate had taken place at that hour. But as a matter of fact that afternoon"s "decision," which gave the sceptre to his son and not to his brother, had been taken back in antic.i.p.ation of a more favourable turn of the wheel. Of that, however, n.o.body spoke out loud. The czar made a last effort to save his face before the hated deputies, who upon their part permitted this falsi.cation of a historic act-this deceiving of the people. The monarchy retired from the scene preserving its usual style; and its successors also remained true to themselves. They probably even regarded their connivance as the magnanimity of a conqueror to the conquered.
Departing a little from the phlegmatic style of his diary, Nicholas writes on March 2: "This morning Ruszky came and read me a long conversation over the wire with Rodzianko. According to his words the situation in Petrograd is such that a ministry of the mem-bers of the State Duma will be powerless to do anything, for it is being opposed by the social-democratic party in the person of a workers" committee. My abdication is nec-essary. Ruszky transmitted this conversation to Alexeiev at headquarters and to all the commanders-in-chief. Answers arrived at 12.30. To save Russia and keep the army at the front, I decided upon this step. I agreed, and they sent from headquarters the text of an abdication. In the evening came Guchkov and Shulgin from Petrograd, with whom I talked it over and gave them the doc.u.ment amended and signed. At 1 o"clock in the morning I left Pskov with heavy feelings; around me treason, cowardice, deceit."
The bitterness of Nicholas was, we must confess, not without foundation. It was only as short a time ago as February 28, that General Alexeiev had telegraphed to all the commanders-in-chief at the front : " Upon us all lies a sacred duty before the sovereign and the fatherland to preserve loyalty to oath and duty in the troops of the active army." Two days later Alexeiev appealed to these same commanders-in-chief to violate their "loyalty to oath and duty." In all the commanding staff there was not found one man to take action in behalf of his czar. They all hastened to transfer to the ship of the revolution, .rmly expecting to .nd comfortable cabins there. Generals and admirals one and all removed the czarist braid and put on the red ribbon. There was news subsequently of one single righteous soul, some commander of a corps, who died of heart failure taking the new oath. But it is not established that his heart failed through injured monarchist feelings, and not through other causes. The civil of.cials naturally were not obliged to show more courage than the military-each one was saving himself as he could.
But the clock of the monarchy decidedly did not coincide with the revolutionary clocks. At dawn of March 8, Ruszky was again summoned to the direct wire from the capital: Rodzianko and Prince Lvov were demanding that he hold up the czar"s abdication, which had again proved too late. The installation of Alexei, -said the new authorities evasively-might perhaps be accepted-by whom?-but the installation of Mikhail was absolutely unac-ceptable. Ruszky with some venom expressed his regret that the deputies of the Duma who had arrived the night before had not been suf.ciently informed as to the aims and purposes of their journey. But here too the deputies had their justi.cation. "Unexpectedly to us all there broke out such a soldiers" rebellion as I never saw the like of," explained the Lord Chamberlain to Ruszky, as though he had done nothing all his life but watch soldiers" re-bellions. " To proclaim Mikhail emperor would pour oil on the .re and there would begin a ruthless extermination of everything that can be exterminated." How it whirls and shakes and bends and contorts them all!
The generals silently swallowed this new "vile pretension" of the revolution. Alexeiev alone slightly relieved his spirit in a telegraphic bulletin to the commanders-in-chief: "The left parties and the workers" deputies are exercising a powerful pressure upon the President of the Duma, and there is no frankness or sincerity in the communications of Rodzianko." The only thing lacking to the generals in those hours was sincerity But at this point the czar again changed his mind. Arriving in Moghilev from Pskov, he handed to his former chief-of-staff, Alexeiev, for transmission to Petrograd, a sheet of paper with his consent to the handing over of the sceptre to his son. Evidently he found this combination in the long run more promising. Alexeiev, according to Denikin"s story, went away with the telegram and . . . did not send it. He thought that those two manifestos which had already been published to the army and the country were enough. The discord arose from the fact that not only the czar and his counsellors, but also the Duma liberals, were thinking more slowly than the revolution.
Before his .nal departure from Moghilev on March 8, the czar, already under formal arrest, wrote an appeal to the troops ending with these words: "Whoever thinks now of peace, whoever desires it, that man is a traitor to the fatherland, its betrayer." This was in the nature of a prompted attempt to s.n.a.t.c.h out of the hands of liberalism the accusation of Germanophilism. The attempt had no result : they did not even dare publish the appeal.
Thus ended a reign which had been a continuous chain of ill luck, failure, misfortune, and evil-doing, from the Khodynka catastrophe during the coronation, through the shooting of strikers and revolting peasants, the Ruse-j.a.panese war, the frightful putting-down of the revolution of 1905, the innumerable executions, punitive expeditions and national pogroms and ending with the insane and contemptible partic.i.p.ation of Russia in the insane and contemptible world war.
Upon arriving at Tsarskoe Selo, where he and his family were con.ned in the palace, the czar, according to Vyrubova, softly said: "There is no justice among men." But those very words irrefutably testify that historic justice, though it comes late, does exist.
The similarity of the Romanov couple to the French royal pair of the epoch of the Great Revolution is very obvious. It has already been remarked in literature, but only in pa.s.sing and without drawing inferences. Nevertheless it is not at all accidental, as appears at the .rst glance, but offers valuable material for an inference.
Although separated from each other by .ve quarter centuries, the czar and the king were at certain moments like two actors playing the same role. A pa.s.sive, patient, but vindictive treachery was the distinctive trait of both-with this difference, that in Louis it was disguised with a dubious kindliness, in Nicholas with affability. They both make the impression of people who are overburdened by their job, but at the same time unwilling to give up even a part of those rights of which they are unable to make any use. The diaries of both, similar in style or lack of style, reveal the same depressing spiritual emptiness.
The Austrian woman and the Hessian German form also a striking symmetry. Both queens stand above their kings, not only in physical but also in moral growth. Marie An-toinette was less pious than Alexandra Feodorovna, and unlike the latter was pa.s.sionately fond of pleasures. But both alike scorned the people, could not endure the thought of concessions, alike mistrusted the courage of their husbands, looking down upon them Antoinette with a shade of contempt, Alexandra with pity.
When the authors of memoirs, approaching the Petersburg court of their day, a.s.sure us that Nicholas II, had he been a private individual, would have left a good memory be-hind him, they merely reproduce the long-ago stereotyped remarks about Louis XVI, not enriching in the least our knowledge either of history or of human nature.
We have already seen how Prince Lvov became indignant when, at the height of the tragic events of the .rst revolution, instead of a depressed czar, he found before him a "jolly, sprightly little man in a raspberry-coloured shirt." Without knowing it, the prince merely repeated the comment of Governor Morris writing in Washington in 1790 about Louis: "What will you have from a creature who, situated as he is, eats and drinks and sleeps well, and laughs and is as merry a grig as lives ?
When Alexandra Feodorovna, three months before the fall of the monarchy, prophesies: "All is coming out for the best, the dreams of our Friend mean so much! "she merely repeats Marie Antoinette, who one month before the overthrow of the royal power wrote : " I feel a liveliness of spirit, and something tells me that we shall soon be happy and safe." They both see rainbow dreams as they drown.
Certain elements of similarity of course are accidental, and have the interest only of historic anecdotes. In.nitely more important are those traits of character which have been grafted, or more directly imposed, on a person by the mighty force of conditions, and which throw a sharp light on the interrelation of personality and the objective factors of history.
"He did not know how to wish: that was his chief trait of character," says a reactionary French historian of Louis. Those words might have been written of Nicholas: neither of them knew how to wish, but both knew how to not wish. But what really could be "wished" by the last representatives of a hopelessly lost historic cause? " Usually he listened, smiled, and rarely decided upon anything. His .rst word was usually No." Of whom is that written? Again of Capet. But if this is so, the manners of Nicholas were an absolute plagiarism. They both go toward the abyss "with the crown pushed down over their eyes." But would it after all be easier to go to an abyss, which you cannot escape anyway, with your eyes open? What difference would it have made, as a matter of fact, if they had pushed the crown way back on their heads?
Some professional psychologist ought to draw up an anthology of the parallel expres-sions of Nicholas and Louis, Alexandra and Antoinette, and their courtiers. There would be no lack of material, and the result would be a highly instructive historic testimony in favour of the materialist psychology. Similar (of course, far from identical) irritations in similar conditions call out similar re.exes; the more powerful the irritation, the sooner it overcomes personal peculiarities. To a tickle, people react differently, but to a red-hot iron, alike. As a steam-hammer converts a sphere and a cube alike into sheet metal, so under the blow of too great and inexorable events resistances are smashed and the boundaries of" individuality" lost.
Louis and Nicholas were the last-born of a dynasty that had lived tumultuously. The well-known equability of them both, their tranquillity and "gaiety " in dif.cult moments, were the well-bred expression of a meagreness of inner powers, a weakness of the nervous discharge, poverty of spiritual resources. Moral, castrates, they were absolutely deprived of imagination and creative force. They had just enough "brains to feel their own triviality, and they cherished an envious hostility toward everything gifted and signi.cant. It fell to them both to rule a country in conditions of deep inner crisis and popular revolutionary awakening. Both of them fought off the intrusion of new ideas, and the tide of hostile forces. Indecisiveness, hypocrisy, and lying were in both cases the expression, not so much of" personal weakness, as of the complete impossibility of holding fast, to their hereditary positions.
And how was it with their wives? Alexandra, even more than Antoinette, was lifted to the very heights of the dreams of a princess, especially such a rural one as this Hes-sian, by her marriage with the unlimited despot of a powerful country. Both of them were .lled to the brim with the consciousness of their high mission: Antoinette more frivolously, Alexandra in a spirit of Protestant bigotry translated into the Slavonic language of the Rus-sian Church. An unlucky reign and a growing discontent of the people ruthlessly destroyed the fantastic world which these two enterprising but nevertheless chickenlike heads had built for themselves. Hence the growing bitterness, the gnawing hostility to an alien people that would not bow before them; the hatred toward ministers who wanted to give even a little consideration to that hostile world, to the country; hence their alienation even from their own court, and their continued irritation against a husband who had not ful.lled the expectations aroused by him as a bridegroom.
Historians and biographers of the psychological tendency not infrequently seek and .nd something purely personal and accidental where great historical forces are refracted through a personality. This is the same fault of vision as that of the courtiers who consid-ered the last Russian czar born "unlucky." He himself believed that he was born under an unlucky star. In reality his ill-luck .owed from the contradictions between those old aims which he inherited from his ancestors and the new historic conditions in which he was placed. When the ancients said that Jupiter .rst makes mad those who whom he wishes to destroy, they summed up in superst.i.tious form a profound historic observation. In the say-ing of Goethe about reason becoming nonsense-" Vernunft wird Unsinn "-this same thought is expressed about the impersonal Jupiter of the historical dialectic, which withdraws "rea-son " from historic inst.i.tutions that have outlived themselves and condemns their defenders to failure. The scripts for the roles of Romanov and Capet were prescribed by the general development of the historic drama; only the nuances of interpretation fell to the lot of the actors. The ill-luck of Nicholas, as of Louis, had its roots not in his personal horoscope, but in the historical horoscope of the bureaucratic-caste monarchy. They were both, chie.y and above all, the last-born offspring of absolutism. Their moral insigni.cance, deriving from their dynastic epigonism, gave the latter an especially malignant character.
You might object: if Alexander III had drunk less he might have lived a good deal longer, the revolution would have run into a very different make of czar, and no parallel with Louis XVI would have been possible. Such an objection, however, does not refute in the least what has been said above. We do not at all pretend to deny the signi.cance of the personal in the mechanics of the historic process, nor the signi.cance in the personal of the accidental. We only demand that a historic personality, with all its peculiarities, should not be taken as a bare list of psychological traits, but as a living reality grown out of de.nite social conditions and reacting upon them. As a rose does not lose its fragrance because the natural scientist points out upon what ingredients of soil and atmosphere it is nourished, so an exposure of the social roots of a personality does not remove from it either its aroma or its foul smell.
The consideration advanced above about a possible long life of Alexander III is capable of illuming this very problem from another side. Let us a.s.sume that this Alexander III had not become mixed up in 1904 in a war with j.a.pan. This would have delayed the .rst revolution. For how long? It is possible that the" revolution of 1905 "-that is, the .rst test of strength the .rst breach in the system of absolutism-would have been a mere introduction to the second, republican, and the third, proletarian revolution. Upon this question more or less interesting guesses are possible, but it is indubitable in any case that the revolution did not result from the character of Nicholas II, and that Alexander III would not have solved its problem. It is enough to remember that nowhere and never was the transition from the feudal to the bourgeois rgime made without violent disturbances. We saw this only yesterday in China; to-day we observe it again in India. The most we can say is that this or that policy of the monarchy, this or that personality o; the monarch, might have hastened or postponed the revolution and placed a certain imprint on its external course.
With what angry and impotent stubbornness charisma tried to defend itself in those last months, weeks and days, when it game was hopelessly lost! If Nicholas himself lacked the will the lack was made up by the czarina. Rasputin was an instrument of the action of a clique which rabidly fought for self-preservation. Even on this narrow scale the personality of the czar merges in a group which represents the coagulum of the past and its last con-vulsion. The" policy "of the upper circles a Tsarskoe Selo, face to face with the revolution, were but the re.exes of a poisoned and weak beast of prey. If you chase wolf over the steppe in an automobile, the beast gives out a last and lies down impotent. But attempt to put a collar on him and he will try to tear you to pieces, or at least wound you And indeed what else can he do in the circ.u.mstances?
The liberals imagined there was something else he might do. Instead of coming to an agreement with the enfranchised bourgeoisie in good season, and thus preventing the revolution such is liberalism"s act of accusation against the last czar-Nicholas stubbornly shrank from concessions, and even in the last days when already under the knife of destiny, when every minute was to be counted, still kept on procrastinating, bargaining with fate, and letting slip the last possibilities. This all sounds convincing. But how unfortunate that liberalism, knowing so accurately how to save the monarchy, did not know how to save itself!
It would be absurd to maintain that czarism never and in no circ.u.mstances made con-cessions. It made them when they were demanded by the necessity of self-preservation. After the Crimean defeat, Alexander II carried out the semi-liberation of the peasants and a series of liberal reforms in the sphere of land administration, courts, press, educational inst.i.tutions, etc. The czar himself expressed the guiding thought of this reformation: to free the peasants from above lest they free themselves from below. Under the drive of the .rst revolution Nicholas II granted a semi-const.i.tution. Stolypin sc.r.a.pped the peasant communes in order to broaden the arena of the capitalist forces. For czarism, however, all these reforms had a meaning only in so far as the partial concession preserved the whole-that is, the foundations of a caste society and the monarchy itself. When the consequences of the reform began to splash over those boundaries the monarchy inevitably beat a re-treat. Alexander II in the second half of his reign stole back the reforms of the .rst half. Alexander III went still farther on the road of counter-reform. Nicholas II in October 1905 retreated before the revolution, and then afterward dissolved the Dumas created by it, and as soon as the revolution grew weak, made his coup d"etat. Throughout three-quarters of a century-if we begin with the reform of Alexander II-there developed a struggle of historic forces, now underground, now in the open, far transcending the personal qualities of the separate cars, and accomplishing the overthrow of the monarchy. Only within the historic framework of this process can you .nd a place for individual cars, their characters, their "biographies."
Even the most despotic of autocrats is but little similar to a "free" individuality laying its arbitrary imprint upon events. He is always the crowned agent of the privileged cla.s.ses which are forming society in their own image. When these cla.s.ses have not yet ful.lled their mission, then the monarchy is strong and self-con.dent. Then it has in its hands a reliable apparatus power and an unlimited choice of executives-because the more gifted people have not yet gone over into the hostile camp. Then the monarch, either personally, or through the mediation of a powerful favourite, may become the agent of a great and progressive historic task. It is quite otherwise when the sun of the old society is .nally declining to the west. The privileged cla.s.ses are now changed from organisers of the national life into a parasitic growth; having lost their guiding function, they lose the consciousness of their mission and all con.dence in their powers. Their dissatisfaction with themselves becomes a dissatisfaction with the monarchy; the dynasty becomes isolated the circle of people loyal to the death narrows down; their level sinks lower; meanwhile the dangers grow; new force are pushing up; the monarchy loses its capacity for any kin of creative initiative; it defends itself, it strikes back, it retreats; its activities acquire the automatism of mere re.exes. The semi Ascitic despotism of the Romanies did not escape this fate.
If you take the czarism in its agony, in a vertical section, so to speak, Nicholas is the axis of a clique which has its roots the hopelessly condemned past. In a horizontal section of the historic monarchy, Nicholas is the last link in a dynastic chain. His nearest ancestors, who also in their day were merged in family, caste and bureaucratic collectivity-only a broader one-tried out various measures and methods of government order to protect the old social rgime against the fate advancing upon it. But nevertheless they pa.s.sed it on to Nicholas a chaotic empire already carrying the matured revolution in its womb. If he had any choice left, it was only between different roads to ruin.
Liberalism was dreaming of a monarchy on the British plan. But was parliamentarism born on the Themes by a peaceful evolution? Was it the fruit of the "free" foresight of a single monarch? No, it was deposited as the result of a struggle that lasted for ages, and in which one of the kings left his head at the crossroads.
The historic-psychological contrast mentioned above between the Romanovs and the Capets can, by the way, be aptly extended to the British royal pair of the epoch of the .rst revolution. Charles I revealed fundamentally the same combination of traits with which memoirists and historians have endowed Louis XVI and Nicholas II. "Charles, therefore, remained pa.s.sive," writes Montague, "yielded where he could not resist, betrayed how unwillingly he did so, and reaped no popularity, no con.dence." " He was not a stupid man," says another historian of Charles Stuart, "but he lacked .rmness of character. . . . His evil fate was his wife, Henrietta, a Frenchwoman, sister of Louis XIII, saturated even more than Charles with the idea of absolutism." We will not detail the characteristics of this third-chronologically .rst-royal pair to be crushed by a national revolution. We will merely observe that in England the hatred was concentrated above all on the queen, as a Frenchwoman and a papist, whom they accused of plotting with Rome, secret connections with the Irish rebels, and intrigues at the French court.
But England had, at any rate, ages at her disposal. She was the pioneer of bourgeois civilisation; she was not under the yoke of other nations, but on the contrary held them more and more under her yoke. She exploited the whole world. This softened the inner contradictions, acc.u.mulated conservatism, promoted an abundance and stability of fatty deposits in the form of a parasitic caste, in the form of a squirearchy, a monarchy, House of Lords, and the state church. Thanks to this exclusive historic privilege of development possessed by bourgeois England, conservatism combined with elasticity pa.s.sed over from her inst.i.tutions into her moral .bre. Various continental Philistines, like the Russian pro-fessor Miliukov, or the Austro-Marxist Otto Bauer, have not to this day ceased going into ecstasies over this fact. But exactly at the present moment, when England, hard pressed throughout the world, is squandering the last resources of her former privileged position, her conservatism is losing its elasticity, and even in the person of the Labourites is turning into stark reactionism. In the face of the Indian revolution the "socialist" MacDonald will .nd no other methods but those with which Nicholas II opposed the Russian revolution. Only a blind man could fail to see that Great Britain is headed for gigantic revolutionary earthquake shocks, in which the last fragments of her conservatism, her world domination, her present state machine, will go down without a trace. MacDonnell is preparing these shocks no less successfully than did Nicholas II in time, and no less blindly. So here too, as we see, is no poor ill.u.s.tration of the problem of the role of the "free" personality in history.
But how could Russia with her belated development, coming along at the tail end of the European nations, with her meagre economic foundation underfoot, how could she develop an "elastic conservatism" of social forms-and develop it for the special bene.t of professorial liberalism and its leftward shadow, reformist socialism? Russia was too far behind. And when world imperialism once took her in its grip, she had to pa.s.s through her political history in. too brief a course. If Nicholas had gone to meet liberalism and replaced one with Miliukov, the development of events would have differed a little in form, not in substance. Indeed it was just in this way that Louis behaved in the second stage of the revolution, summoning Gironde to power: this did not save Louis himself from guillotine, nor after him the Gironde. The acc.u.mulating social contradictions were bound to break through to the surface, breaking through to carry out their work of purgation. Before the pressure of the popular ma.s.ses, who had at last brought into the open arena their misfortunes, their pains, indentions, pa.s.sions, hopes, illusions and aims, the high-up combination the monarchy with liberalism had only an episodic signi.cance. They could exert, to be sure, an in.uence on the order of events maybe upon the number of actions, but not at all upon development of the drama nor its momentous climax.
CHAPTER 7.
FIVE DAYS (FEBRUARY 23-27, 1917).
The 23rd of February was International Woman"s Day. The social-democratic circles had intended to mark this day in a general manner: by meetings, speeches, lea.ets. It had not occurred to anyone that it might become the .rst day of the revolution. Not a single organ-isation called for strikes on that day. What is more, even a Bolshevik organisation, and a most militant one-the Vyborg borough committee, all workers -was opposing strikes. The temper of the ma.s.ses, according to Kayurov, one of the leaders in the workers" district, was very tense; any strike would threaten to turn into an open .ght. But since the 0committee thought, the time unripe for militant action-the party not strong enough and the workers having too few contacts with the soldiers-they decided not to call for strikes but to pre-pare for revolutionary action at some inde.nite time in the future. Such was the course followed by the committee on the eve of the 23rd of February, and everyone seemed to accept it. On the following morning, however, in spite of all directives, the women textile workers in several factories went on strike, and sent delegates to the metal workers with an appeal for support. "With reluctance," writes Kayurov, "the Bolsheviks agreed to this, and they were followed by the workers Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries. But once there is a ma.s.s strike, one must call everybody into the streets and take the lead." Such was Kayurov"s decision, and the Vyborg committee had to agree to it. "The idea of going into the streets had long been ripening among the workers; only at that moment n.o.body imag-ined where it would lead." Let us keep in mind this testimony of a partic.i.p.ant, important for understanding the mechanics of the events.
It was taken for granted that in case of a demonstration the soldiers would be brought out into the streets against the workers. What would that lead to? This was wartime; the authorities were in no mood for joking. On the other hand, "reserve" soldier in wartime is nothing like an old soldier o the regular army. Is he really so formidable? In revolutionary circles they had discussed this much, but rather abstractly. For no one, positively no one we can a.s.sert this categorically upon the basis of all the data-then thought that February 23 was to mark the beginning of a decisive drive against absolutism The talk was of a demonstration which had inde.nite, but in any case limited, perspectives.
Thus the fact is that the February revolution was begun from below, overcoming the resistance of its own revolutionary organisations, the initiative being taken of their own accord by the most oppressed and downtrodden part of the proletariat -the women textile workers, among them no doubt many soldiers" wives. The overgrown breadlines had pro-vided the last stimulus. About 90,000 workers, men and women, were on strike that day. The .ghting mood expressed itself in demonstrations, meetings, encounters with the police. The movement began in the Vyborg district with its large industrial establishments; thence it crossed over to the Petersburg side. There were no strikes or demonstrations elsewhere, according to the testimony of the secret police. On that day detachments of troops were called in to a.s.sist the police-evidently not many of them -but there were no encounters with them. A ma.s.s of women, not all of them workers, .ocked to the munic.i.p.al duma demand-ing bread. It was like demanding milk from a he-goat. Red banners appeared in different parts of the city, and inscriptions on them showed that the workers wanted bread, but nei-ther autocracy nor war. Woman"s Day pa.s.sed successfully, with enthusiasm and without victims. But what it concealed in itself, no one had guessed even by nightfall.
On the following day the movement not only fails to diminish, but doubles. About one-half of the industrial workers of Petrograd are on strike on the 24th of February. The workers come to the factories in the morning; instead of going to work they hold meetings; then begin processions toward the centre. New districts and new groups of the population are drawn into the movement. The slogan "Bread!" is crowded out or obscured by louder slogans: "Down with autocracy!" "Down with the war!" Continuous demonstrations on the Nevsky -.rst compact ma.s.ses of workmen singing revolutionary songs, later a motley crowd of city folk interspersed with the blue caps of students. "The promenading crowd was sympathetically disposed toward us, and soldiers in some of the war-hospitals greeted us by waving whatever was at hand." How many clearly realised what was being ushered in by this sympathetic waving from sick soldiers to demonstrating workers? But the Cossacks constantly, though without ferocity, kept charging the crowd. Their horses were covered with foam. The ma.s.s of demonstrators would part to let them through, and close up again. There was no fear in the crowd. "The Cossacks promise not to shoot," pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth. Apparently some of the workers had talks with individual Cossacks. Later, however, cursing. half-drunken dragoons appeared on the scene. They plunged into the crowd, began to strike at heads with their lances. The demonstrators summoned all their strength and stood fast. They won"t shoot." And in fact they didn"t.
A liberal senator was looking at the dead street-cars-or was that on the following day and his memory failed him?-some of them with broken windows, some tipped over on the tracks, and was recalling the July days of 1914 on the eve of the war. "It seemed that the old attempt was being renewed." The senator"s eyes did not deceive him; the continuity is clear. History was picking up the ends of the revolutionary threads broken by the war, and tying them in a knot.
Throughout the entire day, crowds of people poured from one part of the city to an-other. They were persistently dispelled by the police, stopped and crowded back by cavalry detachments and occasionally by infantry. Along with shouts of "Down with the police" was heard oftener and oftener a "Hurrah" addressed to the Cossacks. That was signi.cant. Toward the police the crowd showed ferocious hatred. They routed the mounted police with whistles, stones, and pieces of ice. In a totally different way the workers approached the soldiers. Around the barracks, sentinels, patrols and lines of soldiers stood groups of working men and women exchanging friendly words with the army men. This was a new stage, due to the growth of the strike and the personal meeting of the worker with the army. Such a stage is inevitable in every revolution. But it always seems new, and does in fact occur differently every time: those who have read and written about it do not recognise the thing when they see it.
In the State Duma that day they were telling how an enormous ma.s.s of people had .ooded Znamensky Square and all Nevsky Prospect, and the adjoining streets and that a totally unprecedented phenomenon was observed: the Cossacks and the regiments with bands were being greeted by revolutionary and not patriotic crowds with shouts of "Hur-rah" To the question, "What does it all mean? the .rst person accosted in the crowd answered the deputy: A policeman struck a woman with a knout; the Cossacks stepped in and drove away the police." Whether it happened in this way or another, will never be veri.ed. But the crowd believed that it was so, that this was possible. The belief had not fallen out of the sky; it arose from previous experience, and was therefore to become an earnest of victory.
The workers at the Erikson, one of the foremost mills in the Vyborg district, after a morning meeting came out on the Sampsonievsky Prospect, a whole ma.s.s, 2,500 of them, and in a narrow place ran into the Cossacks. Cutting their way with the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of their horses, the of.cers .rst charged through the crowd. Behind them, .lling the whole width of the Prospect galloped the Cossacks. Decisive moment! But the hors.e.m.e.n, cautiously, in a long ribbon, rode through the corridor just made by the of.cers. "Some of them smiled," Kayurov recalls, "and one of them gave the workers a good wink" This wink was not with-out meaning. The workers were emboldened with a friendly, not hostile, kind of a.s.surance, and slightly infected the Cossacks with it. The one who winked found imitators. In spite of renewed eff6rts from the of.cers, the Cossacks, without openly breaking discipline, failed to force the crowd to disperse, but .owed through it in streams. This was repeated three or four times and brought the two sides even closer together. Individual Cossacks began to reply to the workers" questions and even to enter into momentary conversations with them. Of discipline there remained but a thin transparent sh.e.l.l that threatened to break through any second. The of.cers hastened to separate their patrol from the workers, and, abandoning the idea of dispersing them, lined the Cossacks out across the street as a barrier to prevent the demonstrators from getting to the centre. But even this did not help: stand-ing stock-still in perfect discipline, the Cossacks did not hinder the workers from "diving" under their horses. The revolution does not choose its paths: it made its .rst steps toward victory under the belly of a Cossack"s horse. A remarkable incident! And remarkable the eye of its narrator-an eye which took an impression of every bend in the process. No won-der, for the narrator was a leader; he was at the head of over two thousand men. The eye of a commander watching for enemy whips and bullets looks sharp.
It seems that the break in the army .rst appeared among the Cossacks, those age-old subduers and punishers. This does not mean, however, that the Cossacks were more revo-lutionary than others. On the contrary, these solid property owners, riding their own horses, highly valuing their Cossack peculiarities, scorning the plain peasants, mistrustful of the workers, had many elements of conservatism. But just for this reason the changes caused by the war were more sharply noticeable in them. Besides, they were always being pulled around, sent everywhere, driven against the people, kept in suspense-and they were the .rst to be put to the test. They were sick of it, and wanted to go home. Therefore they winked: "Do it, boys, if you know how-we won"t bother you" All these things, however, were merely very signi.cant symptoms. The army was still the army, it was bound with disci-pline, and the threads were in the hands of the monarchy. The worker ma.s.s was unarmed. The leaders had not yet thought of the decisive crisis.
On the calendar of the Council of Ministers that day there stood, among other questions, the question of disorders in the capital. Strikes? Demonstrations? This isn"t the .rst time. Everything is provided for. Directions have been issued. Return to the order of business. And what were the directions? In spite of the fact that on the 23rd and 24th twenty-eight policemen were beaten up persuasive exactness about the number!-the military commander of the district, General Khabalov, almost a dictator, Did not resort to shooting. Not from kind-heartedness: everything was provided for and marked down in advance, even the time for the shooting.
The revolution caught them unawares only with regard to the exact moment. Gen