8-14 January 1917
- By Mark Sutcliffe
- •
- 13 Jan, 2017
- •
(Robert Bruce Lockhart, Foreign Affairs journal 1957)
At the beginning of 1917, blizzards and plummeting temperatures cut supplies and drove prices higher still, until the cost of a loaf of bread was rising at the rate of two percent a week. The price of potatoes and cabbage rose at a weekly rate of three percent, sausage at seven percent, and sugar at more than ten ... That the city's masses were angry and restless was an open secret, and the reasons were painfully obvious. 'Children are starving,' a secret police agent reported. 'A revolution, if it takes place ... will be spontaneous, quite likely a hunger riot.' 'Every day,' another added, 'the masses are becoming more and more embittered. An abyss is opening between them and the government.'
(W. Bruce Lincoln, Sunlight at Midnight, New York 2000)
8 January
Tsar's message to his people
In complete solidarity with our faithful Allies, not entertaining any thought of a conclusion of peace until final victory has been secured, I firmly believe that the Russian people, supporting the burden of war with self-denial, will accomplish their duty to the end, not stopping at any sacrifice.
('The Tsar's rescript': a message from Nicholas II on 8 January, reported in The Times on 9 (22) January)
Diary entry of Georges-Maurice Paléologue, French Ambassador to Russia
The Emperor has told his aunt, the Grand Duchess Vladimir, that in their own interests his cousins, the Grand Dukes Cyril and Andrew, should leave Petrograd for a few weeks.
(Maurice Paléologue, An Ambassador's Memoirs 1914-1917, London 1973)
Newspaper response to 'The Tsar's rescript'
The patriotic enthusiasm which the nation manifested at the beginning of the war and all the practical demonstrations of this spirit displayed in the public efforts to develop the supply of munitions and in every way to cooperate with the Army have merely been intimidated by order of the bureaucracy, which saw in them a danger to its monopoly of the Government. The estrangement between the Government and public opinion was bound to react upon the spirit of the nation. Popular enthusiasm quickly subsided and in the place of the union of all forces in the country so joyfully heralded in the earlier stages of the war, we had to note a deplorable widening of the breach between the nation and its rulers. The whole country watches this process with the bitterest feelings. We are as far as ever from the union of all for the war and from the victory that we see realized by our Allies.
(Novoe Vremya, as reported in The Times on 8 (21) January)
9 January
On 9 January 1917, the Workers Group of the War Industries Committee chose to mark the anniversary of Bloody Sunday (a massacre that had sparked off the 1905 Revolution) with a massive strike in the capital. Forty per cent of Petrograd’s industrial workforce took part. The Minister of the Interior, Alexander Protopopov (1866-1918), ordered the arrest of the leaders and stationed Cossack troops in the city.
Lecture by Lenin to an audience of young workers in Zurich
We the old shall perhaps not live to see the decisive battles of this coming revolution. But I believe I can express with some confidence the hope that the youth, which is working so splendidly in the socialist movement of Switzerland and of the whole world, will be fortunate enough not only to fight, but also to win in the coming proletarian revolution.
(James D. White, 'Lenin, the Germans and the February Revolution', Revolutionary Russia 1992)
10 January
Diary entry of Olga, eldest daughter of Nicholas and Alexandra
We 2 with Mama went to visit the grave of Father Grigori [Rasputin]. Today is his name day. Had a music lesson with T. In the evening Papa read to us, Chekhov's 'Sobytie' [The Incident] and started 'Vragi' [The Enemy].
(The Diary of Olga Romanov, Yardley 2014)
12 January
Diary entry of Lev Tikhomirov, revolutionary and later conservative thinker
What a detestable time Russia is going through! The people are generally in an extreme state of nerves and despair of any hopeful resolution. The papers still write of victory, but nobody believes that in truth. The government has lost every last bit of credibility, not to mention respect. And finally people no longer believe each other, everyone thinks they are surrounded by scoundrels.
(L.A. Tikhomirov, Diary 1915-1917, Moscow 2008)
I have found a solution for the perplexing problem of talking to the servants in this hotel. The chambermaid is an amusing old dame from the Baltic provinces, as quick as a steel trap, and talks German fluently. By much gesticulation and pointing I can make her understand me in that tongue and she tells me the Russian words which I immediately hunt up in my dictionary, to make sure of their spelling ... After dinner tonight, old Mr P - of Boston dropped in to borrow some books. We chatted and our talk soon turned to Rasputin, a never-failing topic these days. He remarked with true New England disgust that Rasputin was the most immoral man in Russia; and a man of tremendous magnetic and physical powers. He has heard that the reason for the murder was not politics but involved an intimacy between the self-styled monk and the wife of one of the high persons implicated. At any rate, Rasputin was invited to 94 Moika, Prince Yussupoff's house, was met there by his host, with the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, Purishkevich, and others, and after some preliminaries was ordered to commit suicide. When he refused, one of them, reputedly Purishkevich, took the pistol and shot him. His body was taken across the Islands and dropped off one of the far bridges through a hole in the ice. The rope and weight slipped off, so that the corpse floated and was found. Armour tells me that a few days afterwards he drove across the same bridge and that his driver pointed out the hole, crossed himself and said, 'It has not frozen; he was a saint!'
(James L. Houghteling, Jr, A Diary of the Russian Revolution, New York 1918)
13 January
The writer Stepan Skitalets writes in a Moscow paper
About a verst (one kilometre) from the Senate and museums the twentieth century immediately turns into the seventeenth, and for the moment they don't notice this but at some point they will reap the fruits of this blindness and neglect. Possibly far sooner than they think.
(Skitalets [S.G. Petrov], Rannee utro, 13 January 1917)
New York at that moment lived like no other place on earth. Certainly not Europe. Europe in January 1917 remained trapped in a slow motion agonizing hell. The world war had entered its third year, having already killed more than ten million soldiers and civilians. France and England, Russia and Germany, Austria and Turkey; each would lose a million young men or more ... Amid all the noise that Saturday night, January 13, 1917, a few people knew that Leon Trotsky was coming. Trotsky was a celebrity in some circles. One small Russian-language newspaper called Novy mir (New World), published in Greenwich Village, proudly touted its connection to a small international band of Russian leftists calling themselves Bolsheviks or Mensheviks, depending on who controlled the editorial desk that week. It claimed Trotsky as one of its own and had announced his travel plans on its front page.
(Kenneth D. Ackerman, Trotsky in New York, 1917 (Berkeley, CA 2016)
[Trotsky] rented a three-room apartment in the Bronx which, though cheap by American standards, gave him the unaccustomed luxuries of electric light, a chute for garbage and a telephone. Later there were legends that Trotsky had worked in New York as a dish-washer, as a tailor, and even as an actor. But in fact he scraped a living from émigré journalism and lecturing to half-empty halls on the need for world revolution. He ate in Jewish delicatessens and made himself unpopular with the waiters by refusing to tip them on the grounds that it was injurious to their dignity. He bought some furniture on an instalment plan, $200 of which remained unpaid when the family left for Russia in the spring. By the time the credit company caught up with him, Trotsky had become Foreign Minister of the largest country in the world.
(Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy, London 1996)
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14 January 2017
Some other events to mark the anniversary:
The Cambridge Courtauld Russian Art Centre (CCRAC) is organising a conference linked to the Art born in the revolution exhibition at the RA on 24-25 February.
From 4 February to 17 September The Hermitage Amsterdam will host an exhibition of items relating to the reign and demise of Nicholas II, and his family. The exhibits are from the Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg, and the State Archive of the Russian Federation, Moscow.
Tate Modern is exhibiting its collection of posters, photographs and other graphic works from the David King Collection in an exhibition called Red Star over Russia, opening in November.
as per the Gregorian calendar. 5 November 2017
8 October
Letter from Lenin to the Bolshevik Comrades attending the Regional Congress of
the Soviets of the Northern Region
Comrades, Our revolution is passing through a highly critical period …
A gigantic task is being imposed upon the responsible leaders of our Party,
failure to perform which will involve the danger of a total collapse of the
internationalist proletarian movement. The situation is such that verily,
procrastination is like unto death … In the vicinity of Petrograd and in
Petrograd itself — that is where the insurrection can, and must, be decided on
and effected … The fleet, Kronstadt, Viborg, Reval, can and must advance
on Petrograd; they must smash the Kornilov regiments, rouse both the capitals,
start a mass agitation for a government which will immediately give the land to
the peasants and immediately make proposals for peace, and must overthrow
Kerensky’s government and establish such a government. Verily, procrastination
is like unto death.
(V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, The Russian Revolution: Writings and Speeches
from the February Revolution to the October Revolution, 1917, London 1938)
9 October
Report in The Times
The Maximalist [Bolshevik], M. Trotsky, President of the Petrograd Soviet,
made a violent attack on the Government, describing it as irresponsible and
assailing its bourgeois elements, ‘who,’ he continued, ‘by their attitude are
causing insurrection among the peasants, increasing disorganisation and trying
to render the Constituent Assembly abortive.’ ‘The Maximalists,’ he declared,
‘cannot work with the Government or with the Preliminary Parliament, which I am
leaving in order to say to the workmen, soldiers, and peasants that Petrograd,
the Revolution, and the people are in danger.’ The Maximalists then left the
Chamber, shouting, ‘Long live a democratic and honourable peace! Long live the
Constituent Assembly!’
(‘Opening of Preliminary Parliament’, The Times)
10 October
As Sukhanov left his home for the Soviet on the morning of the 10th, his
wife Galina Flakserman eyed nasty skies and made him promise not to try to
return that night, but to stay at his office … Unlike her diarist husband,
who was previously an independent and had recently joined the Menshevik left,
Galina Flakserman was a long-time Bolshevik activist, on the staff of Izvestia.
Unbeknownst to him, she had quietly informed her comrades that comings and
goings at her roomy, many-entranced apartment would be unlikely to draw
attention. Thus, with her husband out of the way, the Bolshevik CC came
visiting. At least twelve of the twenty-one-committee were there … There
entered a clean-shaven, bespectacled, grey-haired man, ‘every bit like a
Lutheran minister’, Alexandra Kollontai remembered. The CC stared at the
newcomer. Absent-mindedly, he doffed his wig like a hat, to reveal a familiar
bald pate. Lenin had arrived.
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)
Memoir by the Menshevik Nikolai
Sukhanov
Oh, the novel jokes of the merry muse of History! This supreme and decisive
session took place in my own home … without my knowledge … For such a
cardinal session not only did people come from Moscow, but the Lord of Hosts
himself, with his henchman, crept out of the underground. Lenin appeared in a
wig, but without his beard. Zinoviev appeared with a beard, but without his
shock of hair. The meeting went on for about ten hours, until about 3 o’clock
in the morning … However, I don’t actually know much about the exact
course of this meeting, or even about its outcome. It’s clear that the question
of an uprising was put … It was decided to begin the uprising as quickly
as possible, depending on circumstances but not on the Congress.
(N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: a Personal Record, Oxford 1955)
11 October
British Consul Arthur Woodhouse in a letter home
Things are coming to a pretty pass here. I confess I should like to be out
of it, but this is not the time to show the white feather. I could not ask for
leave now, no matter how imminent the danger. There are over 1,000 Britishers
here still, and I and my staff may be of use and assistance to them in an
emergency.
(Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd 1917, London 2017)
Memoir of Fedor Raskolnikov, naval
cadet at Kronstadt
The proximity of a proletarian rising in Russia, as prologue to the world
socialist revolution, became the subject of all our discussions in
prison … Even behind bars, in a stuffy, stagnant cell, we felt instinctively
that the superficial calm that outwardly seemed to prevail presaged an
approaching storm … At last, on October 11, my turn [for release]
came … Stepping out of the prison on to the Vyborg-Side embankment and
breathing in deeply the cool evening breeze that blew from the river, I felt
that joyous sense of freedom which is known only to those who have learnt to
value it while behind bards. I took a tram at the Finland Station and quickly
reached Smolny … In the mood of the delegates to the Congress of Soviets
of the Northern Region which was taking place at that time .. an unusual
elation, an extreme animation was noticeable … They told me straightaway
that the CC had decided on armed insurrection. But there was a group of
comrades, headed by Zinoviev and Kamenev, who did not agree with this decision
and regarded a rising a premature and doomed to defeat.
(F.F. Raskolnikov, Kronstadt and Petrograd in 1917, New York 1982, first
published 1925)
12 October
Sir George Buchanan, British Ambassador to Russia
On [Kerensky] expressing the fear that there was a strong anti-Russian
feeling both in England and France, I said that though the British public was
ready to make allowances for her difficulties, it was but natural that they
should, after the fall of Riga, have abandoned all hope of her continuing to
take an active part in the war … Bolshevism was at the root of all the
evils from which Russia was suffering, and if he would but eradicate it he
would go down to history, not only as the leading figure of the revolution, but
as the saviour of his country. Kerensky admitted the truth of what I had said,
but contended that he could not do this unless the Bolsheviks themselves
provoked the intervention of the Government by an armed uprising.
(Sir George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia, London 1923)
13 October
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
Kerensky is becoming more and more unpopular, in spite of certain grotesque
demonstrations such as this one: the inhabitants of a district in Central
Russia have asked him to take over the supreme religious power, and want to
make him into a kind of Pope as well as a dictator, whereas even the Tsar was
really neither one nor the other. Nobody takes him seriously, except in the
Embassy. A rather amusing sonnet about him has appeared, dedicated to the beds
in the Winter Palace, and complaining that they are reserved for hysteria
cases … for Alexander Feodorovich (Kerensky’s first names) and then
Alexandra Feodorovna (the Empress).
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917–1918, London 1969)
14 October 2017
The BBC2 semi-dramatisation of how the Bolsheviks took power, shown this week,
was a curious thing. Talking heads in the form of Figes, Mieville, Rappaport,
Sebag-Montefiore, Tariq Ali, Martin Amis and others were interspersed with
moody reconstructions of late-night meetings, and dramatic moments such as
Lenin’s unbearded return to the Bolshevik CC (cf Sukhanov above). The programme
felt rather staged and unconvincing, with a lot of agonised expressions and
fist-clenching by Lenin, but the reviewers liked it. Odd, though, that
Eisenstein’s storming of the Winter Palace is rolled out every time, with a
brief disclaimer that it’s a work of fiction and yet somehow presented as
historical footage. There’s a sense of directorial sleight of hand, as if the
rather prosaic taking of the palace desperately needs a re-write. In some
supra-historical way, Eisenstein’s version has become the accepted version.
John Reed’s Ten Days that Shook the World
, currently being
serialised on Radio 4, is also presented with tremendous vigour, and properly
so as the book is nothing if not dramatic. Historical truth, though, is often
as elusive in a book that was originally published — in 1919 — with an
introduction by Lenin. ‘Reed was not’, writes one reviewer, ‘an ideal observer.
He knew little Russian, his grasp of events was sometimes shaky, and his facts
were often suspect.’ Still, that puts him in good company, and Reed is
undoubtedly a good read.