29 October - 4 November 1917
Red peasant, soldier and working man to the cossack: ‘Cossack, who are you with? Them or us?’
29 October
Sunday the eleventh, the Cossacks entered Tsarskoye Selo, Kerensky himself
riding a white horse and all the church-bells clamouring … There was no
battle. But Kerensky made a fatal blunder. At seven in the morning he sent word
to the Second Tsarskoye Selo Rifles to lay down their arms. The soldiers
replied that they would remain neutral, but would not disarm. Kerensky gave
them ten minutes in which to obey. This angered the soldiers; for eight months
they had been governing themselves by committee, and this smacked of the old
regime … A few minutes later Cossack artillery opened fire on the
barracks, killing eight men. From that moment there were no more ‘neutral’
soldiers in Tsarskoye.
(John Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World, New York 1919)
… some of the bullets were striking
the house where I lived. The besiegers were apparently not strong, and
presently their firing ceased altogether. In the pause I emerged from my cover
and with gingerly steps crept down the side of the Fontanka Canal towards a bridge,
which I crossed … Rifle bullets whistled overhead, and suddenly everyone
vanished from the streets. I got into a side entrance of a house along with a
number of other people and waited. Everyone was silent and depressed and trying
to hide his inner feelings beneath an outward calm … Here indeed was the
front, not the national but the class front, and the remarkable thing about it
was that there was no sharp line of division between the opposing forces. Among
the people where I was standing were persons of the middle class, and beside
them a workman and two soldier deserters from the now fast-melting Tsarist
army. ‘Why are you hiding?’ said a well-dressed man to one of the soldiers.
‘You have been at the war, and ought not to be afraid of bullets.’ ‘Had two
years of it against the Germans and wounded twice,’ said the soldier; ‘think I
have had enough.’ ‘Why don’t you go and help these Cadets against the red
ruffians? Or are you one of our brave deserters who have sold Russia to these
Bolsheviks and to the Germans?’ asked the well-dressed man. ‘Give me a rifle,
and I will go and fight against those Cadets,’ replied the soldier. ‘And I will
see to it that you don’t get a rifle,’ said the well-dressed citizen, as though
he was sorry he had raised the subject.
(M. Philips Price, My Reminiscences of the Russian Revolution, London 1921)
Letter from Sofia Yudina in Petrograd
to her friend Nina Agafonnikova in Vyatka
Darling Ninochka!
The mood here is dreadful, such nervous strain… Yesterday Lena and I went for
a walk along Nevsky: there were a lot of people on the street, crowds,
meetings, and it was lucky we didn’t go later because the Bolsheviks started to
open fire there… But it looks like their rule will soon be over, the government
forces will seize power. Which is good, because the Bolsheviks have shown what
sort of people they are: so much violence… But you know all this from the
papers and conversations … But now it is so indefinably uneasy … We
so want everything to settle down and become peaceful again! How will it end,
and when will it end? … I wish I was cleverer, had a better memory, could
make conversation so that people, good people, found me interesting — and then
I wouldn’t be as lonely as I am now. It wouldn’t feel so cold on this earth …
You see how much I want? And that’s by no means all…
(Viktor Berdinskikh, Letters from Petrograd: 1916–1919, St Petersburg 2016)
30 October
Memoir by the Menshevik Nikolai Sukhanov
On the 30th it was decided to finish with Kerensky at one blow. The Kronstadt
and Helsingfors sailors’ detachments were moved en bloc to the front. Trotsky
himself went too; from now on he was invariably present at the most critical
points all over the country … And by the end of that night, Trotsky was
already reporting to Petersburg from Pulkovo: ‘The night of the 30th will go
down in history … KERENSKY IS IN RETREAT — we are advancing. The soldiers,
sailors and workers of Petersburg have shown that arms in hand they can and
will assert their will and the power of the democracy…’
(N.N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution 1917: a Personal Record, Oxford 1955)
At Pulkovo Heights, twelve miles out
of Petrograd, [hard-right General] Krasnov’s forces face a ragtag of workers,
sailors and soldiers, untrained and undisciplined but outnumbering them ten to
one. The fight is ugly and bloody. Krasnov’s forces fall back to the town of
Gatchina, where Kerensky is based. Two days later, in exchange for self
passage, they agree to hand him over. The erstwhile persuader has a last
escapade in him. He makes a successful run for it, disguised in a sailor’s
uniform and unlikely goggles. He ends his days in exile, issuing tract after
self-exculpating tract.
(China Miéville, October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, London 2017)
31 October
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
Kerensky’s position seems rather bad: he has only got Cossacks and Cossack
artillery still with him. The infantry regiments go over to the Bolsheviks as
soon as he gets them up from the front.
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917–1918, London 1969)
Sir George Buchanan, British
Ambassador to Russia
Kerensky has again failed us, as he did at the time of the July rising and
of the Korniloff affair. His only chance of success was to make a dash for
Petrograd with such troops as he could get hold of; but he wasted time in
parlaying, issued orders and counter-orders which indisposed the troops, and
only moved when it was too late. The Bolsheviks have reoccupied Tsarskoe and
are now confident of victory … We are so entirely cut off from the outside
world that we know but little of what is passing in the Provinces; but at
Moscow, where a regular battle has been going on for the last few days, the
Bolsheviks are regaining the upper hand. The number of killed is said to be
about a couple of thousand, and the town appears to be given over to pillage at
the hands of a drunken mob that had seized the spirit stores.
(Sir George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia, London 1923)
1 November
Diary entry of Joshua Butler Wright, Counselor of the American Embassy,
Petrograd
The town duma and Mayor Schneider loom large as patriotic persons who have
stood out against the Bolshevik disorder. It is, however, a victory of the
Maximalists (at least up to the moment), and we are now facing a purely
socialist government!! It remains to be seen what it can do. Nothing, of
course, as regards recognition by any government. No telegrams at all are being
received or sent from Petrograd.
(Witness to Revolution: The Russian Revolution Diary and Letters of J. Butler
Wright, London 2002)
2 November
Memoir of Pierre Gilliard, former tutor to the tsar’s children
About November 2, we learnt that the Provisional Government was overthrown
and that the Bolsheviks had again come into power, but this event did not
immediately react on our life, and it was not until some months later, as we
shall see, that it occurred to them to turn their attention to us.
(Sergei Mironenko, A Lifelong Passion, London 1996)
Resolution of the workers of the
Baltic Shipbuilding Works, Petrograd
Although seizure of […] power by a single political party would be an
incorrect step, at this time, when an overthrow has been accomplished and
become fact, the departure of several political parties from the congress is a
step that cannot be justified either … Seeing the full horror of civil
war, we decisively and insistently demand the immediate cessation of this
bloody nightmare and the creation of a unified socialist authority.
(Mark D. Steinberg, Voices of Revolution, 1917, New Haven and London 2001)
To the mass of the workers, it seemed
that the whole point of the revolution, as expressed at the Soviet Congress,
was the formation of a government of the working people as a whole and not just
of one party. Hundreds of factories, garrisons, Front and Fleet assemblies sent
petitions to Smolny in support of the [railwaymen’s union] Vikzhel plan
[demanding that the Bolsheviks begin talks with the other socialist parties for
the formation of an all-Soviet government).
(Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy, London 1996)
3 November
Diary entry of Louis de Robien, attaché at the French Embassy
Kerensky’s supporters have laid down their arms. His General Staff have
given themselves up, and he himself has fled. So now we are rid of this
grotesque character, and with him the regime which issued from the revolution
has collapsed too: it only succeeded in alienating everyone and in becoming an
object of ridicule, defended by a few Cossacks, a battalion of women and some
children.
(Louis de Robien, The Diary of a Diplomat in Russia 1917–1918, London 1969)
4 November 2017
In Petersburg.
Nobody seems to be expecting much of a show of anniversary zeal, though last
night we witnessed a spectacular light show in Palace Square. In dramatic,
swooping images of fire and tumbling buildings, rather brilliantly
choreographed against the stuccoed walls and white columns of the Winter Palace
and General Staff, the last 100 years were presented as a narrative of dramatic
survival — we have come through all this turbulent history, it seemed to say, a
stronger, more unified Russia, symbolised by the final red, white and blue of
the national flag. The show was witnessed by huge crowds, part of Nevsky was
closed to traffic, and families with young children were prominent. Which
perhaps goes counter to the general feeling that the young are not interested
in this anniversary. Catherine Merridale writes in the Guardian that ‘the
Russian revolution was a moment when the veil of human culture tore. It was a
season of euphoric hope, a terrifying experiment in utopia. It tested to
destruction the 19th-century fantasy of progress. It was the work of tens of
thousands of zealous enthusiasts. Yet now their great-great-grandchildren are
bored. This situation suits their government. A cloud of tedium hangs over any
formal gathering that ventures to discuss the thing.’ Maybe. Or maybe, just
maybe, this is an overly western-centric view of things and in fact
people are
interested but — like the show in Palace
Square — they’re more interested in where the country has ended up now, a
hundred years later, than in theories that constantly hark back to rift and
destruction. Let’s see what, if anything, 7 November brings.
