Thr First Days of Russia's Revolution

9 by toritto

Tsar Nicholas II in captivity shoveling snow - 1917

The Russian Revolution broke out on March 8, 1917 in Petrograd, now St. Petersburg.  It was still February under the old Russian calendar.  George Buchanan, the British Ambassador reported to his government that “Some disorders occurred today but nothing to be concerned about.”

Rather prosaic, considering the greatest political upheaval in the west since the French Revolution was about to break; the emergence of a “workers country” which would turn the world on its ear.

Russia had been at war since 1914 and had just suffered another disastrous defeat in Galicia, losing some 550,000 men for little gain.  Riots had broken out at the end of 1916 when revolutionary fever had infected several military units who fired on police rather than the crowds of demonstrators.  Some 150 of them were summarily executed.

Food was scarce in the city for civilians; bread lines were long.  Rasputin jokingly suggested selling only sliced bread to alleviate the lines and provide less time for those waiting in them to voice their discontent to their neighbors.

Winter had been harsh and fuel supplies of wood and coal in short supply.  There was plenty of flour for bread but no fuel to light the ovens.    Still, even after the executions there had been no general insurrection.  Thus, the British Ambassador’s comment of not to worry to the Foreign Ministry in White Hall.

The oppositional roll of the Russian elites, whether officers, aristocrats or bourgeois can only be characterized as pathetic.  Their conspiratorial agitation became an important factor in paralyzing the reactions of the Old Regime when the insurrection occurred but they themselves would be the ultimate victims of the chaos thereby induced.   All parties, constitutional monarchist, liberals, social democrats, Bolsheviks, planning and making ready to institute change, were completely unprepared when revolution broke out in front of their eyes.  The revolution, springing from the grass roots, would sweep them along -  some to power, some to oblivion.

It was the soldiers.

Tens of thousands of soldiers.  Demoralized soldiers,  Ex-soldiers, absent from the front though desertion, convalescence, on leave, consciously or unconsciously prepared to tear society to shreds rather than risk returning to the front.

“The soldiers will return like wild beasts,” Rasputin had accurately warned the Tsar in urging him to halt the slaughter, particularly after General Brusilov’s Galicia offensive.

“It was the soldiers, whether mutineers from units of the Petrograd garrison or deserters back from the front who supplied the leaven of revolutionary violence to the doughy mass of proletarian discontent.”

“The industrial proletariat of the capital is on the verge of despair” a police report noted with unusual frankness in November 1916; “the smallest outbreak due to any pretext will lead to uncontrollable riots.”

March 8, 1917 was to be a day or peaceful demonstration in the streets ; it had been  declared the first International Woman’s day, a new institution of vaguely socialist origin.  It was used by many as an anti-war demonstration.  Female textile workers by the thousands marched chanting subversive slogans.  Leftist leadership had opposed a general strike, fearful that if it got out of hand the police and garrison would open fire.

The workers however ignored the leadership as thousands of men joined the march - and began looting bread shops.  Several days of bread riots occurred throughout the city.

Tsar Nicholas wasn’t worried.  He left the capital on March 8 to take direct command of the Army.  “I shall take up dominoes again in my spare time” he wrote the Tsarina.  He left the decrepit Prince Nicholas Golitsyn in charge.    He had not wanted the job but took it, according to Trotsky, to round out his career “with one more pleasant memory.”

After several days, no public buildings had been taken, no troops had mutinied and police casualties were light.  The crowds however had been growing in size, the red flags of 1905 had re-appeared and the mobs were now shouting “Down with the Autocracy!”.

Surprised by the revolutionary fervor of the crowds, leftist leadership began issuing incendiary manifestos, leading promptly to their arrest.  This had the effect of putting more combative lieutenants at the leadership levels.

On Saturday, March 10 the riots merged into revolt.  Some 240,000 descended on the Alexander III monument when the police opened fire.  It was returned by a volley from Cossack horsemen, traditionally on the side of the autocracy.   Trotsky called it “the contagion of revolution”.

On March 11, a company of the Pavlovsky regiment of the Imperial Guards mutinied in  protest when they learned a training unit in their regiment had fired into a crowd of workers.   That night there were tumultuous meetings in the barracks throughout the city.

The first “forever nameless” voices of the revolution spoke of fraternization with the workers, of a brotherhood of man - of refusing to be executioners.  They were indignant and aghast at the prospect of being ordered out in the streets again to shoot down mostly unarmed civilians, women and children, many of whom had been friendly to them.

On March 12 at 7 A.M. after a night of fevered discussion. the Volinsk regiment of the Guards, led by a sergeant Kirpichikov and an officer-candidate named Astakhov - neither of these key figures in the revolution ever appears on history’s stage again - marched out of its barracks under arms,  flags flying as its band played  “La Marsellaise.”

They proceeded to the nearby quarters of the Preobrazhensky and Litovsky regiments and called out their comrades.  From that point the revolution became irreversible.  The imperial army in Petrograd disintegrated.

By the next morning armored cars were roaming the city, the government disintegrated.  The Imperial Duma had refused to dissolve on the Tsars orders and had joined the revolution of March11 and had set up an Emergency Committee the following day.  One of its members was Alexander Kerensky of the S.R - the Revolutionary Socialists.  He was one of the greatest soap-box speakers in Russia. Trotsky was still in New York.

Alexander Kerensky - darling of the socialist left

Kerensky was in his element - but a rival authority to the Duma was being established.  In the same building where the Duma was meeting, soldiers and workers “delegates” were meeting in another room, re-establishing the 1905 workers committees, or Soviets.  At the time the Executive Committee of the Soviet was more Menshevik (orthodox socialism) than Bolshvik; Kerensky was a member of the Soviet as well as the Emergency Committee and had a foot in both camps.

From the beginning the bourgeois was left to the Duma while the Soviet began issuing direct orders to the soldiers and workers.  Russian democracy was born a two headed monster.

Meanwhile the question of weather the autocracy could survive still was unresolved.  The Tsar’s loyal forces ringed the city.  The Tsarina and the children were safe at Tsarskoe Selo.  The children were down with the measles.  Many found it difficult or dangerous to accept that after a mere 5 days of fighting in the capital, Romanov power was crumbling. The Duma reassured fence-sitters in the army and civil service; the Soviet reassured workers and mutinous soldiers.

The Tsarina’s guards at Tsarskoe Selo abandoned their posts leaving the Empress and children unprotected.  The Duma sent reinforcements to protect them.  The Tsar’s Ministers in Petrograd had been arrested and troops sent to the city to quell the rebellion took off their uniforms and joined the rebellion.

On March 15 the Emergency Committee of the Duma transformed itself to the Provisional Government with Prince Lvov as Premier and Kerensky as Minister of Justice, asking the civil and military authorities to honor its decrees.  The Soviet in turn issued Order #1 advising the military that it was under the orders of the Soviet executive committee and to only obey those orders of the Duma not in conflict with those of the Soviet.  The order also abolished saluting.  Thus chaos was institutionalized.

Bot the Duma and the Soviet agreed that Nicholas II must abdicate but the Soviet wanted to do away with the monarchy entirely while many in the Duma wanted to salvage it under a different ruler or as a constitutional monarchy.  An abdication document was  drawn up by the Provisional Government whereby Nicholas would abdicate in favor of his son with Grand Duke Michael serving as Regent.

The Monarchists needed the cooperation of the Romanovs to save the dynasty.  They didn’t get it.  Nicholas met the supreme crisis of his life with the same mixture of dignity, fortitude and apathy that he had exhibited in all the less ones.  On his way to Tsarskoe Selo he met with two emissaries from the Provisional Government on his special train on March 15, with his usual grave imperturbable courtesy and advised them he had already made up his mind.  He had received word from all the army commanders including his uncle, the Grand Duke Nicholas, and he was prepared to abdicate - but not in favor of his ill son.

The two emissaries were apparently shocked by the Tsar’s apparent indifference to his fate and could not believe that he fully understood the implications of his decision. Nicholas would not abdicate in favor of his son as that would imply his parents could no long be with him day and night to watch over his fragile health.

Instead Nicholas abdicated in favor of his uncle, the Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich.

The next day the Soviet was even more adamant that the monarchy should be abolished; the Duma attitude was hardening as well.

Grand Duke Michael was offered the throne.  Kerensky urged him to refuse.  Others suggested he should accept until the election of a Constituent Assembly, which would decide the fate of the monarchy.  Many were concerned that any acceptance would bring about full scale conflict between the Provisional Government and the Soviet

Michael, after careful consideration, conditionally refused.  He would accept the throne only after the election of a Constituent Assembly and it was offered to him by the new government.

“Monseigneur, you are the noblest of men” responded Kerensky.  Grand Duke Michael would be imprisoned and murdered in June 1918 by the Bolsheviks when they came to power.

And thus over 300 years of Romanov autocracy came to an end,

The Imperial family was placed under house arrest at Tsarskoe Selo.  One day as customary at the changing of his guard, Nicholas offered his hand to the officer in charge, who refused to take it.  Nicholas put his hands on the officer’s shoulders and looked him in the eye.  “Why so my friend?”

“When the people offered you its hand you didn’t take it.  Now I won’t give you mine.”