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THE CZAR
It is hardly necessary to prove that the enormous majority of the Commanding Officers were thoroughly loyal to the Monarchist idea and to the Czar himself. The subsequent behaviour of the higher Commanding Officers who had been Monarchists was due partly to motives of self-seeking, partly to pusillanimity and to the desire to conceal their real feelings in order to remain in power and to carry out their own plans. Cases in which a change of front was the result of the collapse of ideals, of a new outlook, or was prompted by motives of practical statesmanship, were rare. For example, it would have been childish to have believed General Brussilov when he asserted that from the days of his youth he had been “a Socialist and a Republican.” He was bred in the traditions of the Old Guards, was closely connected with circles of the Court, and permeated with their outlook. His habits, tastes, sympathies and surroundings were those of a barin.[1] No man can be a lifelong liar to himself and to others.[Pg 17] The majority of the officers of the Regular Russian Army had Monarchist principles and were undoubtedly loyal. After the Japanese war, as a result of the first Revolution, the Officers’ Corps was, nevertheless, placed, for reasons which are not sufficiently clear, under the special supervision of the Police Department, and regimental Commanding Officers received from time to time “black lists.” The tragedy of it was that it was almost useless to argue against the verdict of “unreliability,” while, at the same time, it was forbidden to conduct one’s own investigation, even in secret. This system of spying introduced an unwholesome spirit into the army. Not content with this system, the War Minister, General Sukhomlinov, introduced his own branch of counter-spies, which was headed unofficially by Colonel Miassoyedov, who was afterwards shot as a German spy. At every military District Headquarters an organ was instituted, headed by an officer of the Gendarmerie dressed up in G.H.Q. uniform. Officially, he was supposed to deal with foreign espionage, but General Dukhonin (who was killed by the Bolsheviks), when Chief of the Intelligence Bureau of the Kiev G.H.Q. before the War, bitterly complained to me of the painful atmosphere created by this new organ, which was officially subordinate to the Quartermaster-General, but in reality looked on him with suspicion, and was spying not only upon the Staff, but upon its own chiefs.
Life itself seemed to induce the officers to utter some kind of protest against the existing order. Of all the classes that served the State, there had been for a long time no element so downtrodden and forlorn or so ill-provided for as the officers of the Regular Russian Army. They lived in abject poverty. Their rights and their self-esteem were constantly ignored by the Senior Officers. The utmost the rank and file could hope for as the crowning of their career was the rank of Colonel and an old age spent in sickness and semi-starvation. From the middle of the nineteenth century the Officers’ Corps had completely lost its character as a class and a caste. Since universal compulsory service was introduced and the nobility ceased to be prosperous the gates of military schools were opened wide to people of low extraction and to young men belonging to the lower strata of the people, but with a diploma from the civil schools. They formed a majority in the Army. Mobilisations, on the other hand, reinforced the Officers’ Corps by the infusion of a great many men of the liberal professions, who introduced new ideas and a new outlook. Finally, the tremendous losses suffered by the Regular Officers’ Corps compelled the High Command to relax to a certain extent[Pg 18] the regulations concerning military training and education, and to introduce on a broad scale promotions from the ranks for deeds of valour, and to give rankers a short training in elementary schools to fit them to be temporary officers.
Foundations of the Old Power: Faith, the Czar and the Mother Country.
The inevitable historical process which culminated in the Revolution of March, 1917, has resulted in the collapse of the Russian State. Philosophers, historians and sociologists, in studying the course of Russian life, may have foreseen the impending catastrophe. But nobody could foresee that the people, rising like a tidal wave, would so rapidly and so easily sweep away all the foundations of their existence: the Supreme Power and the Governing classes which disappeared without a struggle; the intelligencia, gifted but weak, isolated and lacking will-power, which at first, in the midst of a deadly struggle, had only words as a weapon, later submissively bent their necks under the knife of the victors; and last, but not least, an army of ten million, powerful and imbued with historic traditions. That army was destroyed in three or four months.This last event—the collapse of the army—was not, however, quite unexpected, as the epilogue of the Manchurian war and the subsequent events in Moscow, Kronstadt and Sevastopol were a terrible warning. At the end of November, 1905, I lived for a fortnight in Harbin, and travelled on the Siberian Railway for thirty-one days in December, 1907, through a series of “republics” from Harbin to Petrograd. I thus gained a clear indication of what might be expected from a licentious mob of soldiers utterly devoid of restraining principles. All the meetings, resolutions, soviets—in a word, all the manifestations of a mutiny of the military—were repeated in 1917 with photographic accuracy, but with greater impetus and on a much larger scale.
It should be noted that the possibility of such a rapid psychological transformation was not characteristic of the Russian Army alone. There can be no doubt that war-weariness after[Pg 14] three years of bloodshed played an important part in these events, as the armies of the whole world were affected by it and were rendered more accessible to the disintegrating influences of extreme Socialist doctrines. In the autumn of 1918 the German Army Corps that occupied the region of the Don and Little Russia were demoralised in one week, and they repeated to a certain extent the process which we had already lived through of meetings, soviets, committees, of doing away with Commanding Officers, and in some units of the sale of military stores, horses and arms. It was not till then that the Germans understood the tragedy of the Russian officers. More than once our volunteers saw the German officers, formerly so haughty and so frigid, weeping bitterly over their degradation.
These circumstances, characteristic of all armies formed from the masses, undoubtedly reduced the fighting capacity of the Officers’ Corps, and brought about a certain change in its political outlook, bringing it nearer to that of the average Russian intellectual and to democracy. This the leaders of the Revolutionary democracy did not, or, to be more accurate, would not, understand in the first days of the Revolution. In the course of my narrative I will differentiate between the “Revolutionary Democracy”—an agglomeration of socialist parties—and the true Russian Democracy, to which the middle-class intelligencia and the Civil Service elements undoubtedly belong
In spite of the accepted view, the monarchical idea had no deep, mystic roots among the rank and file, and, of course, the semi-cultured masses entirely failed to realise the meaning of other forms of Government preached by Socialists of all shades of opinion. Owing to a certain innate Conservatism, to habits dating from time immemorial, and to the teaching of the Church,[Pg 19] the existing régime was considered as something quite natural and inevitable. In the mind and in the heart of the soldier the idea of a monarch was, if I may so express it, “in a potential state,” rising sometimes to a point of high exaltation when the monarch was personally approached (at reviews, parades and casual meetings), and sometimes falling to indifference. At any rate, the Army was in a disposition sufficiently favourable to the idea of a monarchy and to the dynasty, and that disposition could have easily been maintained. But a sticky cobweb of licentiousness and crime was being woven at Petrograd and Czarskoe Selo. The truth, intermingled with falsehood, penetrated into the remotest corners of the country and into the Army, and evoked painful regrets and sometimes malicious rejoicings. The members of the House of Romanov did not preserve the “idea” which the orthodox monarchists wished to surround with a halo of greatness, nobility and reverence. I recall the impression of a sitting of the Duma which I happened to attend. For the first time, Gutchkov uttered a word of warning from the Tribune of the Duma about Rasputin
“All is not well with our land.”
The House, which had been rather noisy, was silent, and every word, spoken in a low voice, was distinctly audible in remote corners. A mysterious cloud, pregnant with catastrophe, seemed to hang over the normal course of Russian history. I will not dwell on the corrupt influences prevailing in Ministerial dwellings and Imperial palaces to which the filthy and cynical impostor found access, who swayed ministers and rulers.
The Grand Duke Nicholas is supposed to have threatened to hang Rasputin should he venture to appear at G.H.Q. General Alexeiev also disapproved strongly of the man. That the influence of Rasputin did not spread to the old Army is due entirely to the attitude of the above-named generals. All sorts of stories about Rasputin’s influence was circulated at the front, and the Censor collected an enormous amount of material on the subject, even from soldiers’ letters from the front; but the gravest impression was produced by the word “TREASON” with reference to the Empress. In the Army, openly and everywhere, conversations were heard about the Empress’ persistent demands for a separate peace and of her treachery towards Lord Kitchener, of whose journey she was supposed to have informed the Germans. As I recall the past, and the impression produced in the Army by the rumour of the Empress’ treason, I consider that this circumstance had a very great influence upon the attitude of the Army towards the dynasty and the revolution. In the spring of 1917 I questioned[Pg 20] General Alexeiev on this painful subject. His answer, reluctantly given, was vague. He said: “When the Empress’ papers were examined she was found to be in possession of a map indicating in detail the disposition of the troops along the entire front. Only two copies were prepared of this map, one for the Emperor and one for myself. I was very painfully impressed. God knows who may have made use of this map.”
The Grand Duke Nicholas distributes Crosses of St. George.
In the winter of 1918, as Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army, I received an offer from a group of German officers to join our army as volunteers in the ranks.
The collapse of the army cannot be explained away as the psychological result of defeats and disasters. Even the victors experienced disturbances in the army. There was a certain amount of disaffection among the French troops occupying, in the beginning of 1918, the region of Odessa and Roumania, in the French fleet cruising in the Black Sea, among the British troops in the region of Constantinople and Transcaucasia. The troops did not always obey the orders of their Commanding Officers. Rapid demobilisation and the arrival of fresh, partly volunteer elements, altered the situation.
What was the condition of the Russian Army at the outbreak of the Revolution? From time immemorial the entire ideology of our soldiers was contained in the well-known formula: “For God, for the Czar and for the Mother Country.” Generation after generation was born and bred on that formula. These ideas, however, did not penetrate deeply enough into the masses of the people and of the army. For many centuries the Russian people had been deeply religious, but their faith was somewhat shaken in the beginning of the Twentieth Century. The Russian people, as the Russian saying goes, was “the bearer of Christ”—a people inwardly disposed towards Universal Brotherhood, great in its simplicity, truthfulness, humility and forgiveness. That people, Christian in the fullest sense of the word, was gradually changing as it came under the influence of material interests, and learnt or was taught to see in the gratifying of those interests the sole[Pg 15] purpose of life. The link between the people and its spiritual leaders was gradually weakening as these leaders were detached from the people, entered into the service of the Governing powers, and shared the latter’s deficiencies. The development of this moral transformation of the Russian people is too deep and too complex to fall within the scope of these memoirs. It is undeniable that the youngsters who joined the ranks treated questions of the Faith and of the Church with indifference. In barracks they lost the habits of their homes, and were forcibly removed from a more wholesome and settled atmosphere, with all its creeds and superstitions. They received no spiritual or moral education, which in barracks was considered a matter of minor importance, completely overshadowed by practical and material cares and requirements. A proper spirit could not be created in barracks, where Christian morals, religious discourses, and even the rites of the Church bore an official and sometimes even compulsory character. Commanding Officers know how difficult it was to find a solution of the vexed question of attendance at Church services.
In the winter of 1918, as Commander-in-Chief of the Volunteer Army, I received an offer from a group of German officers to join our army as volunteers in the ranks.
The collapse of the army cannot be explained away as the psychological result of defeats and disasters. Even the victors experienced disturbances in the army. There was a certain amount of disaffection among the French troops occupying, in the beginning of 1918, the region of Odessa and Roumania, in the French fleet cruising in the Black Sea, among the British troops in the region of Constantinople and Transcaucasia. The troops did not always obey the orders of their Commanding Officers. Rapid demobilisation and the arrival of fresh, partly volunteer elements, altered the situation
War introduced two new elements into the spiritual life of the army. On the one hand, there was a certain moral coarseness and cruelty; on the other, it seemed as if faith had been deepened by constant danger. I do not wish to accuse the orthodox military clergy as a body. Many of its representatives proved their high valour, courage and self-sacrifice. It must, however, be admitted that the clergy failed to produce a religious revival among the troops. It is not their fault, because the world-war into which Russia was drawn was due to intricate political and economic causes, and there was no room for religious fervour. The clergy, however, likewise failed to establish closer connection with the troops. After the outbreak of the Revolution the officers continued for a long time to struggle to keep their waning power and authority, but the voice of the priests was silenced almost at once, and they ceased to play any part whatsoever in the life of the troops. I recall an episode typical of the mental attitude of military circles in those days. One of the regiments of the Fourth Rifle Division had built a camp Church quite close to its lines, and had built it with great care and very artistically. The Revolution came. A demagogue captain decided that his company had inadequate quarters and that a Church was a superstition. On his own authority he converted the Church into quarters for his company, and dug a hole where the altar stood for purposes which it is better not to mention. I am not surprised that such a scoundrel was found in the regiment or that[Pg 16] the Higher Command was terrorised and silent. But why did two or three thousand orthodox Russians, bred in the mystic rites of their faith, remain indifferent to such a sacrilege? Be that as it may, there can hardly be any doubt that religion ceased to be one of the moral impulses which upheld the spirit of the Russian Army and prompted it to deeds of valour or protected it later from the development of bestial instincts. The orthodox clergy, generally speaking, was thrown overboard during the storm. Some of the high dignitaries of the Church—the Metropolitans—Pitirim and Makarius—the Archbishop Varnava and others, unfortunately were closely connected with the Governing bureaucracy of the Rasputin period of Petrograd history. The lower grades of the clergy, on the other hand, were in close touch with the Russian intellectuals
LENIN
THE BOLSHEVIST REVOLUTION
On November 7, 1917, the Bolsheviki took their first violent action.
An armed naval detachment, under orders from the military
revolutionary committee of the Soviet, which had established itself in
the Smolny Institute building, occupied the offices of the official
Petrograd Telegraph Agency and the Central Telegraph Office, the State
Bank and the Marie Palace, where the Preliminary Assembly was holding
its sessions. In a communication to the Municipal Duma, Trotzky stated
that it was not the intention of the Soviet to seize full
power, but only to assume control of the city.Kerensky immediately took measures to oppose these overt acts, but within the next twenty-four hours it became obvious that he had little support among the soldiers in the capital. By next morning he had disappeared, fleeing, as was presently to develop, to the military forces at the front, which he believed might be loyal to the Government.
Meanwhile Trotzky declared the Preliminary Assembly dissolved and issued a proclamation that it was the intention of the new government, when established and in control, to open negotiations with the Germans for a "general democratic peace."
As yet the Bolsheviki had not met with any serious opposition. Orders issued by the Kerensky Government for the opening of the spans of the bridge across the Neva were not carried out. Bolshevist patrols paraded the streets and maintained order. A number of outbursts on the part of the criminal elements, having as their object robbery and looting, were severely suppressed and the ringleaders shot.
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