24-30 September 1917
- By Mark Sutcliffe
- •
- 09 Oct, 2017
- •
24 September
A newspaper printed a report that the English and French armies, on account
of the disorder in Russia, wished to sever the alliance. I refused to believe
such a thing. In another newspaper I read that the report had been denied. I
read also that the British Army had gained much territory in Mesopotamia.
(Florence Farmborough, Nurse at the Russian Front: A Diary 1914–18, London
1974)
Diary entry of Joshua Butler Wright,
Counselor of the American Embassy, Petrograd
The Kremlin is one of the few things in the world that have not proved
disappointing to me in the realization! We spent almost all day there
today … The icons are extraordinary and on the whole rather pleasing. The
almost idolatrous worship of these people makes us sometimes wonder as to their
real capacity for self-government. The kissing of relics offends all laws of
sanitation.
(Witness to Revolution: The Russian Revolution Diary and Letters of J. Butler
Wright, London 2002)
25 September
Memoir by the Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov
The new government will go down in the history of the revolution as the
Government of the civil war. The Soviet declares: ‘We, the workers and the
garrison of Petersburg, refuse to support the Government of bourgeois autocracy
and counter-revolutionary violence. We express the unshakeable conviction that
the new Government will meet with a single response from the entire
revolutionary democracy: “Resign!”’
(N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: a Personal Record, Oxford 1955)
Report in The Manchester
Guardian
The reports of the Democratic Conference transmitted to this country could
not have been more unsatisfactory if they had been deliberately designed to
confound, prejudice and dishearten the English people with regard to Russia.
Whatever be the circumstances responsible, such a state of affairs is gravely
injurious to this country. It poisons Anglo-Russian sympathies, and therefore
Anglo-Russian relations, and, by denying us the materials for judging,
eliminates all calculation from our estimates of the future course of events in
Russia.
(‘The Democratic Conference’, The Manchester Guardian)
26 September
Arthur Ransome headed home by sea on 26 September with a very clear sense of
approaching danger; what he had seen at the congress had convinced him that the
Bolsheviks were preparing the ground to seize power.
(Helen Rappaport, Caught in the Revolution: Petrograd 1917, London 2017)
Diary entry of Louis de Robien,
attaché at the French Embassy
On orders from their governments the Allied ambassadors today took steps to
issue a solemn warning to Kerensky and to convey their anxiety to him. The American
Ambassador alone found an excuse to abstain. Kerensky received them in the
Winter Palace … Sir George Buchanan, the doyen, read them the joint
declaration. Although this was expressed in the most moderate terms — too
moderate, in my opinion — it violently irritated the despot’s vanity, and he
walked out exclaiming: ‘You forget that Russia is a great power!’ The Tsar also
refused to listen to Sir George in similar circumstances: a few weeks later, he
lost the crown!
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917–1918, London 1969)
27 September
A railway strike has dislocated rail-transport throughout Russia. Finland
has proclaimed herself a republic. Strikes and riots are still rampant, while
famine is augmenting the general hardship … Alas! For poor, suffering
Russia. We heard of a party of Social Democrats in Petrograd, who had coined
for themselves the name of Bolshevik — meaning one who forms the majority.
Being such a small party, the name Menshevik [minority] would have been more appropriate!
The members professed to be ‘apostles’ of the doctrine of Communism and
declared that their objectives were to bring peace to Russia by negotiation; to
abolish capitalism; to establish a proletariat dictatorship and to equalise all
classes … It was not difficult for us now to guess the origins and aims of
those suspicious men who for some weeks past had been inspecting Russian Front
Lines and delivering speeches to the troops. It was now quite clear that the
Bolsheviki had started an extensive subversive movement.
(Florence Farmborough, Nurse at the Russian Front: A Diary 1914–18, London
1974)
Report in The Manchester Guardian
Reuter’s Agency states that Commander Locker-Lampson, M.P., who has been in
command of the British armoured-car unit in Russia, arrived in England
yesterday … ‘No one,’ said the Commander, ‘has any right to suppose for a
moment that Russia will not remain loyal to the Allied cause. The Coalition
Government now formed is a fine achievement, and many difficulties will disappear
within the next few months.’
(‘The Russian Outlook’, The Manchester Guardian)
29 September
Diary of Nicholas II
A few days ago Dr Botkin received a note from Kerensky, from which we learnt
that we are allowed to take walks beyond the town. In answer to Botkin’s
question about when these could begin, Pankratov — the wretch — replied that
there could be no question of it now because of some unexplained fear for our
safety. Everyone was very upset by this answer.
(Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion, London 1996)
30 September 2017
Florence Farmborough (1887–1978) went to Moscow in 1908 to be governess to
the children of a Russian heart surgeon. When war broke out, she trained as a
Red Cross nurse (her parents had presciently named her after Florence
Nightingale) and was assigned to a surgical field unit of the 3rd Russian Army
Corps. The diary she kept of her four years on the Russian front were published
only in 1974, when she was 87. An article in The Times, marking the book’s
publication, described it as an ‘astonishing record [that] survived through the
advances and retreats of trench warfare, through the Bolshevik rampages, a
journey across Siberia and her eventual escape from Russia through
Vladivostok’. Florence clearly felt a strong bond with the Russian army — and
was grateful to be taken on by the Red Cross (‘I would never have been allowed
to work in the British Red Cross’) — but described the changes that occurred in
the summer of 1917 like this: ‘It was an inexplicable transformation. We were
prepared for any hardship and danger at the front. But when our own men wanted
to kill us because we were educated or religious it was much more frightening.’
After returning from Russia she went to Spain and lectured in English at the
University of Luis Vives in Valencia. During the Spanish Civil War she worked
for General Franco, reading daily bulletins broadcast in English by Spanish
National Radio, and in the Battle of Britain she was back in London with the
Women’s Voluntary Service. Quite some life. Her obituary in The Times described
her as ‘a faithful observer and recorder of the bravery and misery, the
day-by-day comments, and the increasing acts of desertion and treachery of the
officers and men of the Tsarist Army during the period of its increasing
breakdown, which played a part in the triumph of the revolutionaries’.
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.