Ten Days that Shook the World — 06 - The Fall of the Provisional Gov't, Part 2
More soldiers … Gzhelshakh; for the Front delegates, announcing that they had only decided to leave the Congress by a small majority, and that _the Bolshevik members had not even taken part in the vote,_ as they stood for division according to political parties, and not groups.
“Hundreds of delegates from the Front,” he said, “are being elected without the participation of the soldiers because the Army Committees are no longer the real representatives of the rank and file….
” Lukianov, crying that officers like Kharash and Khintchuk could not represent the Army in this congress,—but only the high command.
“The real inhabitants of the trenches want with all their hearts the transfer of Power into the hands of the Soviets, and they expect very much from it!
”… The tide was turning.
Then came Abramovitch, for the _Bund,_ the organ of the Jewish Social Democrats—his eyes snapping behind thick glasses, trembling with rage.
“What is taking place now in Petrograd is a monstrous calamity!
The _Bund_ group joins with the declaration of the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries and will leave the Congress!
” He raised his voice and hand.
“Our duty to the Russian proletariat doesn’t permit us to remain here and be responsible for these crimes.
Because the firing on the Winter Palace doesn’t cease, the Municipal Duma together with the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries, and the Executive Committee of the Peasants’ Soviet, has decided to perish with the Provisional Government, and we are going with them!
Unarmed we will expose our breasts to the machine guns of the Terrorists….
We invite all delegates to this Congress—” The rest was lost in a storm of hoots, menaces and curses which rose to a hellish pitch as fifty delegates got up and pushed their way out….
Kameniev jangled the bell, shouting, “Keep your seats and we’ll go on with our business!
” And Trotzky, standing up with a pale, cruel face, letting out his rich voice in cool contempt, “All these so-called Socialist compromisers, these frightened Mensheviki, Socialist Revolutionaries, _Bund_—let them go!
They are just so much refuse which will be swept into the garbage-heap of history!
” Riazanov, for the Bolsheviki, stated that at the request of the City Duma the Military Revolutionary Committee had sent a delegation to offer negotiations to the Winter Palace.
“In this way we have done everything possible to avoid blood-shed….
” We hurried from the place, stopping for a moment at the room where the Military Revolutionary Committee worked at furious speed, engulfing and spitting out panting couriers, despatching Commissars armed with power of life and death to all the corners of the city, amid the buzz of the telephonographs.
The door opened, a blast of stale air and cigarette smoke rushed out, we caught a glimpse of dishevelled men bending over a map under the glare of a shaded electric-light….
Comrade Josephov-Dukhvinski, a smiling youth with a mop of pale yellow hair, made out passes for us.
When we came into the chill night, all the front of Smolny was one huge park of arriving and departing automobiles, above the sound of which could be heard the far-off slow beat of the cannon.
A great motor-truck stood there, shaking to the roar of its engine.
Men were tossing bundles into it, and others receiving them, with guns beside them.
“Where are you going?
” I shouted.
“Down-town—all over—everywhere!
” answered a little workman, grinning, with a large exultant gesture.
We showed our passes.
“Come along!
” they invited.
“But there’ll probably be shooting—” We climbed in; the clutch slid home with a raking jar, the great car jerked forward, we all toppled backward on top of those who were climbing in; past the huge fire by the gate, and then the fire by the outer gate, glowing red on the faces of the workmen with rifles who squatted around it, and went bumping at top speed down the Suvorovsky Prospect, swaying from side to side….
One man tore the wrapping from a bundle and began to hurl handfuls of papers into the air.
We imitated him, plunging down through the dark street with a tail of white papers floating and eddying out behind.
The late passerby stooped to pick them up; the patrols around bonfires on the corners ran out with uplifted arms to catch them.
Sometimes armed men loomed up ahead, crying “_Shtoi!
_” and raising their guns, but our chauffeur only yelled something unintelligible and we hurtled on….
I picked up a copy of the paper, and under a fleeting street-light read: TO THE CITIZENS OF RUSSIA!
The Provisional Government is deposed.
The State Power has passed into the hands of the organ of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, the Military Revolutionary Committee, which stands at the head of the Petrograd proletariat and garrison.
The cause for which the people were fighting: immediate proposal of a democratic peace, abolition of landlord property-rights over the land, labor control over production, creation of a Soviet Government—that cause is securely achieved.
LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION OF WORKMEN, SOLDIERS AND PEASANTS!
_Military Revolutionary Committee_ _Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.
_ [Graphic, page 96: Proclamation in Russian, title follows] Proclamation of the Fall of the Provisional Government issued by the Military Revolutionary Committee on the night of November 7th (our calendar), which we helped to distribute from a motor-truck just after the surrender of the Winter Palace.
A slant-eyed, Mongolian-faced man who sat beside me, dressed in a goat-skin Caucasian cape, snapped, “Look out!
Here the provocators always shoot from the windows!
” We turned into Znamensky Square, dark and almost deserted, careened around Trubetskoy’s brutal statue and swung down the wide Nevsky, three men standing up with rifles ready, peering at the windows.
Behind us the street was alive with people running and stooping.
We could no longer hear the cannon, and the nearer we drew to the Winter Palace end of the city the quieter and more deserted were the streets.
The City Duma was all brightly lighted.
Beyond that we made out a dark mass of people, and a line of sailors, who yelled furiously at us to stop.
The machine slowed down, and we climbed out.
It was an astonishing scene.
Just at the corner of the Ekaterina Canal, under an arc-light, a cordon of armed sailors was drawn across the Nevsky, blocking the way to a crowd of people in column of fours.
There were about three or four hundred of them, men in frock coats, well-dressed women, officers—all sorts and conditions of people.
Among them we recognised many of the delegates from the Congress, leaders of the Mensheviki and Socialist Revolutionaries; Avksentiev, the lean, red-bearded president of the Peasants’ Soviets, Sarokin, Kerensky’s spokesman, Khintchuk, Abramovitch; and at the head white-bearded old Schreider, Mayor of Petrograd, and Prokopovitch, Minister of Supplies in the Provisional Government, arrested that morning and released.
I
caught sight of Malkin, reporter for the _Russian Daily News.
_ “Going to die in the Winter Palace,” he shouted cheerfully.
The procession stood still, but from the front of it came loud argument.
Schreider and Prokopovitch were bellowing at the big sailor who seemed in command.
“We demand to pass!
” they cried.
“See, these comrades come from the Congress of Soviets!
Look at their tickets!
We are going to the Winter Palace!
” The sailor was plainly puzzled.
He scratched his head with an enormous hand, frowning.
“I have orders from the Committee not to let anybody go to the Winter Palace,” he grumbled.
“But I will send a comrade to telephone to Smolny….
” “We Insist upon passing!
We are unarmed!
We will march on whether you permit us or not!
” cried old Schreider, very much excited.
“I have orders—” repeated the sailor sullenly.
“Shoot us if you want to!
We will pass!
Forward!
” came from all sides.
“We are ready to die, if you have the heart to fire on Russians and comrades!
We bare our breasts to your guns!
” “No,” said the sailor, looking stubborn, “I can’t allow you to pass.
” “What will you do if we go forward?
Will you shoot?
” “No, I’m not going to shoot people who haven’t any guns.
We won’t shoot unarmed Russian people….
” “We will go forward!
What can you do?
” “We will do something,” replied the sailor, evidently at a loss.
“We can’t let you pass.
We will do something.
” “What will you do?
What will you do?
” Another sailor came up, very much irritated.
“We will spank you!
” he cried, energetically.
“And if necessary we will shoot you too.
Go home now, and leave us in peace!
” At this there was a great clamour of anger and resentment, Prokopovitch had mounted some sort of box, and, waving his umbrella, he made a speech: “Comrades and citizens!
” he said.
“Force is being used against us!
We cannot have our innocent blood upon the hands of these ignorant men!
It is beneath our dignity to be shot down here in the street by switchmen—” (What he meant by “switchmen” I never discovered.
) “Let us return to the Duma and discuss the best means of saving the country and the Revolution!
” Whereupon, in dignified silence, the procession marched around and back up the Nevsky, always in column of fours.
And taking advantage of the diversion we slipped past the guards and set off in the direction of the Winter Palace.
Here it was absolutely dark, and nothing moved but pickets of soldiers and Red Guards grimly intent.
In front of the Kazan Cathedral a three-inch field-gun lay in the middle of the street, slewed sideways from the recoil of its last shot over the roofs.
Soldiers were standing in every doorway talking in low tones and peering down toward the Police Bridge.
I heard one voice saying: “It is possible that we have done wrong….
” At the corners patrols stopped all passersby—and the composition of these patrols was interesting, for in command of the regular troops was invariably a Red Guard….
The shooting had ceased.
Just as we came to the Morskaya somebody was shouting: “The _yunkers_ have sent word they want us to go and get them out!
” Voices began to give commands, and in the thick gloom we made out a dark mass moving forward, silent but for the shuffle of feet and the clinking of arms.
We fell in with the first ranks.
Like a black river, filling all the street, without song or cheer we poured through the Red Arch, where the man just ahead of me said in a low voice: “Look out, comrades!
Don’t trust them.
They will fire, surely!
” In the open we began to run, stooping low and bunching together, and jammed up suddenly behind the pedestal of the Alexander Column.
“How many of you did they kill?
” I asked.
“I don’t know.
About ten….
” After a few minutes huddling there, some hundreds of men, the army seemed reassured and without any orders suddenly began again to flow forward.
By this time, in the light that streamed out of all the Winter Palace windows, I could see that the first two or three hundred men were Red Guards, with only a few scattered soldiers.
Over the barricade of firewood we clambered, and leaping down inside gave a triumphant shout as we stumbled on a heap of rifles thrown down by the _yunkers_ who had stood there.
On both sides of the main gateway the doors stood wide open, light streamed out, and from the huge pile came not the slightest sound.
Carried along by the eager wave of men we were swept into the right hand entrance, opening into a great bare vaulted room, the cellar of the East wing, from which issued a maze of corridors and stair-cases.
A
number of huge packing cases stood about, and upon these the Red Guards and soldiers fell furiously, battering them open with the butts of their rifles, and pulling out carpets, curtains, linen, porcelain plates, glassware….
One man went strutting around with a bronze clock perched on his shoulder; another found a plume of ostrich feathers, which he stuck in his hat.
The looting was just beginning when somebody cried, “Comrades!
Don’t touch anything!
Don’t take anything!
This is the property of the People!
” Immediately twenty voices were crying, “Stop!
Put everything back!
Don’t take anything!
Property of the People!
” Many hands dragged the spoilers down.
Damask and tapestry were snatched from the arms of those who had them; two men took away the bronze clock.
Roughly and hastily the things were crammed back in their cases, and self-appointed sentinels stood guard.
It was all utterly spontaneous.
Through corridors and up stair-cases the cry could be heard growing fainter and fainter in the distance, “Revolutionary discipline!
Property of the People….
” We crossed back over to the left entrance, in the West wing.
There order was also being established.
“Clear the Palace!
” bawled a Red Guard, sticking his head through an inner door.
“Come, comrades, let’s show that we’re not thieves and bandits.
Everybody out of the Palace except the Commissars, until we get sentries posted.
” Two Red Guards, a soldier and an officer, stood with revolvers in their hands.
Another soldier sat at a table behind them, with pen and paper.
Shouts of “All out!
All out!
” were heard far and near within, and the Army began to pour through the door, jostling, expostulating, arguing.
As each man appeared he was seized by the self-appointed committee, who went through his pockets and looked under his coat.
Everything that was plainly not his property was taken away, the man at the table noted it on his paper, and it was carried into a little room.
The most amazing assortment of objects were thus confiscated; statuettes, bottles of ink, bed-spreads worked with the Imperial monogram, candles, a small oil-painting, desk blotters, gold-handled swords, cakes of soap, clothes of every description, blankets.
One Red Guard carried three rifles, two of which he had taken away from _yunkers;_ another had four portfolios bulging with written documents.
The culprits either sullenly surrendered or pleaded like children.
All talking at once the committee explained that stealing was not worthy of the people’s champions; often those who had been caught turned around and began to help go through the rest of the comrades.
(See App.
IV, Sect.
3) _Yunkers_ came out, in bunches of three or four.
The committee seized upon them with an excess of zeal, accompanying the search with remarks like, “Ah, Provocators!
Kornilovists!
Counter-revolutionists!
Murderers of the People!
” But there was no violence done, although the _yunkers_ were terrified.
They too had their pockets full of small plunder.
It was carefully noted down by the scribe, and piled in the little room….
The _yunkers_ were disarmed.
“Now, will you take up arms against the People any more?
” demanded clamouring voices.
“No,” answered the _yunkers,_ one by one.
Whereupon they were allowed to go free.
We asked if we might go inside.
The committee was doubtful, but the big Red Guard answered firmly that it was forbidden.
“Who are you anyway?
” he asked.
“How do I know that you are not all Kerenskys?
(There were five of us, two women.
) “_Pazhal’st’, touarishtchi!
_ Way, Comrades!
” A soldier and a Red Guard appeared in the door, waving the crowd aside, and other guards with fixed bayonets.
After them followed single file half a dozen men in civilian dress—the members of the Provisional Government.
First came Kishkin, his face drawn and pale, then Rutenberg, looking sullenly at the floor; Terestchenko was next, glancing sharply around; he stared at us with cold fixity….
They passed in silence; the victorious insurrectionists crowded to see, but there were only a few angry mutterings.
It was only later that we learned how the people in the street wanted to lynch them, and shots were fired—but the sailors brought them safely to Peter-Paul….
In the meanwhile unrebuked we walked into the Palace.
There was still a great deal of coming and going, of exploring new-found apartments in the vast edifice, of searching for hidden garrisons of _yunkers_ which did not exist.
We went upstairs and wandered through room after room.
This part of the Palace had been entered also by other detachments from the side of the Neva.
The paintings, statues, tapestries and rugs of the great state apartments were unharmed; in the offices, however, every desk and cabinet had been ransacked, the papers scattered over the floor, and in the living rooms beds had been stripped of their coverings and ward-robes wrenched open.
The most highly prized loot was clothing, which the working people needed.
In a room where furniture was stored we came upon two soldiers ripping the elaborate Spanish leather upholstery from chairs.
They explained it was to make boots with….
The old Palace servants in their blue and red and gold uniforms stood nervously about, from force of habit repeating, “You can’t go in there, _barin!
_ It is forbidden—” We penetrated at length to the gold and malachite chamber with crimson brocade hangings where the Ministers had been in session all that day and night, and where the _shveitzari_ had betrayed them to the Red Guards.
The long table covered with green baize was just as they had left it, under arrest.
Before each empty seat was pen and ink and paper; the papers were scribbled over with beginnings of plans of action, rough drafts of proclamations and manifestos.
Most of these were scratched out, as their futility became evident, and the rest of the sheet covered with absent-minded geometrical designs, as the writers sat despondently listening while Minister after Minister proposed chimerical schemes.
I took one of these scribbled pages, in the hand writing of Konovalov, which read, “The Provisional Government appeals to all classes to support the Provisional Government—” All this time, it must be remembered, although the Winter Palace was surrounded, the Government was in constant communication with the Front and with provincial Russia.
The Bolsheviki had captured the Ministry of War early in the morning, but they did not know of the military telegraph office in the attic, nor of the private telephone line connecting it with the Winter Palace.
In that attic a young officer sat all day, pouring out over the country a flood of appeals and proclamations; and when he heard that the Palace had fallen, put on his hat and walked calmly out of the building….
Interested as we were, for a considerable time we didn’t notice a change in the attitude of the soldiers and Red Guards around us.
As we strolled from room to room a small group followed us, until by the time we reached the great picture-gallery where we had spent the afternoon with the _yunkers,_ about a hundred men surged in after us.
One giant of a soldier stood in our path, his face dark with sullen suspicion.
[Graphic, page 104: Doodling by Konavalov, title follows] Facsimile of the beginning of a proclamation, written in pencil by A. I.
Konovalov, Minister of Commerce and Industry in he Provisional Government, and then scratched out as the hopelessness of the situation became more and more evident.
The geometrical figure beneath was probably idly drawn while the Ministers were waiting for the end.
“Who are you?
” he growled.
“What are you doing here?
” The others massed slowly around, staring and beginning to mutter.
_“Provocatori!
”_ I heard somebody say.
“Looters!
” I produced our passes from the Military Revolutionary Committee.
The soldier took them gingerly, turned them upside down and looked at them without comprehension.
Evidently he could not read.
He handed them back and spat on the floor.
_“Bumagi!
_ Papers!
” said he with contempt.
The mass slowly began to close in, like wild cattle around a cowpuncher on foot.
Over their heads I caught sight of an officer, looking helpless, and shouted to him.
He made for us, shouldering his way through.
“I’m the Commissar,” he said to me.
“Who are you?
What is it?
” The others held back, waiting.
I produced the papers.
“You are foreigners?
” he rapidly asked in French.
“It is very dangerous….
” Then he turned to the mob, holding up our documents.
“Comrades!
” he cried.
“These people are foreign comrades—from America.
They have come here to be able to tell their countrymen about the bravery and the revolutionary discipline of the proletarian army!
” “How do you know that?
” replied the big soldier.
“I tell you they are provocators!
They say they came here to observe the revolutionary discipline of the proletarian army, but they have been wandering freely through the Palace, and how do we know they haven’t got their pockets full of loot?
” _“Pravilno!
”_ snarled the others, pressing forward.
“Comrades!
Comrades!
” appealed the officer, sweat standing out on his forehead.
“I am Commissar of the Military Revolutionary Committee.
Do you trust me?
Well, I tell you that these passes are signed with the same names that are signed to my pass!
” He led us down through the Palace and out through a door opening onto the Neva quay, before which stood the usual committee going through pockets… “You have narrowly escaped,” he kept muttering, wiping his face.
“What happened to the Women’s Battalion?
” we asked.
“Oh—the women!
” He laughed.
“They were all huddled up in a back room.
We had a terrible time deciding what to do with them—many were in hysterics, and so on.
So finally we marched them up to the Finland Station and put them on a train for Levashovo, where they have a camp.
(See App.
IV, Sect.
4)….
” We came out into the cold, nervous night, murmurous with obscure armies on the move, electric with patrols.
From across the river, where loomed the darker mass of Peter-Paul, came a hoarse shout….
Underfoot the sidewalk was littered with broken stucco, from the cornice of the Palace where two shells from the battleship _Avrora_ had struck; that was the only damage done by the bombardment….
It was now after three in the morning.
On the Nevsky all the street-lights were again shining, the cannon gone, and the only signs of war were Red Guards and soldiers squatting around fires.
The city was quiet—probably never so quiet in its history; on that night not a single hold-up occurred, not a single robbery.
But the City Duma Building was all illuminated.
We mounted to the galleried Alexander Hall, hung with its great, gold-framed, red-shrouded Imperial portraits.
About a hundred people were grouped around the platform, where Skobeliev was speaking.
He urged that the Committee of Public Safety be expanded, so as to unite all the anti-Bolshevik elements in one huge organisation, to be called the Committee for Salvation of Country and Revolution.
And as we looked on, the Committee for Salvation was formed—that Committee which was to develop into the most powerful enemy of the Bolsheviki, appearing, in the next week, sometimes under its own partisan name, and sometimes as the strictly non-partisan Committee of Public Safety….
Dan, Gotz, Avkesntiev were there, some of the insurgent Soviet delegates, members of the Executive Committee of the Peasants’ Soviets, old Prokopovitch, and even members of the Council of the Republic—among whom Vinaver and other Cadets.
Lieber cried that the convention of Soviets was not a legal convention, that the old _Tsay-ee-kah_ was still in office….
An appeal to the country was drafted.
We hailed a cab.
“Where to?
” But when we said “Smolny,” the _izvoshtchik_ shook his head.
_“Niet!
”_ said he, “there are devils….
” It was only after weary wandering that we found a driver willing to take us—and he wanted thirty rubles, and stopped two blocks away.
The windows of Smolny were still ablaze, motors came and went, and around the still-leaping fires the sentries huddled close, eagerly asking everybody the latest news.
The corridors were full of hurrying men, hollow-eyed and dirty.
In some of the committee-rooms people lay sleeping on the floor, their guns beside them.
In spite of the seceding delegates, the hall of meetings was crowded with people, roaring like the sea.
As we came in, Kameniev was reading the list of arrested Ministers.
The name of Terestchenko was greeted with thunderous applause, shouts of satisfaction, laughter; Rutenburg came in for less;
and at the mention of Paltchinsky, a storm of hoots, angry cries, cheers burst forth….
It was announced that Tchudnovsky had been appointed Commissar of the Winter Palace.
Now occurred a dramatic interruption.
A big peasant, his bearded face convulsed with rage, mounted the platform and pounded with his fist on the presidium table.
“We, Socialist Revolutionaries, insist upon the immediate release of the Socialist Ministers arrested in the Winter Palace!
Comrades!
Do you know that four comrades who risked their lives and their freedom fighting against tyranny of the Tsar, have been flung into Peter-Paul prison—the historical tomb of Liberty?
” In the uproar he pounded and yelled.
Another delegate climbed up beside him, and pointed at the presidium.
