Russians In Exile - The History of a Diaspora - Part 2 - Before The Revolution - Kerensky And The Bolsheviks

5. Kerensky and the Bolsheviks

Vera Nikolaevna Figner (1852-1942), the murderer of Tsar Alexander II, was born in the province of Kazan on June 24, 1852. Her father belonged to the landed gentry. In her book Night over Russia (Moscow, 1930) she wrote, `Our parents treated their children equally, without any distinction.' Sure, but how did they treat their children? Figner, `On the dot we had to rise and on the dot we had to go to bed. Always the same clothes, always the same haircut... After every meal we had to cross ourselves and thank our parents. At dinner we weren't allowed to speak, everything had to be eaten without grumbling, even if it was too much or too little. We had to learn not to be fussy. We never became any tea, we always drank milk and ate rye bread. We weren't allowed to spoil our stomachs. We had to stand the cold without complaining. We weren't allowed to touch anything without permission, especially the things which belonged to my father; when one broke something by accident or put something in a wrong place, the anger of my father extended to all inmates. This was followed by punishment; one had to stand in the corner, ears were pulled, or one was flogged with a leather belt, which for that purpose always was ready for use in father's study. He punished cruel, without any compassion. When our little brothers were punished we all suffered with them.' Oh boy, how sad, another one with an unhappy childhood. No wonder that she has killed Tsar Alexander II, the most progressive Tsar of all times, who had absolutely nothing in common with her harsh father! Her book is one long lamentation at Russian prisons, full od selfpity. She has payd for her crime with 20 years of imprisonment, which I find very little, considering the penalties of those days and the fact that the son and the grandson of the murdered tsar-reformer ruled the country while she was in prison. I don't think that someone who today would kill the Queen of England or the President of the United States would spend less than 20 years in prison. The Dutch publisher Allert de Lange writes in the preface of the book, `When Vera Figner in 1904 is released from Schluesselburg prison Ä after twenty years Ä she hardly is able to cope with ordinary life.' Poor thing... Twenty years for murder; twenty years, in which she did nothing but pitying herself in stead of the Russian people, which would have been much better off when Alexander II would have been able to finish his job. Did she ever think about the grief of the victim's relatives? And what happened to the system she helped up? In 1929 she still was director of the Kropotkin Museum in Moscow. At the end of her book the publisher writes, `On February 3, 1930 we received a message from Moscow which said that Vera Figner has been bannished by the Soviet Government, because she protested against the maltreatment of punished women by officers of the `GPOe' in communist prisons. Vera Figner is now 78 years old.' When she would have restricted to protests, in stead of murdering the Tsar, she would probably not have ended up in prison, and history would most likely have had another course. Vera Figner, Hero of the Revolution, the communists may be grateful to you!
Alexander Alexandrovich Romanoff (1845-1894) (Alexander III) succeeded Alexander II, but cancelled many of his father's liberal measures. The constitution bill was withdrawn.
Alexander III has never been able to get rid of the impact the murder of his father had on him. In his time young, inexperienced monarchs hired elderly statesmen to advise them, and that was the biggest misfortune of Alexander III and his son Nicholas Alexandrovich Romanoff (1868-1918) (Nicholas II), because their `Nestor' was the ultra conservative Supreme Procurator of the Holy Synod, Constantin Petrovich Pobyedonostsev (1827-1907). He believed in the principles of autocracy and cultivated fear for the liberalism that finished (grand)father Alexander II. The political program of Alexander III was based on Pobyedonostsev's `wise' lessons - Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationalism - and took shape in his hatred of all liberal and revolutionary movements. These principles of state policy Alexander and his tutor Pobyedonostsev passed on to Nicholas II, who ascended the throne in 1894, the year in which his father died. Initially Nicholas was prepared to agree with a constitution, and he even signed the bill, but forced by his wife, his mother and his court clique, who - when it was convenient to them - appointed themselves the conscience of the obedient son in regard to his dead father, he retraced his footsteps. Nicholas was an incompetent tsar, but no child could have wished for a better father, and in other circumstances he would have been the ideal son in law. It is a fact that between 1881 and 1905 not many improvements were established, especially when this period is compared to the administration of Alexander II, but it is unjustified to say that nothing was improved in those years. Under Nicholas II financial reforms were established, and regarding the fact that his government was confronted with two costly wars, he didn't do a bad job. Many steps were taken to improve the social and economical circumstances, particularly those of the farmers. The State Inspectorate of Industry was introduced, the working day for children and women was limited by law and the Sickness Act and Industrial Injuries Act were established. Moreover many medical facilities were free. Both Nicholas and his father loved simplicity and hominess. They were exemplary husbands and fathers. But contrary to Alexander III Nicholas wasn't a domineering man, and he didn't succeed in compelling respect from his ministers and the other Romanoffs. Nicholas was introvert, and sometimes he even was a complicated man. Initially he wasn't motivated at all to become tsar, and towards the end of his career he was glad he got rid of the job. He just wasn't a statesman or a leader, and the only reason he became tsar, was because his ancestors and God had planned it this way. He had no choice. Shortly after the coronation his Ministers and the Grand Dukes started to manipulate him. That was partially his own fault, because he thought he wasn't competent to judge their competence. Politics went past him; he only thought about the essentials, he failed to notice the side-issues. Nicholas however knew what was expected from him. He played a role, the role of the autocratic ruler who knows what's going on in his empire. Lack of knowledge or authority meant loss of face, and that was something an autocratic ruler couldn't afford. The only one he could be small with was his wife. That was his mistake, because particularly with her he should have been more firmly. The more his problems as head of state amounted, the more he depended on her and the more her influence increased. The murder of Rasputin should have broken this spiral, and that would probably have happened if the changed political situation wouldn't have thrown a monkey wrench in the works.
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Prelude
1881 April 22: Alexander Feodorovich Kerensky is born.
1882 June 5: Igor Feodorovich Strawinsky (1882-1971) is born in Oranienbaum (nowadays Lomonossov), near St. Petersburg.
1892 September 2: Lenin's entrance exam for law school. He signs his exams with, `Dvoryanin (nobleman) Vladimir Ulyanov'. Lenin was born as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. According to Peter the Great's table of ranks his father was a hereditary Russian nobleman. When Vladimir's brother Alexander was executed in 1887 because he had tried to kill Tsar Alexander III, the title was automaticly passed on to Vladimir. Lenin's strong dislike of the nobility is still hard to notice. One has to trim one's sails according to the wind...
1895 May 25: P. Cubat, a former chef of the Tsar, opens his restaurant in the H“tel de la Païva, 25 Avenue des Champs Elysées, Paris. This hotel was founded in 1856, by the Marquise of Païva, Thérèse Lachman (1819-1884), who was born in Moscow. Théophile Gautier says that she was an illegitimate daughter of Grand Duke Constantin Pavlovich Romanoff.
1896 May 14: Nicholas II is crowned. Shortly afterwards several intrigues among his ministers and relatives are going on, and he never quite manages to suppress this phenomenon.
October 6: Tsar Nicholas II and Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna arrive on the Gare du Ranelagh, Paris, where they are welcomed by the French President Félix Faure. The imperial landau is pulled by 6 horses and accompanied by a large cavalry unit. The procession goes via the Avenue du Bois (nowadays Avenue Foch) to the Champs Elysées, and is hailed by a cheerful crowd.
From October 6 to October 8, 1896 the Tsar and Tsaritsa are accommodated in the Russian embassy. October 6: The Tsar and Tsaritsa dine in the Palais de l'Elysée, 55-57 Rue du Faubourg-Saint Honoré, and they attend a mass in the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, after which they attend a gala concert in their honour, in the Paris Opéra.
1898 May 28: Ivan Tsvetaev, the father of Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva (1892-1941), and the director of the Art History department in the university of Moscow, founds the famous Pushkin Museum.
1901 February 27: Minister of Education Bogolepov is shot in the neck by a student named Karpovich.
March 15: Bogolepov dies in a Moscow hospital.
1902 March 24: Igor Strawinsky's father dies. Igor is `adopted' by the composer Nicholas Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908).
Strawinsky, `Rimsky was a significant man, with bad eyes. He wore spectacles with blue glasses and sometimes he also wore spectacles on his forehead, a habit I inherited from him.'
April 28: The Russian Home Minister Sipyagin is murdered by Balmashev, a social-revolutionary student.
November 15: Gennaro Rubino (43) tries to kill the Belgian King Leopold, `because he's rich and we're poor'.
1903 February 25: Lenin holds a lecture in the Alcazar, 190 Avenue de Choisy, Paris, about the agricultural reforms in Russia. Trotsky, who assists him, admires the talented way Lenin shuts up his opponents.
April 20: Bloody pogrom against Russian Jews in Kishinev. 45 Jews are murdered, over 400 are wounded. Many Jews escape to the United States.
Belgrade, June 11: The Serbian King Alexander, his wife Draga and about 20 courtiers are murdered in the Royal Palace.
1904 February 9: Japan declares war on Russia.
July 28: The Russian Home Minister Plehve is murdered by Sazonov, a social-revolutionary.
Stockholm, December 11: Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, a professor in the military academy of St. Petersburg receives the Nobel Medical Science prize.
December 25: The Tsar announces reforms.
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Revolution
1905 January 14: The Russian Orthodox diocese in America of Archbishop Tikhon moves from San Francisco to New York. In 1872 the diocese was moved from Sitka, Alaska, to San Francisco.
St. Petersburg, January 22: Bloody Sunday. 4,600 casualties among over 140,000 protesters, who wanted to see the Tsar.
January 28: The Russian Home Minister Sviatopolk-Mirsky is dismissed.
Moscow, February 17: Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich Romanoff (1857-1905), a son of Tsar Alexander II and uncle of Tsar Nicholas II, Governor of Moscow since 1891, is murdered.
February 29: The draughtsman Caran d'Ache (karandash is Russian and means `pencil') dies in his house in the Rue de la Faisanderie, Paris. His real name was Emmanuel Poiré. He was the grandson of a French officer, who was wounded at the Battle of Borodino, and after his release became master armourer in Moscow. Emmanuel was born in Moscow in 1858, and studied there in the lyceum, after which he left for France. He made many humoristic drawings, but his main theme was the life of the military. Tsar Alexander III admired his work. (Nowadays the building on the address 79 Rue de la Faisanderie is used by the United States Embassy.)
The music of Alexander Skriabin becomes quite fashionable, but Igor Strawinsky doesn't like it and neither he likes Skriabin.
Ivanovo-Vosnosensk, May 25: About 70,000 workers strike for better conditions. The employers give in.
June 27: Mutiny on the Russian battleship Potemkin.
St. Petersburg, August 19: Tsar Nicholas allows the installation of the first Duma.
Portsmouth, September 5: Russia and Japan sign a peace treaty. The Russian-Japanese war is finished.
October 30: Tsar Nicholas promises democratical electoral suffrage, freedom of speech, freedom of gathering and other civil liberties.
Moscow, December 21: Revolution. After this Revolution Tsar Nicholas II is still prepared to agree to a constitution, but he isn't in it. Just like his father Nicholas finds it too dangerous to implement reforms; the assassination of Alexander II taught him a lesson. Nicholas' government publishes an ukase regarding the procedure of elections. The new parliament will consist of two Houses: the State Duma and the State Council. The State Duma consists of members who are elected by the Russian people, the State Council consists of appointed members: half of them are appointed by the tsar, while the other half is appointed by the nobility, the zemstvo's and the universities.
1906 Paris, March: Serge Diaghilev organizes a large exposition of Russian art in 12 halls of the Salon d'Automne of the Grand Palais in Paris. Léon Bakst is responsible for the décors, and the beautiful catalogue is illustrated by Alexandre Benois. More than 700 articles are displayed, and the exposition is a roaring success. Many Russian artists attend the opening.
May 5: Nicholas fires the highly competent Prime Minister Witte and replaces him by the diehard bureaucrat Ivan Goremikin. Skilled statesmen have to make place for bunglers and camp followers. Serge Witte found it important to keep the farmers satisfied, and that's why he suggested to expropriate the large estates and divide the land among the farmers. He let this plan work out by his minister Nicholas Kutler, but the landowners resisted these plans and Witte was forced to abolish them. This decision obviously caused even more agitation, this time from the workers and farmers, and since 1905 they burned down more than 2,000 estates. The rebellions were put down by Nicholas' troops, and `peace' returned. Lenin and his revolutionary friends escaped abroad.
Madrid, May 31: Dozens of civilians are killed by a bomb which was meant to kill the Spanish King Alfonso XIII and his young bride. They aren't hurt.
July 21: The first Duma is dissolved by the new Prime Minister Peter Stolypin.
August 25: A bomb attack on Stolypin fails. However, his daughter and son are severely wounded.
Igor Strawinsky marries his niece, Katarina Nossenko. He meets Serge Prokofyev. 1907 March 5: The second Duma gathers.
May 30: The last day of the five concerts of authentic Russian chamber music Diaghilev organized since May 16 in the Paris Opéra, co-operated by the composers Rimsky-Korsakov, Rakhmaninov and Glazunov, and in presence of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich Romanoff (1847-1909).
June 3: The second Duma is dissolved by the Tsar, because 65 representatives of the Social Revolutionary Party are accused of a conspiracy against the Tsar.
November 14: The third Duma opens.
November 20: The future Patriarch Tikhon, who was the Archbishop of the Russian Orthodox Church in North-America since 1898, returns to Russia.
1908 Austria, January: Igor Ivanovich Sikorsky (1889-1972), the youngest child of the Kievian child psychologist Ivan Sikorsky, grows up in easy circumstances. His interest for helicopters is excited by Leonardo da Vinci, and when he and his father spend their holiday's in Austria, Igor for the first sees the moving pictures of the first successful flight of the Wright brothers, in 1903.
Lisbon, February 1: The Portuguese King Carlos I (44) and Crown Prince Luis Felipe are murdered.
November 18: A memorial service is held for Admiral Grand Duke Alexis Alexandrovich Romanoff (1850-1908), a younger brother of Alexander III, who passed away on November 14, in his house on the address 38 Avenue Gabriel, Paris. Alexis Alexandrovich was born in St. Petersburg, and joined the Imperial Navy. He became Commander-in-Chief of the Russian fleet, and after the defeat of Tsoushima, in 1905, during the Russian-Japanese War, he resigned. After that he did not aspire to any military of political function. After the memorial service the casket is accompanied to the Gare du Nord, by an infantry brigade, two artillery units and a regiment of cuirassiers. From there the mortal remains will go to St. Petersburg by train.
November 20: Igor Strawinsky starts to work for Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes, in Paris.
1909 Igor Sikorsky attends the Paris aircraft exhibition, where he meets numerous aeronautical pioneers, like Ferdinand Ferber, who advises him to go to a flying-school. He returns to Russia, studies in the Naval Institute of St. Petersburg, and builds his first helicopter in his parents' garden. This helicopter has a 25 h.p. Anzani-motor and too little power to lift the helicopter. Successively he designs his first aeroplane, the S-1, which soon is followed by the S-2, the S-3, the S-4 and the S-5.
Lenin works day and night, from 9 a.m. until 9 p.m., in the Bibliothéque Nationale, 58 Rue de Richelieu, Paris. His wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya, writes, `When Ilyich works in the library, he usually stores his bicycle in the staircase of the adjacent premises, for which he pays the concierge ten centimes per day. The other day he looked for his bicycle, only to discover that it had disappeared. The concierge explained that she only was being payed for storing, not for guarding the bicycle.'
Serge Diaghilev presents Rimsky-Korsakov's opera La Pskovitianka in the Paris Opéra. (Later the opera was renamed Ivan the Terrible.)
July: Lenin moves to 4 Rue Marie-Rose, Paris, because he is sick and tired of his dictatorial concierge in 24 Rue Beaunion, Paris, where he since December 19, 1908 lived on the 3rd floor, together with his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, his mother-in-law and his younger sister, Maria Ulyanov, who studies French in the Sorbonne. Now he's more able to entertain people like Zinovyev and Kamenyev at home.
November 26: Lenin holds his first lecture about `the ideology of the contra-revolutionary liberalism and it's social significance', in the club house of the Society of Scientists, 8 and 8bis Rue Danton, Paris, where many revolutionary Russian writers and would-be politicians assert themselves.
1910 June 4: The debut of Diaghilevs Ballets Russes in the Paris Opéra. They show Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite Sheherazade, with Nijinsky and Ida Rubinstein in the leading parts. It's a roaring success.
When Pierre Smirnoff dies, the Smirnoff Company exists 95 years. He is succeeded by his son Vladimir. In the Moscow distillery of the Smirnoffs work 2,000 people, who produce over 4 million cases of vodka per year.
1911 January 18: Lenin speaks in the club of the Society of Scientists about `Tolstoy and Russian society'.
May 12: The French socialists celebrate the First of May in the Alcazar, together with 300 Russian political refugees. Lenin states, `The period of the contrarevolution has to be declared as terminated. Now it is time for something else: the Russian Revolution.'
September 14: Prime Minister Stolypin is murdered in Kiev.
October 31: Lenin appears in the club house of the Society of Scientists in Paris, to reveal his views about `Stolypin and the Revolution'.
1912 Igor Sikorsky's 6-B wins the first prize in a military design competition and Sikorsky becomes head- designer in the aeroplane factory of St. Petersburg.
April 15: Vera Figner, the `Venus of the Revolution' who in 1884 was sentenced to death for her part in several attacks on Alexander II, but was released in 1906, is the guest of honour at the 100st anniversary of the revolutionary Russian writer Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, in the Salle Wagram, 39 Avenue de Wagram, Paris. Maxim Gorki reads from his work, but Lenin, who also has planned a speech, keeps his mouth shut.
Lenin leaves Paris. Krupskaya writes, `France is a country with a monstrous bureaucracy.'
April 17: Over 300,000 people strike in Russia. In Andreevski, where the goldmines are situated, 270 protesters are killed and 250 are wounded by the police. Alexander Kerensky protests against it in the Duma.
May 2: Lenin founds the newspaper Pravda (The Truth).
June 22: The third Duma - the first Russian parliament which could finish its job - is dissolved by Nicholas. The Duma has done a good job: the legal position of the farmers is improved and more than half of the school-age children actually go to school. However, the third Duma had little influence on foreign policy.
November 15: The fourth and last Duma gathers. The new Prime Minister, Vladimir Kokovtsov, is told by Tsaritsa Alexandra that he must not bother to become the support of the political parties, because they are of no importance to her and the Tsar. `Have confidence in the faith of the ruler,' she says. Nicholas' empire goes downhill and fast; everyone sees it, accept he.
1913 London, February 24: Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst is arrested because she has tried to kill Minister Lloyd George, in Walton Heath, Surrey.
May: Igor Sikorsky's successful S-10-waterplane and his S-11-monoplane become the first and the second prize in the international aeroplane design competition in St. Petersburg. The first successful testflight of Sikorsky's Grand finds place. This is the first four engine aeroplane in the world; Sikorsky himself is the test-pilot. The West pokes fun at it, but the Russians are mighty proud of their aeroplane. Tsar Nicholas II comes to admire the Grand, and gives Igor a watch, to show his appreciation.
May 16: The theatrical season of the Théatre des Champs-Elysées, 13 Avenue Montaigne, Paris, starts with a re-enter of the world success The Firebird, which Strawinsky has written for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes (debut in the Paris Opéra, June 25, 1910). The choreography was done by Fokine and the décors by Golovine, who - together with Léon Bakst - also is responsible for the costumes.
May 29: The première of Igor Strawinsky's and Viachlav Nijinsky's sensational Le sacre du printemps. The enter causes a huge scandal. Jean Cocteau writes in Le coq et l'arlequin, `Because pandemo- nium reigned the public, the dancers couldn't hear the music of the orchestra very well. Nijinsky and the English ballet master Mary Rambert had to beat time from behind the scenes, stamping and shouting. The public rose against the hot tempered and barbarian music and dance theme's. People laughed, shouted, hissed and imitated animal sounds. The row ended in a wholesale scuffle.'
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World War I
1914 January 16: The Russian writer Maxim Gorki returns to Russia, after he lived in exile for 7 years. Gorki was arrested because he took part in the revolution of 1905. He was released from prison in 1906.
February 9: Prince Felix Yussupov marries Grand Duchess Irina Alexandrovna Romanoff.
April: For the first time Le sacre du printemps is performed as a concert, without the ballet. Strawinsky: `A magnificent rehabilitation. The auditorium was crowded. The public, which wasn't distracted by theatrical effects, listened attentive and focused to my work.' Strawinsky becomes a standing ovation, the reviews are praising.
Strawinsky visits Russia for the last time. He moves from Paris to Switzerland.
May 24: Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Golden Rooster is for the first time performed in the Paris Opéra, accompanied by the choirs of the Imperial Opera of Moscow. The choreography is done by Fokine.
May 26: Strawinsky's first opera, Le rossignol, is performed in the Paris Opéra. July 30: Sympathetic politicians point out to Tsar Nicholas that the interference of Russia in this war will end in a disaster, but in spite of this the Tsar proclaims general mobilization. World War I has begun.
August 1: Due to the fact that the Tsar not reacted to the German ultimatum to cancel the mobilization within twelve hours, the German Emperor declares war on Russia.
August 4: The conflict gains momentum: Germany invades Belgium.
August 21: This morning more than 9,000 Russian emigrants gathered on the Esplanade des Invalides, to become volunteers in the French army. More than 4,000 of them are recruted. Among them are many Social Revolutionaries (opponents of the communists!) who this way try to avoid imprisonment in Russia; they form the so called `republican troops'. After two months of training they will be send to the front.
August 23: Japan declares war on Germany.
August 25: The Germans invade France.
November 5: Great-Britain, France and Russia (the Entente) declare war on Turkey.
1915 Petrograd, September 16: The Tsar dissolves the Duma and leaves for the front, where he takes over the supreme command of the army from his uncle, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich. A fatal mistake.
December 29: A fund-raising gala concert for the Red Cross is organized in the Paris Opéra. Igor Strawinsky conducts his Firebird. The concert is a striking success and the organization raises over 400,000 francs.
1916 February 3: The first men of the Russian expeditionary troops, under the command of General Lokhvitsky, leave Moscow by train, and subsequently they sail from Egypt to France.
April 20: The Russian expeditionary troops are disembarked in Marseille. This first Russian brigade, which is put up in camp Mirabeau, consists of two regiments, totally 8,942 men, who will be send to the front in the Champagne.
July: Camp Mirabeau serves as a shelter for the 2nd and 4th Russian Brigade, which came from Arkhangelsk to Brest by boat, and from there by train to Marseille. They wait for transportation to the Macedonian front.
August 2: Some soldiers in Camp Mirabeau revolt. The officers of the 4th Brigade are in town, and the only officer present, Colonel Krause, is killed. The revolt is crushed; seven non-commissioned officers and soldiers are shot. The troops are moved to the army camp of Mailly. Trotsky admits that he was one of the provocators. Trotsky's expulsion from France. Until now he was a war correspondent for Kievian newspapers, and every day he came to the Rotonde to study the European newspapers, on which he based his articles.
Petrograd, December 29: Grigori Rasputin is killed by Prince Felix Yussupov, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich Romanoff and Vladimir Purishkevich. From this moment on Nicholas displays an aversion to politics.
In the opinion of Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna the muzhik Rasputin was the only one who could save her son Alexis, who suffered from haemophilia, and Rasputin used this to increase his influence and power. This encountered resistance of the other Romanoffs and the court. Nicholas was very dependent on his wife and was not able to solve the Rasputin problem. Soon cartoons came into circulation, in which the Tsar and Tsaritsa were pictured as Rasputin's puppets. In fact this was not correct: Alexandra Feodorovna was Rasputin's puppet, while Nicholas was Alexandra Feodorovna's puppet.
1917 February 10: Grand Duke Alexander (Sandro) Mikhaïlovich Romanoff (1866-1933), Vice-Admiral, Former Minister of the Merchant Navy and aide-de-camp to Nicholas II, sees the country going to pieces. Sandro is an old friend of the Tsar and married to his sister Xenia. He writes his friend Nicky the following letter:
We are living through a most dangerous moment in Russia's history. (...) Everyone sences it: some with their mind, some with their heart and some with their soul. (...) Certain forces inside Russia are leading you, and consequently Russia as well, to irrevocable ruin. I say ``you and Russia'' wholly consciously, since Russia cannot exist without a tsar. One must remember, nevertheless, that the tsar alone cannot rule a state such as Russia. (...) The current situation, in which all responsibility lies on you and you alone, makes no sense.
Events have shown that your advisors are continuing to lead Russia and you to certain ruin. It leads one to utter despair that you do not care to heed the voices of those who know the state Russia is in and I advise you to take the measures necessary to lead us out of chaos. (...) The government today is the organ preparing the revolution. The people do not want it, but the government is taking every possible measure to create as many dissatisfied people as possible and is succeeding completely at it. We are assisting at an unprecedented spectacle of revolution from above, rather than from below.
February 22: The February Revolution. About 300,000 people strike in Petrograd. There are also strikes in Moscow, Baku and Kharkov.
February 24: Mariamna Davidoff goes to the estate of Matusov, which the Davidoffs have sold in 1915, to take some icons off the wall which are left behind. The icon of Jesus, with the gilded frame, finds a place in the corner of her own room; this icon belonged to her grandfather, Vasili Lvovich Davidoff, the Decembrist, who had it with him during all those years he was bannished in Siberia.
The World War doesn't really influence the Davidoffs' family life. In the country one hardly realizes that a war is going on. Late February 1917 becomes known that a revolution has broken out in Petrograd. Everyone saw it coming, everyone is happy, finally things will come to a change.
March 11: A Provisional Government is formed, with Prince Lvov as Prime Minister and Home Minister, Paul Milyukov as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Alexander Kerensky as Minister of Justice, Minister of War and Minister of the Navy.
March 15: Due to the February Revolution Tsar Nicholas II abdicated today. Nicholas doesn't want to abdicate the throne in favour of his ill son Alexis. His younger brother Michael will succeed him as Tsar of Russia.
March 16: Michael Alexandrovich Romanoff decides not to ascend the throne, which seals the fate of the Russian Tsar's dynasty. Russia is now in fact a republic.
March 17: The Military Attaché, Colonel Count Alexis Ignatieff, arrives in the Russian Embassy in the Rue de Grenelle, Paris, and announces that Tsar Nicholas II has abdicated. The portrait of the Tsar in his uniform of the Preobrazhensky Regiment, which he had become as a new years present, is immediately removed from the wall.
March 21: Ex-Tsar Nicholas II and his family are placed under house arrest in Tsarskoe Selo.
March 22: The United States recognize the new Russian administration, followed by Great-Bri- tain, France and Italy.
March: 200 Russian soldiers from the Eastern front, who are captured by the Germans, arrive at the station of Montcornet, France. They are `parked' in the neighborhood of the wool mill and have to stay in the open for 40 days, even if it rains cats and dogs. Many of them succumb to the hardship. April: The Russian expeditionary troops from the French front are gathered in the army camp of Neufchƒteau, in the Vosges, because after the February Revolution the French army command doesn't trust the Russians any more. Russian professional revolutionaries from Paris come to Neufchƒteau, to incite the men. General Palitzin, the commander of the Russian troops in France, resigns and is replaced by General Zankevich.
April 6: The United States declare war on Germany, which encourages the Russian troops so much, that they are able to make a hole in the Austrian lines and rout the enemy. This Brusilov Offensive lasts some weeks, but when the Russian army counts almost 60,000 casualties, it becomes clear that the German troops can't be stopped. Kerensky prepares for a general Russian offensive and a democratical reorganization of the army leadership. He wants to force the Germans and their allies to yield the Russian areas they occupy. But Kerensky's reorganization only contributes to the chaos in the army. The officers loose their authority and the soldiers at the front start to fraternize with the enemy. The German army leadership no longer worries about a Russian offensive, because they are convinced that the Russian army is quite busy committing suicide.
April 16: Lenin arrives in Petrograd. The German Emperor Wilhelm II pays Lenin several million marks, not included the contributions of the German industry. The industrialist Emil Kirdorf alone transfers 315,000 marks to one of Lenin's accounts in Sweden. Apart from financial support Lenin can count on several logistic and technical facilities of the Germans. The German government hopes to use Lenin as a weapon to destroy Russia's military power.
May 8: The Military Attaché in Paris, Colonel Count Alexis Ignatieff, is appointed Major General of the Provisional Government.
June 4: The French General de Castelneau decides to move all Russian troops to La Courtine.
June 18: The first Russian units arrive in the army camp of La Courtine, so that the Russian expeditionary troops can be regrouped. Late June there are two brigades in the camp, and as a result of that General Lokhvitsky has 289 officers, 16,187 men and 1,718 horses at his disposal.
July 5: The 3rd Brigade, consisting of 6,613 men, joins the other Russian expeditionary forces in France. Due to the fact that also in La Courtine the revolutionary forces don't excuse theirselves, a mutiny breaks out.
Alexandra (Alya) Lvovna Rakhmanova was born in the Urals on June 27, 1898. She was nine when she was admitted in grammar-school. While she was studying psychology and literary theory she met Dr Arnulf Von Hoyer, a philologist from Salzburg. He was an Austrian prisoner of war, who after his release stayed in Russia. In 1921 they got married, during their flight through Russia; they were no longer able to cope with the terror of the Cheka.
From the day she became 17 Alya kept a diary, from which I quote:
July 5, 1917: our intellectuals are sure that Kerensky, `the man of superlatives', will save Russia. His portrait is everywhere. He's only 35, but he must be very energetic, diligent and competent.
July 12, 1917: The crowds plundered the monastery! The old, familiar monastery, the pride of our city!!! Most monks were murdered, the churchly valuables were thrown away.
July 16: Riots in Petrograd. Headed by the bolsheviki a group of navy men and some regiments of the Petrograd garrison try to topple the government. The Izmailovsky Regiment comes from the front to put down the rebellion. Trotsky is arrested and Lenin escapes to Finland. After the rebellion of the bolsheviki Prince Lvov resigns. Kerensky succeeds him as Prime Minister, but keeps the Ministry of War in his portfolio. The majority of the cabinet is now socialist.
(The crush of the first bolshevist rebellion could have been a turning point in Russian history. Kerensky could have made his administration permanent. Sure, he had some bolshevist leaders arrested, but he didn't ban the bolshevist party. Later he even released the bolshevist leaders, because he thought he could use them to prevent a coup d'état of the army.
Kerensky, `Lots of political prisoners were sent to Siberia by the Tsar. When my Provisional Government was in power, I released all enemies of the old regime Ä including Stalin, because I didn't think he was capable of anything. That was a mistake.' Why did he resort to the bolsheviki and not to others? Kerensky, `Because I was driven back on them. The allies didn't help us. If they only had given me as much help as they gave Stalin in World War II, then everything would have turned out differently.' (Bill Clinton's support of Boris Yeltsin shows that the West doesn't want to make the same mistake.))
July 30: General Brusilov is replaced by General Lavr Grigorievich Kornilov (1870-1918), who demands immediate reinstatement of military discipline and capital punishment for all deserters. The government commissionaries support his demands. Kornilov's decisive measures impress entire Russia. For the first time since the beginning of the Revolution forcible language is used. The people put him on a pedestal. During the first months of the February Revolution the supreme command of the army still follows the policy of the Provisional Government, but after General Kornilov is appointed supreme commander, the general staff becomes overconfident. Army headquarters turn into a political center of power. General Kornilov notices that his no-nonsense-policy is successful and makes three conditions: 1) the supreme commander has to become supreme power in all state matters, 2) the government is not allowed to poke its nose in his military orders; 3) military discipline has to be reinstalled (no more government commissionaries). Kerensky accepts these terms and it is clear that he now has to break off his relations with the Soviets, but that's not what he does. Before the July Rise there are virtually two authorities in Russia: the Provisional Government and the Soviets. The bolsheviki have seized the power in the Soviets and pretend to act in name of the Soviets. Kerensky could have prevented this by banning the Soviets, because they weren't democratic anymore, but that's not what he did. That's why he lost the support of the army leadership, which from that moment on acted on its own authority. Princess Tatiana Petrovna Dolgoroukaya wanted to become a physician, but had to be satisfied with a nurse's education. Boys became doctors, girls became nurses. When the bolsheviki seize to power, the Dolgoroukys don't escape immediately, because they expect a counterrevolution to take place any day. But when her father is arrested and thrown into the dungeons of the Peter and Paul fortress, 20 year old Tatiana has to face the facts: Russia isn't a safe place anymore.
Her bankaccount is frozen. Her non-aristocratic friends advise her to seek political asylum in the French Embassy in Petrograd. Coal are not for sale anymore, the electricity and water in their house is cut off, the servants have to be dismissed. Tatiana doesn't want to leave without her father and is given a small loan by the French Embassy to buy the bare essentials of life. When that money is spent, she is forced to sell the Dolgoroukys silver cutlery on the market. She becomes next to nothing in return and buys some herrings and potatoes.
July 30: Evgenia Demidova (1898-) marries a pathologist in the university of Moscow, the son of a pharmacist from Turkestan. Evgenia's sister-in-law Xenia is a surgeon in Moscow.
August 1: General Zankevich, the commander of the Russian expeditionary force in France, is forced to call in the help of the French army. That however also doesn't lead to a lasting solution; the mutineers refuse to give up, after which Zankevich calls on the 2nd Brigade of artillery troops in Orange, which is commanded by General Bielaev. This 2nd Brigade consists of volunteers from the Macedonian front.
August 27: The split between the Provisional Government and the army becomes visible, when in Moscow a State Conference is held under the aegis of the Provisional Government. The bolsheviki refuse to participate in this conference, because it only contributes to the counterrevolution. 2,414 representatives gather. Kornilov is welcomed by the conservative members, while the socialists give Kerensky a standing ovation.
When they hear that the bolsheviki tried to seize the power, the Davidoffs become frightened. Mariamna and her family leave for Kamenka, the estate of the Davidoffs, where they are welcomed by Alexandra Vasilievna Davidoff, Mariamna's aunt Sasha. The servants greet them friendly, like always, and at first there are no signs of a revolution.
But when Mariamna the next day sees after one of her cows, the coachman Sidor comes to her and asks, `Who gets the cow when the cattle becomes divided?' Mariamna is dumbfounded. She needs a moment to regain self-control, and then answers calmly, `The cow goes to the one who according to the Provisional Government has the right to claim her.' In Verbovka, a village nearby, power is assumed by the bolshevist teacher Elisaveta Petrovna, who's completely hysterical and shouts that the land of the Davidoffs has to be divided among the local population. `What could you possibly do with such an immense dominion?' asks Mariamna. `The same as you,' Elisaveta replies haughty. `You'll never manage it,' says Mariamna. `You absolutely don't know how to operate a large estate like Kamenka. Moreover, what sort of behaviour is this: taking away someone's estate and giving it to someone else? Have you ever heard of buying things? That's the way decent people purchase their goods, you know.' Elisaveta Petrovna is furious. `Of course we will not buy it!' she screams. `You have taken it from the farmers and now you'll return it!' The situation gradually becomes worse. In August 1917 not a day passes without some muzhiks coming by, who say the authorities have ordered them to search the house and personal possessions. It is humiliating and blood-curdling. At evenings all doors and windows are bolted; the Davidoffs are afraid. More and more is stolen, the thieves become increasingly impudent. Aunt Sasha becomes ill. The Davidoffs want to leave for Kiev, where they will be safe, but they hesitate to leave aunt Sasha behind. She however can't be moved. Because the flight can't be postponed any longer, they leave aunt Sasha with two women, who promise to take care of her. The Davidoffs are not even out of sight, when the farmers load the furniture of Kamenka on their carts and triumphantly take it to their homes. The houses of the other refugees are also plundered. Some days later aunt Sasha dies.
September 9: Kerensky sends a telegram to General Kornilov, in which he says that the general is fired. He orders him to come to Petrograd immediately. Kornilov feels betrayed.
September 10: Kornilov lets the people of Russia know that he does not accept his dismissal as supreme commander, and that he asks for support against the Provisional Government. He lets General Krymov and his 3rd Cavalry Corps march on Petrograd. Kerensky appeals to the Soviet of Petrograd, which in the mean time is completely taken over by the bolsheviki, and becomes the support of 25,000 Red Guards and the executive committee of railroad workers, who make sure that the trains of Kornilov's troops go in the wrong direction. Krymov's troops finally surrender. The day after his arrival in Petrograd he commits suicide. After his coup d'état fails, Kornilov and his helpers, the Generals Anton Denikin (1872-1947) and Alexander Lukomsky, are arrested, by order of the Provisional Government. Kerensky thinks that his power is restored, but he's wrong. Without the army the Provisional Government is powerless. The real power is now in the hands of the bolsheviki.
September 19: As a new ultimatum of General Zankevich, the commander of the Russian expeditionary forces in France, didn't have any effect either, Zankevich had the mutineers shelled day and night, by Bielaev's artillery, since September 16, which restored quiet. On the side of the mutineers there are 9 dead and 49 wounded. The majority of the soldiers is spread all over France.
October 10: Prince Feodor Nikolaevich Obolensky (1853-1917), my great-grandfather, who was a member of the State Council and Governor of Gostynin, is murdered by the bolsheviks in Moscow, which makes him one of the first victims of the Red Terror.
October 15, 5.45 a.m.: The famous Dutch spy Mata Hari, who was under suspicion of espionage for the Germans, and successively Ä without any proof Ä sentenced to death, is shot in Vincennes, Paris. Her very young lover, Captain Vladimir Maslov, is one of the Russian soldiers who fight against the Germans in France. Their mutual love almost proved fatal to him, as the French suspected him as well.
The October Revolution
Contrary to what's often said, the communists were no political movement which could count on the support of a wide audience. During the election for the constitution the communists only got 25% of the votes. Many soldiers and workers joined the party, but the farmers, the intellectuals and the middle classes didn't trust the communists. It was common knowledge that Lenin and Trotsky were puppets of the German Kaiser. Almost everyone thought that the new government would not be in power for longer than two or three weeks, and the civil servants didn't think it was wise or necessary to commit their fate to that of a temporarely and very dubious regime. When the Soviets seized to power, they immediately started to fight freemasonry. During the 4th congress of the Communist International the following decision was made: `It is absolutely necessary that the leading organs of the party destroy all bridges to bourgeoisie, and that's why we have to ban freemasonry. The abyss which separates the proletariat from the bourgeoisie, has to become part of the awareness of every member of the Communist Party. Some leading elements of the party have tried to erect disguised bridges over the abyss to use the masonic lodges. Freemasonry is however the most stupid and outrageous deception of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. We are forced to fight it by all means.' The Russian freemasonry continued in Russian lodges and clubs in Berlin, London, Paris and Cairo. (See also appendix A: Russian freemasons who escaped abroad.)
The Grand is succeeded by the legendary Ilya Muromets, the giant bombing-plane which Igor Sikorsky builds for the Russian airforce since 1914. The Ilya Muromets is the largest, heavyest and farst flying bombing-plane in the world; more than seventy bombers are built. Sikorsky has gathered a staff of very talented designers around him, like André Nikolaevich Tupolev (1888-1972) and Serge Vladimiro- vich Ilyushin (1894-1977), who later will become famous Soviet Russian aeroplane builders.
1917 November 7: (October 26 on the Russian calendar) the bolsheviki know that Kerensky's government can only hope to keep the power until the Constituting Assembly of December 12. On November 25, 1917 the elections would be held. The bolsheviki also know that they can never win these elections and they call the 2nd Pan-Russian Soviet Congress, to cut off the pass of the Provisional Government. The failed Kornilov-coup makes the Revolution move rapidly, quite unsuspected.
At 1.30 a.m. the main postoffice is occupied. Soldiers and navy men occupy the railroad stations and telephone exchanges. At 3.30 a.m. the battleship Avrora moors at the Nikolaevsky Bridge. At 6 a.m. the offices of the large newspapers and the state bank are occupied. At 8 a.m. the entire city of Petrograd is in the hands of the bolsheviki, except for the Winter Palace and the headquarters of the general staff. Kerensky temporarely leaves the government in the hands of his colleague Konovalov and decides that he personally will get reinforcements against the bolsheviki. He rushes to Gachina, in a car of the American Embassy, but his mission is impossible. At 10 a.m. Lenin announces that the Provisional Government is deposed. The Pan-Russian Soviet Congress can still not be opened, because Lenin wants the Winter Palace to be beleaguered first. At 6 p.m. the Winter Palace is surrounded by the bolsheviki. At 9 p.m. the Avrora shoots some blanks in the air, to signal that the beleaguering of the Winter Palace can begin. In the mean time the Pan-Russian Soviet Congress gathers in the Smolny Institute. 649 represen- tatives are present, among them 390 bolsheviki. The mensheviki and social-revolutionaries protest against the bolshevist coup, which they call a `crime against the people'.
November 8: At 1.50 a.m. the Provisional Government is finally arrested. The government is now in Lenin's hands. Kerensky brings his family to safety and escapes the country, disguised as a sailor. For his headquarters Lenin chooses the palace of Mathilde Kshessinskaya in St. Petersburg. Mathilde, who used to be the mistress of the Tsar, is only allowed to take her little dog, her coat and everything else that fits in her handbag. The October Revolution of 1917 puts a timely end to Kerensky's Provisional Government, which should have become the beginning of the Democratic Republic of Russia. Lenin, who's atheist and anti-Christian points of view are common known in Russia, appoints himself leader of the new Soviet state. Because of the fact that the church leaders are afraid that the new rulers will scatter the council, they decide to enthrone a patriarch. This patriarch will only be the first bishop, a first among his equals, who just like all other organs of the Church can be called to account by the council.