General Pershing was in Paris when the first transport contingent arrived, and immediately set out for the French port to get in touch with his troops. They were debarking in long lines when he arrived, making their way to their temporary camp, which was situated on high ground outside the town. Their debarkation signalized the actual beginning of General Pershing's command in the European theater of war of an army in being, as yet small, but composed of seasoned troops from the Mexican border and marines from Haiti and Santo Domingo, all fit and ready for immediate trench service. He had been greeted in England as America's banner bearer, was immediately received by King George on his arrival in London, while Paris accorded him, as London did, the royal welcome which a sister democracy knows how to extend to the representative of a democracy bound to the Anglo-French Entente by the grimmest of ties. The landing of the vanguard of his army disposed of further hospitalities and brought him squarely to the business in hand, which was to get his troops in the fighting zone.

A section of the French battle front for eventual occupancy by the American forces was early selected after General Pershing had inspected the ground under the guidance of the British and French military authorities. Its location, being a military secret, was not disclosed. Meantime the troops were dispatched to training bases established for affording them the fullest scope to become familiar with trench operators. The bases also included aviation, artillery, and medical camps. Further tidings of them thenceforth came from the "American Training Camp in France," wherever that was. Toward the close of July, 1917, actual intensive work was under way and pursued with an enthusiasm which warranted hopes that the troops would soon reach a stage of efficiency fitting them for the firing zone. Trenches were dug with the same spirit as that animating soldiers digging themselves in under artillery fire. The trenches were of full depth and duplicated those of certain sections of the front line, consisting of front or fire trenches, support trenches, and reserve trenches, with intricate communicating passages between them.

The marines—those handy men who apply themselves to every service in warfare, as to the manner born, whenever the occasion requires—cheerfully bent their ardent energies to spade work, which was probably a new task even for that many handed corps. Thereafter they wired themselves in their trenches behind barriers of barbed-metal entanglements.

All this intensive work was performed under conditions approximating to actual warfare. Both offensive and defensive tactics were employed, including lively sham battles with grenades, bayonets, and trench mortars. For bayonet practice dummies were constructed and the men were taught the six most vital points of attack. The troops were entertained by stories telling how the French decorated and painted their dummies to resemble the kaiser, Von Hindenburg, and other enemy notables, and each company searched its ranks for artists who could paint similar effigies.

Practice in trench warfare did not displace route marching. The hardening process in that direction continued as part of the operations. The men's packs increased in weight until they neared fifty pounds. Duly the men would be equipped with steel helmets and an extra kit, when their packs would weigh eighty pounds, like the burden carried by the British troops. Accordingly the Americans were drilled to bear this burden without undue fatigue. This was the stage American operations in France had reached by the beginning of August, 1917.

Little was disclosed regarding naval movements—beyond the activities of American destroyers, which were not only occupied in convoying transports and passenger liners through the submarine zone, but cooperated with British patrols in checking submarine destruction in other lanes of travel. The British recognized them as a formidable part of the grand Allied fleet.

As to the navy itself, its personnel was increased to 150,000 men. Where the main American fleet was—whether with the British fleet at the Orkneys, or stationed in some other zone—no event transpired to give any clue. But patrol of the South Atlantic, as well as of the American coast, was assumed by the Pacific coast fleet under Admiral Caperton, the remaining French and British warships in those waters acting under his authority.

Sea warfare conditions, outside the useful work of the American destroyers provided by the German submarines, gave little scope for naval operations, and it was assumed that the main American fleet, like the British, was lying quiescent, with its finger on the trigger, awaiting its opportunity. The Navy Department meantime busied itself arming scores of American merchant vessels to brave the submarines, and in carrying out an extensive building program, which included the construction of hundreds of submarine chasers—a new type of swift, powerfully armed small craft—as well as of many new destroyers.



PART IX—THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION



CHAPTER LXX

FORESHADOWING REVOLUTION

Without danger of overstatement or exaggeration, it may be said that the most dramatic feature of the Great War's history during the period February-August, 1917, was the revolution in Russia. To outsiders, acquainted with Russian conditions only superficially, it was startlingly unexpected. A revolution, usually, is merely the climax of a long series of events of quiet development, the result of a long period of propaganda and preparation, based on gradually changing economic conditions. The overthrow of the Russian autocracy seems to have been an exception to this general rule—at least in part. For even to close observers nothing seemed more dead than the revolutionary organizations in Russia on the outbreak of the Great War in the summer of 1914. To be sure, when the opportunity came, they sprang into life again and were able to place themselves in control of the situation. But the great climax certainly did not come about through their conscious efforts.

For this reason a detailed description of the early revolutionary movements directed against the czar's government is not necessary to a thorough understanding of the events which so startled the world in March, 1917. The causes which brought them about originated after the outbreak of the war.

We were in the habit of describing the two great governments, that of the German Empire and that of the Russian Empire, with the word "autocracies." And in that each was, and one still is, controlled absolutely by a small group of men, responsible to nobody but themselves, this was true. Aside from that, no further comparison is possible.

The German autocracy is the result of the conscious effort of highly capable men who built and organized a system with thoughtful and intelligent deliberation. With a deep knowledge of human psychology and the conditions about them, they have guided their efforts with extreme intelligence, knowing when to grant concessions, knowing how to hold power without being oppressive.

The Russian autocracy was a survival of a former age, already growing obsolete, rarely able to adapt itself to changing conditions, blindly fighting to maintain itself in its complete integrity against them. Change of any sort was undesirable to those controlling its machinery, even though the change might indirectly benefit it. It had been crystallized in a previous epoch, even as the tenets of its church were the crystallized superstitions of a barbaric age. It was, in fact, a venerable institution which certain men wished to perpetuate not so much from self-interest as from a blind veneration for its age and traditions. To them even the interests of the people were of far less importance than the maintenance of this anachronism in its absoluteness. Where the German rulers had the intelligence to divert opposing forces and even to utilize them to their own benefit, the Russian autocrats fought them and attempted to suppress them.

The chief of those forces which oppose autocracies are, naturally, the growing intelligence of the people and the resulting knowledge of conditions in other countries which they acquire. Realizing this fact, at least, the Russian rulers were bitterly opposed to popular education and made every effort to suppress the craving of the common people for knowledge of any kind.

These facts considered, it is not surprising that the first revolutionary movements in Russia should have been generated among the educated classes, even among the aristocracy itself. As far back as a century ago a revolutionary society was formed among the young army officers who had participated in the Napoleonic Wars, and who, in their contact with the French, imbibed some of the latters' democratic ideas, though they were then fighting them. Failing in their efforts to impregnate these ideas among the czar and his ruling clique, they finally, in 1825, resorted to armed violence, with disastrous results. Nicholas I had just ascended the throne, and with furious energy he set about stamping out the disaffection which these officers had spread in his army, and for the time being he was successful.



CHAPTER LXXI

THE RISE OF NIHILISM

The first agitators for democracy among the civil population were the Nihilists, those long-haired, mysterious individuals whose bomb-throwing propensities and dark plottings have furnished so many Western fiction writers with material for romances. The Nihilists, so well described as a type in Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons," were the sons and daughters of the landed aristocracy, the provincial gentry, who went abroad and studied in foreign universities, or, studying at home, imbibed revolutionary ideas through foreign literature. Coming together in small groups, they began to formulate ideas of their own especially adapted to Russian conditions. At first these ideas were of a nonpolitical character and extremely abstract. They wished to go among the ignorant peasants and educate them in the Western sciences. "Going among the people" was a phrase among them which assumed the significance of a program. But with its antipathy toward all forms of learning the Government soon showed its determination to suppress all these efforts at educating the common people, and the youthful agitators were arrested and thrown into prison by the hundreds.

As a matter of fact their abstract ideas had made little impression on the ignorant mujiks, and had the Government ignored the Nihilists it is probable that their organization would have died a natural death from lack of success. But the opposition of the police only roused the fighting spirit of the young aristocrats, and they not only became more enthusiastic, but added recruits to their ranks more than enough in numbers to fill the gaps made by those in prison. The persecution by the police, furthermore, forced them to make a secret organization of their loosely knit groups, and this too fired the romantic imaginations of the young people.

The fight between the agitators and the police waxed stronger and more bitter. Then one day all Russia was shocked by the news that a Petrograd police chief had had a young woman in prison as a Nihilist suspect disrobed and flogged.

Hitherto the Nihilists had been entirely peaceful in their methods; violence had formed no part of their tactics. The indignation roused within their ranks by the outrage to the young woman resulted in a change. They decided to instill terror into the hearts of the Government officials by a systematic policy of assassination, whereby the most oppressive of the officials should be removed from their field of activity by death. The first of these assassinations, not quite successful, took place in Kiev in 1878. From then on violence on both sides increased and the bitterness intensified until in 1881 it culminated in the assassination of Alexander II. This so enraged the Government officials and vitalized their energy that soon after all the most active Nihilists had been captured or driven abroad, and for some years there came a lull in the agitation for democracy in Russia. But it was, after all, lack of success which had killed Nihilism rather than the violent measures of the Government. Practically all of the Nihilists had imbibed the radical doctrines of Karl Marx and Michael Bakunin, especially those of the latter, himself a Russian and more inclined toward violent anarchism than toward political socialism. These doctrines were far too abstruse for the untutored and practical minds of the peasants, and in most cases they had shown animosity rather than sympathy toward the agitators.

Yet the Nihilist doctrines and program formed the basis for later efforts toward creating a revolutionary spirit among the Russian people. To this day the few surviving Nihilists of the early days, notably Katherine Breshkovskaya, "the grandmother of the Russian Revolution," are venerated by the people as the last representatives of the heroic age.

It was not until the middle of the last decade of the nineteenth century, after the succession of Nicholas II to the throne in 1894, that revolutionary organization was revived in Russia. These modern efforts were concentrated into two forms of organization. The largest of these was the Social Democratic party, whose program consisted mainly of organizing the working people in the large cities and industrial centers. Its leaders were made up largely of recruits from the educated middle classes and from the Jewish elements.

Second in size, though quite as important in influence, was the Social Revolutionary organization. Though smaller in regard to membership, its leaders and most active members were those same students from the aristocratic classes which had made up the Nihilist groups. It was interested in injecting its doctrines into the peasantry, rather than propagating them among the working classes. And a certain branch of the organization, known as the Fighting Branch, still practiced assassination as a means to gaining its ends. As a result of its activities some of the highest officials of the Government and the most important dignitaries of the ruling clique lost their lives.



CHAPTER LXXII

REVOLUTIONARY DOCTRINES

As members of both these organizations are at present in power in revolutionary Russia, it may be quite appropriate to enunciate their fundamental principles.

The Russian Social Democrats, together with all the Socialist parties of the world, stand for a democracy that shall be economic or industrial as well as political. They contend that a nation, such as the United States, which is democratic in its political organization, but whose industries and natural resources are in private hands, is democratic only in appearance. They stand for the socialized state which, being controlled by the universal suffrage of its people, shall in its turn own and control the natural resources and the industries through which the people are supplied with their daily needs. Their first aim is to gain control of the political machinery of the state, then reorganize industry on a socialistic basis.

The aims of the Social Revolutionists are not so easily defined, for the reason that there is more diversity of opinion among the membership. Most of them are undoubtedly Socialists, and many again are Anarchists of the Kropotkin school. Temperamentally the Russian is much more an Anarchist than a State Socialist, more an individualist than a collectivist. It is the Jewish element which gives the Social Democrats their numerical superiority. As compared to the Social Democrat it may be said that the Social Revolutionist, taking the average, is opposed to the strongly centralized state and bases his scheme of reconstruction on the local autonomy of the small community. It is the same difference that may be found, or is supposed to exist, between the principles of the Republican and the Democratic parties of the United States. The Social Revolutionist is the Democrat of Socialistic Russia; the Social Democrat is the Republican.

The failure of the war with Japan proved a strong stimulus to the revolutionary movements in Russia. In fact, their activities compelled the Government to conclude a peace when further hostilities might have brought about the defeat of the Japanese. To bring this domestic unrest to a head before it should gain too wide a volume, the Government sent its own agitators among the workingmen and incited them to make demonstrations and other forms of disturbance, which should serve the police as a pretext for violent suppression. The first of these demonstrations occurred on January 21, 1905, a date which remains in: scribed in the pages of Russian history as "Red Sunday." The workingmen, some thousands in number, were led by Father Capon, a priest, who was at least under the influence of the Government, if not in its pay. Against the wishes of the Social Democrats, with whom his organization cooperated, he decided to lead a great army of his followers to the gates of the palace and petition the czar for constitutional government. When the unarmed demonstrators arrived at the palace they were shot down by the hundreds and trampled into the mud by the hoofs of the cavalry horses.

The outrage stirred the Russian people profoundly. The revolutionary elements now began to act in earnest, though they were not quite as prepared as they had wished to be. A general strike was organized, and so effectively was it maintained that the czar and his clique promised the people a constitution. But when the strike had been called off and the disturbances subsided, it soon became evident that the promises were not to be fulfilled. More than that, the police now began such a series of repressive measures that again the fires on the revolution were lighted. Most notable of these was the uprising in Moscow in December, 1905, when the people and the soldiers fought bloody battles in the streets. But the revolutionary forces lacked proper organization, and were finally crushed. Of all the promises which had been made only the Duma remained, amounting to little more than a debating club with absolutely no independent legislative power.

The first Duma at least served to give some conception of the coloring of public opinion in Russia. The majority of the deputies belonged to the Constitutional Democrats, a political party which appeared and represented the moderate progressives, those who wished a constitutional monarchy and progressive reforms. Their leader was Paul Milukov, a professor in the University of Moscow and at one time professor in the University of Chicago.

The Duma, though the restrictive election laws had minimized the revolutionary elements within it, clamored for the promised reforms until it was finally dissolved by the Government. A number of deputies went to Finland and there issued a manifesto with the object of rousing a general demonstration, but without success. The second Duma proved quite as progressive as the first and was also dissolved arbitrarily. Then the electoral laws were made still more restrictive, so that the landed nobility and the clergy should be more represented. The third Duma, as a result, proved quite innocuous, and for five years it sat, never attempting to initiate any changes, attracting very little attention.

During this period reaction regained all its former ascendency, within the Social Revolutionary organization it was discovered that the chief of the fighting organization, Eugene Azev, was nothing more than the paid agent of the secret police and that he had been delivering the members of the organization into the hands of his masters as they proved themselves most dangerous. The agent through whom the exposure had been made, by an ex-police chief, was an obscure Russian journalist, Vladimir Bourtsev, who at once rose to international prominence as the "Sherlock Holmes of the Russian Revolution." To maintain his reputation he began with much publicity further investigations and discovered a great number of smaller-fry spies in the organization, with the result that all mutual confidence of the members was broken and the organization went completely to pieces.

After this, 1907, little more was heard in foreign countries of Russian revolution. Within Russia itself the university students who had formed the best material for the working committees turned their energies in other directions, degenerating into the notorious "candle-light clubs" and other somewhat depraved practices with free love as a basis.

Nor had anything occurred to revive the hopes of the friends of Russian freedom when hostilities broke out between Russia and Germany in 1914, and the greatest of all wars was precipitated. Certainly not within revolutionary circles. Among the peasantry and the working classes, indeed, and of spontaneous origin, there had appeared a great economic movement, more directly revolutionary in character than the more picturesque terrorist organizations. This was the cooperative societies. In the towns and cities and the industrial centers they took the form of consumers' organizations in which the people combined their purchasing power and conducted their own stores for the supply of their daily needs. These local societies again federated into the Moscow Wholesale Society, which purchased in bulk for its constituents. In the rural districts the peasants organized for the purpose of marketing their produce jointly; this form of cooperation was especially marked in Siberia among the dairy farmers. Then there were the credit societies, cooperative banks which federated in the Moscow Narodni (People's) Bank, and so had millions of rubles at its disposal with which to finance more cooperative organizations. All these societies were much restricted by the police, but they gained enough headway to play an important part in the economic life of the nation after the outbreak of hostilities and to become a big element in the final revolutionary movement.

Closely akin to the cooperatives, and of much older origin, were the Zemstvos. These local governing organizations were established in 1864 by Alexander II to satisfy the desire of the peasants to express themselves in local politics. The local Zemstvo is charged with the administration of education, sanitation, medical relief for the poor, maintenance of highways, and other local matters outside the sphere of the central government. Naturally the Zemstvo was not intrusted with any power that was likely to prove dangerous to the Petrograd Government, but as the members were elected by popular suffrage, restricted by certain qualifications demanding the ownership of property on the part of the electors. The Zemstvos proved highly effective training schools in which the peasants could learn self-government and parliamentary procedure. The local Zemstvos, like the cooperative societies, federated into district Zemstvos, which sometimes had the control of large affairs on their hands.



CHAPTER LXXIII

RUSSIAN WAR SPIRIT AROUSED

With the declaration of war against Germany, slumbering Russia seemed suddenly to awaken, and elements which had hitherto been antagonistic joined together for the common purpose of repelling the German invasion. Keenly patriotic, even to the point of fanaticism, in spite of his ready acceptance of radical doctrines, the Russian is ever ready to present a solid front against outside interference. Thus it was that when the war began revolutionists who had fled from Russia, or who had been exiled abroad, flocked home in great numbers and offered their services to the autocracy to fight the Germans. Never has Russia shown such unanimity of spirit and such solidarity of purpose. The Japanese War had been so plainly one of aggression, and in so distant a part of the world, that this same spirit had not been manifested in 1904. But now the Germans, always hated by the Slavs, were actually crossing the Russian frontier, close to the national capital. All Russia rallied to the call for action. As a matter of fact, it was the Russian autocracy itself which presently began realizing that it had unintentionally and illogically arrayed itself on the side of the forces which it had always fought, as the revolutionary elements in Russia also presently began realizing that they had followed their truest instincts in supporting the war against Germany.

For within a few weeks after the outbreak of hostilities the war assumed an entirely different character. In its first aspect it was a quarrel between various autocracies over greed for influence and territory. The Russian autocracy went into the fight because of its pretensions in the Balkans. Then France and Great Britain, the two big democracies of Europe, threw themselves into the conflict. They fought to oppose the ambition of the German rulers to Prussianize the whole of Europe. It soon became obvious that the Teutonic Powers wanted something of immensely more importance than territorial gains in Serbia; they wanted to become the masters of all Europe. And so the initial character of the war changed within a few weeks: it developed into a conflict between international democracy on the one hand and international autocracy on the other hand. It was then when the question of Serbia sank into comparative insignificance that the Russian autocrats realized that they had enlisted on the wrong side. But with the whole populace of the country enthusiastically united behind it, the Government was swept onward; it was too late to make an abrupt change of front.

Undoubtedly all the members of the ruling class of Russia realized this fact. But in full justice to them it must be said that the large majority of them, those who previously had supported the Government against the revolutionary and progressive elements, decided to accept the situation and support the war against Germany to a finish, whatever the results might be in internal affairs after the war.

Within the governing clique, comprising some of the most influential individuals, was a small group, later known as "the dark forces," which quickly came to the conclusion that democracy must be defeated at all costs.

First of all came the czar himself. Nicholas, however, played a very small figure as a personality in all the later intrigues. Weak of character, almost to the point of being mentally defective, he reflected only the personalities of those about him. Yet he was by blood seven-eighths German.

Next came the czarina, entirely German, with not a drop of Russian blood. Of a stronger personality, though scarcely more intelligent, she formed the real power behind the throne, in so far as direct control was concentrated in any one person. By persons of more intelligence than herself she could be used in manipulating the will of the czar to their own purposes. Behind her, or rather to one side of her, stood a group of the Russian nobility of German origin, descendants of the courtiers and officials brought into Russian court circles by the German wives of Russian czars. These still retained enough of their German sympathies to counteract any consideration they might otherwise have felt for the interests of Russia itself, especially as this was further strengthened by their realization that the defeat of Germany would also mean the doom of Russian autocracy, of which they were a part.



CHAPTER LXXIV

RASPUTIN, THE EVIL SPIRIT OF RUSSIA

The dominating figure of this dark circle of pro-Germans within the Russian court was the monk Rasputin—Rasputin the peasant, the picturesque, the intriguing, the evil medium through which the agents of Germany manipulated the Russian Government toward their own ends, the interests of the German autocracy. Such a figure could have played a part in no other than a court of Oriental pattern, and such the Russian court was.

Gregory Novikh was a Siberian by birth, the son of a common, illiterate mujik, as illiterate and as ignorant as his father. Early in life, while still a common fisherman, he showed abnormal qualities. Degenerate, unrestrained in all his appetites, he possessed a magnetic personality sometimes found in persons of that type. It was said that no woman, even of the highest culture and quality, could resist his advances. So loose was his behavior that he acquired the nickname of Rasputin, which means a rake, a person of bad morals. And by this name he gradually became notorious all over the land.

From fishing Rasputin turned toward easier ways of making a living. He became an itinerant monk, a holy man, a mystic. A role he was able to play on account of his peculiar hypnotic powers. As a religious fakir he acquired influence over women of high degree, though his manners were coarse and his person was decidedly unclean.

Eventually Rasputin made the acquaintance of Madame Virubova, the favorite lady-in-waiting of the czarina. With the credulity of a superstitious woman of her class, the czarina was a patroness of many occult cults and had a firm belief in the influence of invisible spirits. Rasputin was presented to her by the lady-in-waiting as an occult healer and a person of great mystic powers. Immediately he was asked to show his powers on the young czarevitch, Alexis, heir to the throne, who was constitutionally weak and at that moment was suffering especially from attacks of heart weakness. Rasputin immediately relieved the sufferings of the child and so permanently established himself with the czarina and even with the czar. As has been explained since, Madame Virubova had previously administered a drug to the young czarevitch, and by applying the antidote Rasputin had obtained immediate results. Whether this story be true, or whether Rasputin really did possess those peculiar healing powers which certain abnormal persons undoubtedly do possess, the fact was that he remained in court as a permanent attachment and acquired an influence there which was equaled by no other person. He became, in actual fact, the real ruler of all the Russias, for the prime minister who incurred his displeasure did not long remain in power. Such a man, naturally, would have many enemies, even within court circles, and efforts were made to bring about the downfall of Rasputin. Once his enemies did actually succeed in having him expelled from Petrograd for a while, but immediately the czarevitch became critically ill and during his absence the czarina was almost continuously hysterical. Again he was invited back to court and then he set about building up his influence into a political machine that was never again to be broken, even after his death, until it became necessary for the reactionaries themselves to help destroy the autocracy itself in order to purge Russia of the spirit of Rasputin.

Rasputin, not the revolutionary movement, brought about the downfall of czarism.

Yet up until after the outbreak of the war Rasputin had been intelligent enough to refrain from interfering in matters of state importance. His influence had thus far been wielded only to secure his own position. Perhaps his keen instincts, rather than his intelligence, warned him against too deep an interference in political matters. To this self-restraint he owed his long continuance in power, for though the situation was well known all over Russia, it was regarded rather in the light of a joke. Rasputin's power was underestimated, perhaps; he was more or less regarded as the pet poodle of the czarina.

It was after the war that he suddenly changed his attitude. He was one of the first to realize the danger to the autocracy that a German defeat would mean; that the Russian court was ranged against the forces which would perpetuate it. Whether it was this realization which determined Rasputin to wield his powerful influence in favor of Prussianism, or whether he had been bought by German gold, the fact remains that he became the central figure about which revolved all those "dark forces" which were working for either a separate peace with Germany or the utter military defeat of Russia in the war. In this object Rasputin and his allies nearly succeeded. It was to avert this that practically all the social elements, both liberal and reactionary, united with the revolutionists in overturning czarism.

What the plans of the dark forces were during the first year of the war cannot now of course be definitely known. Perhaps they realized that the utter inefficiency of the Russian autocracy would soon decide the issue on the eastern front. And had there not appeared other elements to guide and support the Russian soldiers at the front, Russia would undoubtedly have been overrun by the German-Austrian armies before the end of the first year.

But the patriotic enthusiasm which German aggression had awakened also brought into life powerful social organizations created for the purpose of supporting the army in its fight against the Germans. Five days after war was declared a congress of all the Zemstvos met in Moscow and organized the Russian Union of Zemstvos. A Central Committee was appointed and, with almost unlimited funds at its disposal, raised through subscriptions, set to work to supplement the work of the Red Cross and the commissary department of the army, both of which were obviously unable to meet the needs of the situation. This organization practically took the place of the two other departments of the Government, establishing hundreds of hospitals and supplying their equipment, caring for the wounded soldiers, supplying the soldiers at the front not only with their necessities, but with tobacco, bathing facilities, laundries, and many other minor luxuries. During the first two years of the war the Central Committee disbursed over half a billion dollars. At the head of this organization, democratic in form, as its president was Prince George Lvov, who was later destined to play an important part in the organization of the revolutionary government.

Another spontaneous and democratic organization which came into existence to support the army against the Germans was the Union of Towns, representing 474 municipalities in Russia and Siberia. It, too, carried on a work similar to that of the Zemstvos, raising and spending vast sums of money. Then came the cooperative societies, supplying the army with food. In the towns and cities the consumers' societies combated the intrigues of the food speculators, which were even more active in Russia than they are in this country, and stabilized prices. In some of the cities the local municipal administrations turned over the whole problem of food supply to the local cooperatives, doing nothing more than foot the bills. During the war the membership of these societies rose to thirteen million. They, too, were democratic in form.

It would seem that the Government could have done no less than accept the cooperation of these social organizations thankfully and done all in its power not to handicap them in their efforts. But this did not happen. On the contrary, from the beginning they were hampered as though they were dangerous revolutionary organizations. This policy became even more pronounced later on, when the success of the Allies made the dark forces desperate.



CHAPTER LXXV

TREACHERY OF THE AUTOCRACY

On the outbreak of the war the premier was Ivan L. Goremykin, a typical autocrat, who had served under four czars, and who was now well past seventy. As though utterly unconscious of the war situation, he carried his administration on as he had done previous to the war. First of all, he began a determined campaign of persecution of the Jews, at a moment when the most violent anti-Semites would be irritated by such a course. He even went so far as to have a number of pogroms perpetrated and he spread persistent rumors that the Jews were betraying the cause of Russia, in spite of the fact that they were playing a leading part in the social organizations and were more than proportionately represented in the army. Then he instituted similar persecution among the Ruthenians and the Poles, and when Galicia was occupied by the Russian military forces Goremykin sent there a number of petty officials whom he instructed to make the inhabitants into Russians according to old methods. Then when the commander in chief, Grand Duke Nicholas, issued his manifesto promising the Poles liberty, the Goremykin ministry completely ignored the promise. And finally, a number of political refugees, who had returned from abroad to offer their services, either in the army or in the social organizations, were imprisoned or sent to Siberia.

Even the reactionaries who had previously supported all that the Government stood for were indignant. This feeling became most manifest in the Duma. In 1914 the Duma had been a reactionary body, the majority of the deputies being in favor of trusting entirely to the Government. In August, 1915, a most astonishing thing happened, the Duma, with a large majority, which included Conservatives, Liberals and Radicals alike, drew up a demand for a series of reforms, including the institution of a cabinet responsible to the people through itself. Another demand was for a general amnesty for all political prisoners. This was the famous Progressive Bloc. Goremykin refused even to discuss the program. Instead, he hurried to the czar to get his signature to a decree proroguing the Duma, in which he succeeded. The result was that the whole population rose in threatening revolution, and this time the threat was not from the revolutionary elements. Even former leaders of the Black Hundreds were among the protestants. It was then that Rodzianko, the president of the Duma, addressed a letter to the premier, placing the responsibility of Russia's recent defeats squarely on him and added: "You are obviously too old to possess the vigor to deal with so difficult a situation. Be man enough to resign and make way for some younger and more capable man." Then Goremykin resigned.

But the change was for the worse, rather than for the better, for the next premier was a close friend and associate of Rasputin, a younger man, to be sure, and more capable, but whose capabilities were to be turned in the wrong direction. Boris Sturmer, a German by blood and sympathies, former governor of Tver, one of the blackest of reactionaries, was appointed to fill the vacant premiership.

Sturmer, where his predecessor had perhaps been merely incompetent, now set about consciously to make a separate peace with Germany, and this object he hardly took the trouble to hide. Through the censorship he suppressed the loyal press and encouraged a number of papers which openly denounced Russia's allies and demanded a separate peace with the kaiser. Then he sent agents to Switzerland, there to confer with representatives of the German Government, so openly that it was known all over Russia, even among the peasants, that a separate peace was being prepared.



CHAPTER LXXVI

PARTY INTRIGUES

Again the popular protest checked the machinations of the dark forces. Then Sturmer turned deliberately to suppress the democratic organizations. Early in 1916 he issued an order forbidding any of these societies, which were keeping the armies in the field, from holding meetings. Next the headquarters of all these organizations were placed in charge of the police. And then came the removal from the Cabinet of Sazonov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the one man in whose loyalty to Russia the people had confidence. Sazonov had always been a keen admirer of the British and the French, and was in close touch with the embassies of these countries in Petrograd. To the Russians he had seemed at least some sort of a guarantee against being surprised with a sudden separate peace. Nor can there be any doubt that he was a serious obstacle in the way of the dark forces in their efforts to bring about their object. Sazonov's removal acquired still deeper significance when it was announced that Sturmer himself would take charge of foreign affairs, business of which he had absolutely no experience.

Of a deep significance, though this was not obvious at the time, was the appointment of Alexander D. Protopopoff as Minister of the Interior. This was the man who was finally to kick aside the last wedge shoring up the tottering walls of the Russian autocracy.

Protopopoff, who had for the first time entered politics in 1908, being a cloth manufacturer of Simbirsk, was in that year elected a deputy to the Duma by the moderate Octobrists, a conservative body which usually sided with the Government. But when the Octobrists joined the Progressive Bloc against the Government, Protopopoff had shown himself quite radical and supported it. Quite unexpectedly, by the resignation of a vice president of the Duma, he rose to prominence by being elected to the vacant office. In the summer of 1916 he was one of a delegation which visited England, France, and Italy. On his return to Russia, through Stockholm, he there met and held a conversation with a German agent, but at the time, though the matter was taken up by the Duma for investigation, he managed to exonerate himself. But, as became known, the incident caused him to attract the attention of Rasputin, and he and the court favorite came together and to an understanding. The result was his appointment to the cabinet.

At first it was hoped that Protopopoff would prove the sign of surrender of the autocracy; that a liberal element was to be introduced into the administration through him. But the new minister showed himself in close harmony with Sturmer, and presently this last hope was destroyed.

With Protopopoff a new idea was introduced into the Government. It was he undoubtedly who conceived the idea of staging a revolution in Russia, of creating or precipitating a premature uprising, as had been done so successfully in 1905, but for a different purpose. The idea now was to create such internal disorders as to give the Government a pretext for making separate peace with the Central Powers. This might deceive everybody; the revolutionary elements, which would be used as the medium for the disorder, and the liberals and conservatives who were now strongly anti-Government. In the midst of the turmoil the separate peace could be effected; then the soldiers could be recalled from the front and used in suppressing the revolution, a task that could be easily accomplished with the vast number of men under arms. As was later to be demonstrated, the dark forces did not reckon with the psychological changes which the army was also undergoing.

Mysterious placards now began to appear in the factories and munition shops calling on the workingmen to go out on strike and organize demonstrations. Police agents, disguised as workingmen, went into the industrial plants and began to preach revolution. It was easy enough to utilize Socialist philosophy for this purpose. Why should the workers of Russia fight the workers of Germany, when their interests were identical? Why should they shed their blood for the ruling classes, when the ruling classes were the only ones who could gain through the war? The German Socialists were even then rising against their masters; the Russian Socialists were urged to do likewise and so join their German comrades in paving the way to the cooperative commonwealth.

Fortunately the Social Democratic party had already issued a detailed manifesto explaining why the Russian Socialists should stand by the war. The genuine leaders of the Socialists should [see TN] the labor organizations realized immediately the policy which the dark forces were initiating. For once they came together with the liberals and even with the conservative elements, and prepared to combat this underhanded propaganda. Placards were posted and proclamations were issued by the real leaders denouncing the impostors and explaining their tactics. This underground fight among the laboring classes was of long duration, however. In instituting this policy the dark forces were indeed playing with the fire which was eventually to consume them.

Throughout the war the food supply had been very bad, not on account of any real scarcity of foodstuffs, but because of the inefficient handling of the inadequate transportation facilities. In some localities provisions rotted in the warehouses while in the large cities the people were starving, on the verge of famine. Instead of handling the food situation as the other belligerent countries were doing, Sturmer encouraged a group of dishonest financiers to acquire control of the food supplies, thereby making big financial profits himself. This greediness on his part was, however, to cause his own downfall before that of his associates. A traitor to his country, he was also a thief.



CHAPTER LXXVII

THE WORK OF TRAITORS

Such were the tactics the dark forces had fully adopted in the fall of 1916, only a few months before the revolution. They deliberately set about disorganizing the machinery of the nation to facilitate a Russian defeat. As has been proved, they did not stop short of actual treachery in the military field. The failure of the Rumanian defense was the result of actual betrayal by those higher even than the generals in the field. The Germans and Austrians had known every detail of the campaign plans of the Rumanians and the Russian army supporting them, and this information they had obtained directly from Petrograd.

Had it not been for the fact that the whole nation was awaiting the opening of the Duma to take place on November 14, 1916, it is more than probable that the revolution would have taken place in the fall of 1916 instead of four months later. It would then, however, have been a far bloodier event, for then the disintegration of the autocracy had not yet reached such a complete stage as it did in the following spring, and it might have offered a far more serious, perhaps a successful, resistance. But the last hope of the people was in the Duma, and they awaited its session in that spirit.

The Duma convened on the date set, and then was witnessed the remarkable spectacle of the conservative members denouncing the Government with the fiery oratory of Socialist agitators. The president himself, Michael Rodzianko, who hitherto had always been a stanch supporter of the autocracy, being a prosperous landowner and the father of two officers in a crack regiment, arraigned Sturmer as once he had arraigned the revolutionary agitators. But it was left to Professor Paul Milukov, the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, to create the sensation of the meeting. He not only denounced Sturmer as a politician, but he produced the evidence which proved beyond a doubt that Sturmer was receiving bribes from the food speculators; the specific case he brought up showed that Sturmer, through his secretary, had offered to shield certain bankers under indictment for a substantial consideration. Sturmer immediately took steps to dissolve the Duma. But the czar, whose signature he needed, was at the front. For the moment he was delayed.

During this interval another sensation occurred. General Shuvaiev, Minister of War, and Admiral Grigorovitch, Minister of Marine, appeared in the Duma, and declared themselves on the side of the Duma and the people. This settled the fate of Sturmer. On his way to the front to procure the signature of the czar to the proclamation dissolving the Duma he was handed his dismissal.

His successor was Alexander Trepov, also an old-time bureaucrat, but known not to be affiliated with the dark forces. It was hoped that he would conciliate the angry people. But Trepov never played an important part in later developments; the fight was now between the Duma and the people on the one hand and the Minister of the Interior, Protopopoff, on the other. This battle now began in earnest and was destined to be fought out to a bitter finish.

With a brazen fearlessness which must be credited to him, Protopopoff now arraigned himself openly against the whole nation and the Duma, with only the few hundreds of individuals constituting the dark forces behind him. But these sinister forces included Rasputin, the all-powerful, the czarina, and, unconscious though he himself may have been of the part he played, the czar himself.

Protopopoff now began persecuting the members and the leaders of the social forces as though they were the veriest street agitators for Socialism. Next he endeavored to have Paul Milukov assassinated, but the assassin repented at the last moment and revealed the plot. Then he gathered together former members of the Black Hundreds and recruited them into the police force and trained them in machine-gun practice. And finally he renewed the energy with which he had begun to organize revolutionary disorders among the workers.

All Russia was against him, even to the great majority of the members of the Imperial family. His own mother had warned the czar that disaster threatened him. As early as December, 1916, the Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch had held a long interview with the czar in which he had openly denounced the czarina and Rasputin in such strong terms that when he had finished, having realized he had gone extremely far, he remarked:

"And now you may call in your Cossacks and have them kill me and bury me in the garden." In reply the czar only smiled and offered the grand duke a light for the cigarette which he had been fingering in his nervous rage. It was by a member of the Imperial family that the first vital blow was struck at the dark forces. In the early morning hours of December 30, 1916, a dramatic climax was precipitated.

It was then that a group of men drove up in two motor cars to the residence of Prince Felix Yusupov, a member of the Imperial family through his having married a cousin of the czar. Among the men in the two cars were Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch, ex-Minister of the Interior, A. N. Khvostov, also an ex-Minister of the Interior, and Vladimir Purishkevitch, at one time a notorious leader of Black Hundred organizations, but since the beginning of the war an active worker in the social organizations and a deputy in the Duma, where he formed one of the Progressive Bloc.

A few minutes later the policeman on duty in the neighborhood heard shots within the house and cries of distress. On making an investigation he obtained no satisfaction, nor did he dare to continue his inquiry on account of the high rank of the owner of the house. Again the men came out of the house and carried between them a large bundle resembling a human form, which they hustled into one of the automobiles and rode off.

Next morning blood spots were found in the street where the motor cars had stood. Then a hole was discovered in the ice covering the river Neva, beside which were found two bloody goloshes. Further search revealed a human body, which proved to be the corpse of no less a person than the notorious monk Rasputin himself.



CHAPTER LXXVIII

THREATENING OF THE STORM

Thus was Rasputin finally removed from his sphere of evil influence by men who before the war had been of the very inner circles of the autocracy, but who had gradually undergone a great change of opinion. They believed that even the autocracy itself was only secondary in importance to Russia herself, and they had taken it upon themselves, after doing all in their power to circumvent the traitors through legitimate means, to remove the archconspirator as such creatures usually were removed in the days when they were more common. Rasputin had been lured to the house of Prince Felix and there killed.

It was said that the czarina was hysterical for days after the sensational news had swept over all Russia and Protopopoff fainted upon being informed of the death of his dark ally and master. The czar, who was at headquarters at the front, hurried home to Tsarskoe Selo. And then, as though to insult the nation, the dead mujik was buried with such pomp as was accorded only to members of the Imperial family, the emperor and Protopopoff being among the pallbearers.

The people treated the event as though it were a great military victory, rejoicing unrestrainedly. The premier, Trepov, who though a mere figurehead, was still loyal to Russia and secretly an enemy of Rasputin and Protopopoff, allowed all the details of the assassination to be published in the papers, even to the names of those concerned in the actual killing. These latter were of too high a rank to be punished, besides which popular sentiment stood solidly behind them. Trepov himself did not prosecute them because of his sympathy with their deed.

Now that Rasputin, the undoubted leader and master mind of the dark forces was dead, there was universal hope that the pro-German conspiracy was killed with him. But the machine he had built up for his own protection and medium through which to accomplish his ends was too well organized to be broken even by his removal. Into Rasputin's place stepped Protopopoff. He maintained his hold over the czar by means of spiritualistic seances in which he pretended to have communication with the spirit of the dead monk. The conspiracy continued unabated, only now Protopopoff worked with the fury of desperation. And so the crisis soon came to a head.

All Russia, save for the small palace group, was against him. At the new year reception held in the palace he was most severely humiliated by Rodzianko, the president of the Duma, who, when Protopopoff approached him with extended hand, swung his back to him, causing a sensation all over the country. At another time, when he entered the rooms of the aristocratic club in Petrograd, of which he was a member, all the other members present walked out. Yet he had the courage of his evil convictions; with the desperate fury of a tortured bull in the ring he faced all his enemies and continued on his path, the whole nation against him.

Trepov, who had shown his sympathy for the executioners of Rasputin, was removed. So were the Ministers of War and Marine, who had declared themselves for the people. Black reactionaries and pro-Germans were placed in their posts. Then he began arresting all the labor leaders who were agitating against strikes and demonstrations and in favor of prosecuting the war, leaving his own hirelings, who were preaching strikes and revolution, to continue their efforts unharmed. This was about the most obviously significant act he had yet committed. Then the food-supply trains arriving daily in Petrograd were deliberately halted in the provinces and the population drifted on to the verge of actual famine.

Then Protopopoff's efforts, in the early days of March, 1917, began to bear fruit. In spite of the warnings of the few loyal labor leaders still at liberty, the workers began to grumble and to talk revolt. Their stomachs were empty. On February 27, 1917, when the Duma went into session again, 300,000 workingmen had gone out on strike in Petrograd. The air was charged with electricity. Everybody realized that the critical moment was approaching: the final battle between the dark forces and the people.

On March 1, 1917, the only two leaders of the labor organizations which supported the Duma issued an appeal exhorting the workers to return to work.

And this appeal in favor of order and law was censored by the Government.

Further proof of the treachery of Protopopoff were not needed; this was the most convincing which had yet appeared.

During the first week of March, 1917, the unrest among the populace continued growing, and the Duma and the labor leaders felt themselves regarding the situation helplessly. Small riots occurred and martial law was immediately declared. Food was so scarce that even the wealthy were starving.

But Protopopoff had made one mistake: he was also starving the troops garrisoning Petrograd.

On March 9, 1917, the street railways ceased running on account of a strike of the street railway men. The streets were full of excited crowds, though as yet no violence had been committed. Cossacks and soldiers also patrolled the thoroughfares, while squads of police were on the housetops, covering the street corners with machine guns. Protopopoff wanted revolution, but he did not mean to allow it to succeed. All he wanted was a few days of violent disorder, a prolonged Red Sunday, during which a separate peace with Germany and Austria might be proclaimed.

But the violence did not break out so soon as he desired. The strike was spreading; by the 10th it had become practically universal. But meanwhile the workingmen were quietly organizing. Electing delegates, they formed the Council of Workingmen's Deputies, which immediately took over the control of their movements. It was this fact which caused what might have been a blind uprising of desperate people to assume the character of an organized revolution. On this date the Duma, which had been in continual session, broke off relations with the Government with a resolution stating that "with such a Government the Duma forever severs its connections." In response to this act the czar issued a decree ordering the dissolution of the Duma.

On the following day, Sunday the 11th, the members of the Duma unanimously decided to ignore the decree of the czar and to hold what was to prove the first session of the Duma as the representative body of the Russian democracy.

Meanwhile the street demonstrations continued, augmented by those workers who had not yet gone out on strike and were simply out on their weekly day of rest. A proclamation had been issued by the military authorities forbidding gatherings, adding that the severest measures would be resorted to in breaking them up. But no notice was taken of this order. The Cossacks were riding through the crowded streets, but, in sharp contrast to their behavior of former times, they took great care not to jostle the people even, guiding their horses carefully among the moving people.



CHAPTER LXXIX

REVOLUTION

The first actual violence was begun by the police, who opened fire on the crowds in certain sections of the city from the housetops with their machine guns. A number of demonstrators were killed and wounded, but still the disorders did not yet become general. Where the police opened fire the more resolute elements of the crowds rushed in to attack them and killed them. And now came Protopopoff's pretext for ordering the soldiers to fire and to begin such a massacre as had squelched the premature uprising on Red Sunday twelve years before.

It was at this point that one of the most vital arrangements of Protopopoff's scheme snapped.

There were 35,000 soldiers in Petrograd at this time, more than sufficient to suppress any uprising. Neither Protopopoff nor the most radical members of the Duma doubted that the soldiers would obey the orders of their officers, and shoot down the crowds on the streets. When had Russian soldiers ever refused to suppress demonstrations of the people? "The revolution is on," cried Milukov, "but it will be drowned in blood!" In this supposition both sides were to prove greatly mistaken.

The Russian army of March, 1917, was a very different organization from the Russian army of March, 1914. First of all, it was now composed of men who three years before had been part of the Russian people. The regular professional army, the standing establishment, which had been the support of the autocracy, had been practically drowned in the vast influx of recruits. Furthermore, the old, well-trained regiments constituting the regular army had been decimated in the fierce battles along the Russian front, some of them being annihilated. They had been eliminated. Of still more importance there had been a change in the minds of the highest army leaders themselves. Whatever might have been their attitude toward the autocracy and the people in the days of old, like their colleagues, the civilian reactionaries, they had seen the autocracy and the social organizations contrasted; they were profoundly patriotic and they realized what Rasputin and his dark forces had stood for, what Protopopoff stood for; they had personally, most of them, pleaded with the czar to clean the court of the sinister pro-German influences—with absolutely no success. They realized that the country must choose between the autocracy as it was and a government of the people if Prussianism was to be defeated, and they did not hesitate in their choice.

Among these army leaders, who had undergone such a change of psychology, was no less a person than the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievitch himself, who had been removed from his command of the armies facing the Austro-Germans and transferred to the minor field of operations against Turkey, only because he had protested against the influence of an illiterate Siberian mujik.

With very few exceptions, the army leaders, from the commander in chief down to the regimental commanders, stood arrayed on the side of the Duma. So clever an intriguer as Protopopoff should have realized this.

One of the first regiments to be called out to fire on the people after the first encounters between the machine-gun squads of the police and the demonstrators was the famous Volynski Regiment, notorious in Russian revolutionary history. Never had it failed its masters. A noncommissioned officer of this crack regiment, Kirpitchnikov, immediately made the round of the soldiers and the other noncommissioned officers. They organized a committee which approached the officers. The latter, with the single exception of the colonel, stood with the committee. When the order came to fire on the people, they shot the colonel, formed, shouldered their pieces, and marched out on the streets as the first organized body of soldiers to fight for the awakening Russian democracy.

Persuading several other guard regiments to join them, they attacked Protopopoff's police squads. This event occurred at 5 o'clock in the afternoon of the 11th, and marked the beginning of the actual revolution. The fighting begun by the mutinied soldiers now became general. One by one other regiments were called out, but with very few exceptions all refused to fire on the people and joined the revolutionists. Then the Cossacks came over in a body. As twilight approached the firing in the streets became general and continuous.

Meanwhile Michael Rodzianko, president of the Duma, made one more effort to avert the great crisis. The czar, having been assured by Protopopoff several days previous that all danger was over and the situation well in hand, had gone to army headquarters at the front. To him Rodzianko sent a telegram worded as follows:

"The situation is extremely serious. Anarchy threatens in the capital, transportation of provisions is completely disorganized, and fighting has begun in the streets. It is of vital importance that a new cabinet be formed by some person enjoying the confidence of the people. Each moment of delay adds to the disaster. May the responsibility for a great national calamity not fall upon your head."

To this telegram the czar made no answer.



CHAPTER LXXX

THE CULMINATION

Meanwhile the deputies sat in session, helpless, regarding the situation with growing alarm. After all, the majority were naturally conservatives and feared revolution. As a matter of fact, they allowed themselves to lose grip of the situation.

As has already been said, the uprising was not a blind force giving vent to elemental feeling, but a thoroughly organized revolutionary movement. The old revolutionary forces had awakened in time to take control of the developing situation. It was the leaders of the Social Democrats, the Social Revolutionists, the successors of the old-time Nihilists and the labor leaders, who were proving themselves masters of the situation. The Duma sat quiet, inert, and so lost its opportunity. It hated the dark forces on the one hand, it feared the revolution on the other, and at the critical moment helped neither. What saved it from being completely discredited was the fact that a number of the revolutionary leaders, such as Alexander Kerensky and Tcheidze, both Socialists, were also deputies in the Duma, and, being of well-balanced minds, realized that they must have the support of those elements which the Duma represented to succeed. The real center of government of the new democracy, then rising out of the birth pangs of the nation, was the Council of Workingmen's Deputies.

This organization on the part of the active revolution was largely completed during the night of the 11th, even while heavy firing swept up and down the streets of the city. When Monday morning dawned the various radical and labor leaders had knit themselves together in the Council of Workingmen's Deputies and were in control of the revolutionary forces through a great number of subcommittees. An intelligent plan of campaign for the actual military or fighting operations had been drawn up and was followed with an efficiency that would have done credit to organized troops. Undoubtedly the officers of the mutinied regiments who had gone over to the side of the people helped, but the revolutionary commanders did not for a moment allow them to take control of the situation. The red flag of International Socialism was raised that Monday morning as the emblem of the new regime, and to the present moment it continues flying.

The dominating brain, the vital moral force, behind the revolution was Alexander Kerensky, the young Socialist lawyer.

On Monday morning the revolutionary column headed by a regiment of the mutineers delivered an attack on the Arsenal, after dispersing the police groups in the neighborhood. The commandant, General Matusov, proved loyal to Protopopoff and offered resistance, but after some sharp fighting the garrison was overcome and Matusov killed. The capture of the Arsenal gave the revolutionists possession of a supply of rifles, small arms, machine guns, and ammunition more than ample to equip all their fighting forces. The artillery depot was also taken, and now the revolutionary soldiers, most of them students and workingmen, organized into flying detachments which scoured the city in automobiles and hunted down the police as though they were wild animals. The jails and prisons too were broken into and all the political prisoners liberated. And so fell the notorious Peter and Paul Fortress, the Bastille of Russia, in which some of the finest minds of the Russian revolutionary movement, both men and women, had been done to death with horrible torture. In the confusion some criminals also escaped, but in spite of their presence in the fighting crowds, there was very little looting or disorder, such as invariably attends violent uprisings. Schlusselburg Prison, another monument to martyred advocates of freedom, also fell. Then, headed by one of the old revolutionists, just released from a long imprisonment, the people turned on the most hated of all the old institutions, the headquarters of the secret police. This building was stormed, its defenders killed and then burned to its foundations, together with all its records. Everywhere the revolutionary forces were successful, meeting comparatively little resistance.

Meanwhile the Duma continued inactive, except that Rodzianko sent a second telegram to the czar and also a telegram to each of the prominent army commanders, begging them to make their personal appeals to the czar, that he might be persuaded to take some action which would at least save him his throne nominally.

"The last hour has struck," wired the Duma president. "To-morrow will be too late if you wish to save your throne and dynasty."

And again the czar, misled by a false adviser, refused to heed. Various accounts would seem to indicate that he was drunk at the time.

By this time 25,000 soldiers of the garrison had joined Kerensky's revolutionary army under the red flag. Then came a committee from these soldiers to the doors of the Duma with the demand:

"We have risen and helped the people overturn the autocracy. Down with czarism! Where do you stand?"

President Rodzianko, speaking for the Duma, showed them his telegrams demanding a ministry of the czar responsible to the people, and said that they stood for a constitutional democracy. The soldiers were satisfied. Then soldiers began arriving at the Taurida Palace, the meeting place of the Duma, to acknowledge their recognition of its authority. This was done under the influence of deputies Kerensky, Tcheidze, and Skobelev, all Socialists, who felt the need of having the cohesion of the Duma to the revolution. At about this time the newly appointed premier, Golitzin, who had succeeded Trepov, telephoned his resignation to the Duma. The other members of the cabinet had disappeared.

That afternoon the Duma appointed a committee of twelve members, representing all parties, which should represent its authority and should assist the revolutionary organizers in maintaining order. These latter held a separate meeting in another room of the palace and issued an appeal to the populace to refrain from excesses. An election of deputies to the Council of Workingmen's Deputies was then called for that evening, the name of the council being now changed to the Council of Workingmen and Soldiers' Deputies.



CHAPTER LXXXI

THE NEW GOVERNMENT

By this time the firing in the streets had died down. Desultory fighting still continued in the outskirts of the city between patrols of the revolutionary forces and policemen, but by evening calm once more settled down over the city. The autocracy was dead; the revolution had been won. The dead and wounded had been collected and the latter were being cared for. The dead amounted to slightly less than two hundred.

The two committees—the one representing the Duma and the one representing the red radicals—were in joint session all that night working with a harmony that would have seemed incredible only a week before. On the following morning they issued two proclamations. The first simply appealed to the people to remain calm and commit no excesses. The other announced the establishment of a new government for Russia, which should be based on universal suffrage. Then the Duma committee issued a special appeal to army officers to support the new regime. All day delegations from various organizations of both social and military life of the capital appeared before the doors of the Duma to offer allegiance, and again and again Milukov and Kerensky, each the popular hero of their separate elements, the one of the liberal middle classes and the other of the radical working classes, were called out to deliver addresses to crowds of enthusiastic people. Despite their differences of opinion, these two and their fellows worked together with an ideal harmony, each supporting the other with his constituency. Perhaps no greater anomaly was ever presented in history than the spectacle of Rodzianko, ultraconservative, and Kerensky, radical Socialist, each addressing a large crowd, the one in one courtyard the other in another courtyard, exhorting their audiences to stand shoulder to shoulder for a common purpose. Nothing but the knowledge that on the morrow the Prussians might be thundering at the gates of the city could have produced such harmony of action between two such differing types.

Another picturesque incident of the actual revolution occurred when the Imperial Guards at the palace revolted and, having disposed of their commanders, sent a committee in to arrest the czarina, who was attending her children, all of whom were ill with the measles.

"Do not hurt me or my children," she appealed, "I am only a poor Sister of Charity." A guard was left over her while the main body of the regiment went over to Taurida Palace to place itself at the disposal of the Provisional Government.

Meanwhile other notorious members of the dark forces were apprehended. Ex-Premier Boris von Sturmer, the traitor whom Milukov had denounced as a thief, and who had since his downfall been a member of the court camarilla, was arrested and put in a cell lately occupied by a political prisoner. Next came the metropolitan of the church, Pitirim, an appointee of Rasputin, a feeble old man in a white cap and a black cassock, tottering in the midst of a crowd of laughing and jesting soldiers and workingmen, showing him, however, no other violence than with their tongues. One by one all the members of the old regime were brought in, or they came of themselves. Finally the archconspirator, Protopopoff himself, was the only one of note still at large. For two days his whereabouts remained unknown. As developed later, he was hiding in the house of a relative.

On the evening of the 13th an old man in civilian dress appeared before the main doorway of the Duma headquarters. A civilian guard, a student, stood there.

"I am Protopopoff," said the man to the astonished guard; "I have come to surrender myself to the Duma and to recognize its authority. Take me to the right person."

The guard shouted the ex-minister's name in his excitement and a crowd quickly gathered. Even the perennial good humor of a Russian crowd forsook this gathering and it began to assume the aspect of a Western vigilance committee. There were angry shouts; the archtraitor, Protopopoff, was before them in person. But before actual violence could be offered the old man, Kerensky, the Socialist leader, leaped into the crowd and allayed the excitement, thus saving Protopopoff's life.

Another strange feature of the day's events was the appearance of Grand Duke Cyril on the balcony of his own house, uttering a revolutionary speech to the crowds on the pavement below. He declared himself unequivocally for the new government, wherever it might lead, and appealed to the people to support it. Meanwhile the Duma committee sent telegrams to all the commanders along the various fronts and to the admirals of the Baltic and Black Sea fleets, stating the bare facts and asking their adhesion to the Provisional Government. From all came ready professions of loyalty and adhesion. Similar telegrams were sent to all the towns and cities throughout the provinces. And all the country responded similarly. With very little violence the old regime was upset all over Russia and local councils elected to work in harmony with and under the authority of the Provisional Government in Petrograd. The French and British ambassadors too hastened to inform the president of the Duma that their respective governments recognized its authority and were prepared to enter into diplomatic relations with the Duma committee.

On the 14th the streets of Petrograd had assumed their normal quiet, if not their normal appearance, for it was somewhat unusual not to observe a single policeman in sight. Every member of the police was either in prison, in the hospital, or dead. The maintenance of order was given over to a civilian police, or city militia, under the command of Professor Yurevitch, the first time in Russian history that a college professor had ever undertaken such a function. On this day the garrison of the fortress of Kronstadt and the sailors of the fleet stationed there mutinied, killed their commanders and came over to the cause of the revolution. That evening the Duma committee issued a proclamation worded as follows:

"Citizens! The wonderful event has transpired! Old Russia is dead. The Committee of Safety of the Duma and the Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' Deputies are bringing back order into the city and the country.... The most pressing need now is food supplies for the people and the army. Assist with bread and your labor."

Until now since the last of the fighting the control of affairs had been in the hands of the two committees, one representing the radical revolutionists and the other the middle class and aristocratic Duma. Each committee appealed to its constituency to respect the authority of the other.

During all of the next morning, the 15th, the two committees were in continuous joint session, planning the formation of a cabinet or set of officers for the Provisional Government. Early in the afternoon this labor was concluded and the members of the new government were announced. Prince George Lvov, he who had organized the Zemstvo Union and served so efficiently as its president, was Premier and Minister of the Interior. Though an aristocrat of the bluest blood, he was extremely liberal in his views. Never had he been an autocrat, even in sympathy. Paul Milukov, the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, was Minister of Foreign Relations. He represented the middle-class liberals or progressives, constituting what in this country would be called the business men and professional class, as Lvov represented the broad-minded country gentry. Alexander Kerensky, the radical Socialist, an old member of the Social Revolutionists, the organization of many assassinations, was named Minister of Justice. Less fanatical and more balanced than many of his associates, he represented the connecting link between the two sharply contrasting elements which constituted the new government. To him the red flag of International Socialism meant more than the flag of national patriotism, but he, as some of his associates did not, realized that national patriotism must not be destroyed until the spirit of international brotherhood was an established fact; that world federation must rest first on national unity. He proved then, though still a man in his early thirties, the dominant figure of the situation, a position which he has retained to an increasing degree ever since.

The other members of the new cabinet were: M. A. I. Gutchkov, chairman of the War Industries Committee, Minister of War and Marine. In earlier life he had been a soldier of fortune, having fought under many flags, for many causes, including that of the Boers in South Africa. In politics he was conservative. Andrei Shingarev, a Constitutional Democrat, was made Minister of Agriculture, an important post, for under his charge came the complicated problem of food supply, to be solved by means of a transportation all too inadequate in its lack of rolling stock to supply both army and people together. A physician by profession, he was also an expert on finance. Neither Rodzianko, president of the Duma, nor Tcheidze, the president of the Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' Deputies, was represented in the cabinet, though both had taken important and leading parts in the revolution and the organization following.

The policy agreed upon was a compromise between the two elements in the new government. The Duma party could not yet face the possibility of a pure republic, and desired a constitutional monarchy under the czar, reducing him to a mere figurehead, to be sure. The radicals wanted a clear-cut democracy. Between them, by mutual compromise, they agreed that the czar should be deposed and his brother Grand Duke Michael should be proclaimed regent, with the Czarevitch Alexis as heir apparent. The new constitution, which was to be as liberal as the most progressive in the world, must, it was decided, be worked out in detail by a national congress or constituent assembly which should be elected by universal suffrage as soon as possible. The more important and pressing task before the nation, it was realized by both elements, was the organization of transportation that both the people and the army might be supplied with food and that munitions and other military supplies might be sent to the front. The armies of two great empires were still to be defeated before there could be any detailed discussion of forms of government.



CHAPTER LXXXII

THE CZAR ABDICATES

Meanwhile where was the czar? As yet not a word had been heard from him. He seemed to have been lost in the confusion. And as a matter of fact he was as though he were the lost soul of the dead autocracy wandering about in space, mournfully looking for some spot on which he might alight.

As has already been stated, Nicholas was at the general headquarters of General Alexiev, the commander in chief, when the crisis was precipitated in Petrograd. With him were a number of his personal toadies, among them Baron Fredericks, the Court Minister, said to have been responsible for most of the evil influences during past years. Another of his companions was General Voyeykov.

The two telegrams from Rodzianko had been received, but it seems probable that they had been intercepted by either one of these two attendants. At any rate, they must have counteracted whatever influence the telegrams might have had on the weak-willed man's decisions. General Alexiev, too, in response to Rodzianko's telegram to himself had attempted to bring the czar to a realization of the seriousness of the situation. Nevertheless he did nothing. Of the many personal pictures of the czar which have been painted by those who have known him personally one stands out predominantly: a little man with a weak face, twirling his mustache with one hand and alternately looking out of the window or fixing the speaker with a semi-vacant stare.

Nicholas stood so when Alexiev explained to him the situation in the capital and then pleaded with him to grasp his last opportunity. But this last opportunity he allowed to slip by. Undoubtedly he could then have saved himself. Had he been a man of broad intelligence he might have come forward and averted the rising storm by granting even less than the autocracy of Germany has conceded to the German masses. Thus he might have emerged more firmly fixed in his high position than ever before. There are those who assert that Nicholas is mentally defective. Certainly the facts bear them out.

Finally there came an urgent appeal from his wife to return to Tsarskoe Selo, and this, a purely domestic matter, he understood. Together with his suite he started on a train, his escort under the command of General Tsabel. All had been drinking heavily, and when finally the news of the uprising came through in full detail, they were all inclined to minimize the importance of what had happened. On the morning of the 14th General Voyeykov briefly summarized the situation to the czar, then added that General Ivanov, the one commander at the front who still remained faithful to the autocracy, was advancing on Petrograd with a regiment of picked men and he would soon restore order. General Tsabel overheard this conversation. He thereupon showed a telegram which he had just received from Petrograd in which he was ordered to bring the czar's train direct to the city instead of to Tsarskoe Selo.

"How dare they give such orders!" demanded Nicholas.

"This order," replied General Tsabel, "is backed by sixty thousand officers and soldiers, who have gone over to the revolutionists."

Nicholas was now finally impressed by actual fact.

"Very well," he said, suddenly, "if it must be so, it must. I will go to my estate in Livadia and spend the rest of my days among my flowers."

But even that was not a final decision. On approaching Petrograd and Tsarskoe Selo the news came through that the garrison at the latter place had gone over to the revolutionists. The czar now insisted that he would go to Moscow, which he believed still remained loyal. But presently there came a telegram announcing that the Moscow garrison had also revolted.

All day the train rolled back and forth from point to point, with no destination in view, the czar and his suite hoping to find some break in the wall about them. At Dno General Ivanov joined the party and advised the czar to go to the army. It was later said that he and General Voyeykov suggested that the Russian lines be thrown open at Minsk and the Germans be allowed to come in to suppress the revolution. To his credit be it said, however, that Nicholas refused to consider this last resort.

He next went to Pskov, the headquarters of General Russky, in command of the army nearest to Petrograd, hoping to persuade that commander to send a large enough force to Petrograd to suppress the revolution. At 8 o'clock in the evening he arrived. But Russky, together with all the other army leaders, including the Grand Duke Nicholas, who had conferred together by means of telegrams, had decided to support the Duma.