September 1916: 50th Siberian Rifle Regiment. March 8, 1917: February Revolution starts
Sources: webpage (left), webpage (right) and Lunapic
1. THE MILITARY PROGRAMME OF THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION.
II
An oppressed class which does not strive to learn how to use and acquire arms deserves to be treated like slaves. Unless we have become bourgeois pacifists or opportunists, we cannot forget that we are living in a class society from which there is no way out save through the class struggle. The oppressor class of every class society, whether based on slavery, serfdom or as presently on wage-labour, is always armed. The modern standing army and the modern militia in even the most democratic bourgeois republics like Switzerland, for instance, represent the bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat. Such an elementary truth hardly requires dwelling upon. Suffice it to point out the use of troops against strikers in all capitalist countries.
A bourgeoisie armed against the proletariat is a fundamental and cardinal reality of modern capitalist society. Withal revolutionary Social-Democrats are urged to "demand" "disarmament"! That is tantamount to scrapping the class-struggle point of view, to relinquishing all ideas of revolution.
Our slogan must be: arm the proletariat in order to defeat, expropriate and disarm the bourgeoisie. These are the only practical tactics for a revolutionary class, tactics derived logically from and dictated by the objective evolvement of capitalist militarism.
Only after disarming the bourgeoisie can the proletariat consign all armaments to the scrap heap without betraying its world-historic mission. And the proletariat will disarm undoubtedly, but only when that condition is fulfilled, certainly not before. If the present war excites only horror and fright, only aversion to all use of arms, to bloodshed, death, etc., among the reactionary Christian socialists, among the whimpering petty bourgeoisie, then we must say: Capitalist society is and has always been a horror without end. We have no reason to despair if this most reactionary of all wars readies an end in horror for that society now. The disarmament "demand" or more correctly the dream of disarmament is an expression of despair precisely when everyone can see that the bourgeoisie is paving the way for the solely legitimate war: revolutionary civil war against the imperialist bourgeoisie.
A lifeless theory, some might say, but we would remind them of two world-historical facts: the role of trusts or the employment of women in industry on the one hand, and the Paris Commune of 1871 or the December 1905 uprising in Russia on the other.
The bourgeoisie makes it its business to promote trusts, to send women and children to factories, subject them to corruption and suffering, condemn them to extreme poverty. We do not "demand" such practices, we do not "support" them. We fight them. But how? We explain that trusts or the enrolment of women in industry are progressive because we do not want a return to handicraft pre-monopoly capitalism or to domestic drudgery for women. We say, forward through the trusts, etc., and move past them to socialism! With appropriate modifications the same argument applies to our current militarization of the population. Today the imperialist bourgeoisie drafts young and adult men; tomorrow it may draft women. Our attitude should be: All the better! Full speed ahead! For the faster we move, the nearer we'll be to the armed uprising against capitalism. This is not a "lifeless theory" or a dream. It is a fact. And it will be a sorry day indeed when Social-Democrats begin to doubt whether the era of imperialist wars inevitably brings about a repetition of such wars.
How can Social-Democrats give way to a fear of the draft, etc., have they forgotten the Paris Commune? A certain bourgeois observer of the Paris Commune, writing to an English newspaper in May 1871, said: "If the French nation consisted entirely of women, what a terrible nation France would be!" Women and teenagers fought beside the men of the Paris Commune. It will be no different in the coming battles to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Proletarian women will not look passively on as poorly armed or unarmed workers are shot down by the well-armed forces of the bourgeoisie. They will take to arms as they did in 1871, and from the cowed nations of today—more correctly from the current labour movement mussed more by opportunists than by governments—there will come sooner or later, undoubtedly, with absolute certainty, an international league of the "terrible nations" of the revolutionary proletariat.
All social life is being militarized presently. Imperialism is the Great Powers' fierce struggle to divide and reshape the world. Imperialism is therefore bound to increase the militarization of every country including neutral or small ones.
How will proletarian women react? Merely by cursing war and all things military, merely by demanding disarmament? No, the women of an oppressed and truly revolutionary class will never play that shameful role. They will say to their sons: "You will be grown up soon. You will be handed a gun. Take it and train well. The proletarians will need your knowledge not to shoot your brothers, the workers of other countries, as traitors to socialism tell you to do in this war, but to fight their own bourgeoisie and so end exploitation, poverty and war. That will come about not by pious wishes but through defeating and disarming the bourgeoisie."
If we are to shun such propaganda, precisely such propaganda, in connection with the present war, then we had better stop using fine words like international revolutionary Social-Democracy, the socialist revolution and the war against war.
2. THE FEBRUARY REVOLUTION: 1970 SOVIET FILM CLIP.
3. TELEGRAM TO THE BOLSHEVIKS LEAVING FOR RUSSIA.
Our tactics: no trust in and no support of the new government; Kerensky is especially suspect; arming of the proletariat is the only guarantee; immediate elections to the Petrograd City Council; no rapprochement with other parties. Telegraph this to Petrograd.
4. THE REVOLUTION IN RUSSIA AND THE TASKS OF THE WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES.
Comrade workers,
The prediction of those socialists who remained faithful to socialism and did not succumb to the savage and beastly war hysteria has been proven right. The first revolution wrought by a world-wide predatory war among the capitalists of various countries is here. The imperialist war, that is, the war for a capitalist division of spoils, for the strangling of weak nations, has begun to turn into a civil war, that is, a war of the workers against the capitalists, of toilers and oppressed against their oppressors, against tsars and kings, landowners and capitalists, a war for mankind's complete liberation from wars, from mass poverty, from the oppression of man by man!
The honour and good fortune of being the first ones to start the revolution (the sole legitimate just great war, the war of the oppressed against the oppressors) has fallen to the Russian workers.
The St. Petersburg [sic] workers have vanquished the tsarist monarchy. Having started the uprising unarmed, facing machine-guns in their heroic struggle against police and the tsar's armies, the workers won over most of the soldiers in the St. Petersburg garrison. The same thing happened in Moscow and in other cities. Deserted by his armies, the tsar had to capitulate. He abdicated on behalf of himself and his son and suggested his brother Mikhail for the throne.
Owing to the swift pace of the revolution, to the direct assistance of Anglo-French capitalists, to insufficient class-consciousness in the mass of workers and people of St. Petersburg and to the readiness of Russian landowners and capitalists, these have seized power. The key posts, the premiership and the Ministries of the Interior and War in the new Russian government (the "Provisional Government") have gone to the Octobrists Lvov and Guchkov, who did their best to help Nicholas the Bloody and Stolypin the Hangman crush the Revolution of 1905, shoot down and hang workers and peasants fighting for land and freedom. The less important ministerial posts went to the Cadets: Foreign Affairs to Milyukov, Education to Manuilov, Agriculture to Shingaryov. The quite insignificant post of Minister of Justice went to Kerensky the glib-tongued Trudovik whom the capitalists need to pacify the people with empty promises, to fool them with high-sounding phrases, reconcile them to a government of landlords and capitalists who, together with English and French capitalists, wish to prolong the predatory war, a war to seize Armenia, Constantinople, Galicia, a war to let Anglo-French capitalists keep the booty snatched from German capitalists in Africa and to recoup the spoils seized by German capitalist robbers (part of France, Belgium, Serbia, Rumania, etc.).
The workers could not of course trust such a government after overthrowing the tsarist monarchy in a fight for peace, bread and freedom. They saw immediately that Guchkov, Milyukov and Co. had wrested victory from the hands of working people because Russian landlords and capitalists were well prepared, organized, and relied on the power of capital, the wealth of Russian, English and French capitalists, these two the world's richest. The workers realized from the outset that the labouring classes, workers, soldiers and peasants, had to organize themselves independently, to close ranks and unite against the capitalists in order to fight for peace, bread, and freedom.
Thus St. Petersburg workers immediately after overthrowing the tsarist monarchy set up their own Soviet of Workers' Deputies, bolstered it and begat more Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies. Within a few days the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies had over 1,500 deputies dressed in a soldier's uniform. It enjoyed such wide confidence among railway workers and among all labourers that it began to resemble a genuine people's government.
And even the most faithful friends and patrons of Guchkov-Milyukov, the most faithful watchdogs of Anglo-French predatory capital—Robert Wilson the staff correspondent of The Times the richest newspaper of English capitalists and Charles Rivet the staff correspondent of Le Temps the richest paper of French capitalists—even they—after hurling curses at the Soviet of Workers' Deputies were obliged to admit that there are two governments in Russia. One is the landlord and capitalist government of the Guchkovs and Milyukovs, recognized by "everybody" who is wealthy. The other is the St. Petersburg Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies recognized by "no one" wealthy but trying to establish Soviets of Workers' and Soviets of Peasants' Deputies throughout Russia.
Let us now see what each of these two governments is saying and doing.
1. What is the landlord and capitalist government of Lvov-Guchkov-Milyukov doing?
It is handing out the most glowing promises right and left. It promises the fullest freedom. It promises to convene a Constituent Assembly to determine Russia's definitive form of government. Kerensky and the Cadet leaders sustain a democratic republic. The Guchkovs-Milyukovs are theatrical revolutionist stars. Their publicity machine is rolling at top speed.
But what about their deeds?
While promising freedom the new government discussed a restoration of the monarchy with the tsar's dynasty. It invited Mikhail Romanov to be the regent, a temporary tsar. The monarchy would have been restored had the Guchkovs and Milyukovs not been checked by workers parading through the streets of St. Petersburg with banners that read, "Land and Freedom! Death to the Tyrants!" The workers together with cavalry regiments gathered on the square opposite the Duma and unfurled banners that proclaimed, "Long Live Socialist Republics in All Countries!" Mikhail Romanov the ally of the Guchkovs-Milyukovs saw that as matters stood it was wiser to decline the offer pending a decision of the Constituent Assembly, and Russia stayed—provisionally—a republic.
The government did not deprive the former tsar of freedom, but workers compelled his arrest. The government wished to appoint Nikolai Nikolayevich Romanov head of the army, but workers forced his removal. Obviously had the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies not existed, the landlords, the Lvovs-Guchkovs, would have come to terms with a Romanov or with some other landowner.
The government declared in its manifesto to the people and in Milyukov's note to all Russian representatives abroad that it would respect all treaties signed by Russia, signed by the deposed tsar. The government does not dare to publish those treaties, first, because it is bound hand and foot to Russian, English and French capital, second, because it fears that the people would tear the Guchkovs and Milyukovs to pieces if they found out that the capitalists are willing to sacrifice another five or ten million workers and peasants to gain Constantinople, strangle Galicia, etc.
What, then, is the promised freedom worth if people are not allowed to read the treaties of the landowner tsar which condone the shedding of more and more soldiers' blood by the capitalists?
And what do the promises of sundry freedoms and even of a democratic republic mean to a people threatened with famine and whom they wish to lead blindfolded to the slaughter, so that Russian, English and French capitalists may plunder German capitalists?
Meanwhile the government of the Guchkovs and Milyukovs is repressing every attempt of Russian workers to reach an understanding with their brothers, the workers of other countries, by banning the international mailing of Pravda (it resumed publication in St. Petersburg after the revolution) or of the manifesto issued in St. Petersburg by the Central Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, our Party, or of the pronouncements of Duma Deputy Chkheidze and his group.
Workers and peasants! Certainly you are promised freedom—for the dead, for those who died of hunger or were slaughtered in the war!
The new government has not said a single word about land for the peasants or higher wages for the workers in any programme of theirs. No date has been set for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly or for elections to the St. Petersburg City Council. The people's militia is being put under the supervision of rural and urban Zemstovs which, according to Stolypin's law, were elected only by capitalist and by the richest landowners. Newly appointed governors come from the landowning class. And this is "freedom"!
2. What is the government of the workers and peasants doing, and what should it do?
(The manuscript ends here).
5. FAREWELL LETTER TO THE SWISS WORKERS.
Comrades, Swiss workers,
We the members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party united under a Central Committee (as opposed to the homonymous party united under an Organizing Committee) wish to convey our fraternal greetings and express our deep gratitude to you for your comradely embrace of the political émigrés. We are leaving Switzerland to continue our revolutionary-internationalist activity in our country.
[...]
In No. 47 of Sotsial-Democrat we gave a clear direct answer to a natural question, "What would our Party do if the revolution immediately lifted it to power?" Our answer was: (1) We would forthwith offer peace to all warring nations; (2) we would make our peace terms the immediate liberation of all colonies and all oppressed peoples; (3) we would initiate the liberation of all the peoples oppressed by the Great Russians immediately; and (4) we do not fool ourselves for a second, we know those terms would be unacceptable to both the monarchist and republican bourgeoisie of Germany, and not only to them but also to the capitalist governments of England and France. We would be forced to wage a revolutionary war against the German and other national bourgeoisies. And we would wage this war. We are not pacifists. We are opposed to imperialist wars over the division of spoils among capitalists, but we have always judged absurd for the revolutionary proletariat to disavow wars that may prove necessary in the interests of socialism.
[...]
Russia is a peasant country, one of Europe's most backward. Socialism cannot triumph there directly and immediately. But the peasant character of Russia, the vast reserve of land in the hands of the nobility, may, judging from the events of 1905, give tremendous sweep to the bourgeois-democratic revolution and may make our revolution the prologue of or a step toward the world socialist revolution. Our Party was born in and matured with an uncompromising fight against all other parties for ideas that have been fully confirmed by the experiences of 1905 and spring of 1917; and we shall continue to fight for those ideas.
Socialism cannot triumph directly and immediately in Russia, but the peasant mass can raise the inevitable agrarian upheaval to the point of confiscating the immense holdings of the nobility. This has always been our slogan and it has been brought out again in St. Petersburg by the Central Committee of our Party and by Pravda, our Party's newspaper. The proletariat will fight for this slogan without shutting its eyes to the inevitability of cruel class conflict between the agricultural labourers allied with the poorest peasants on one hand, and the rich peasants favoured by Stolypin's agrarian "reform" (1907-14) on the other.
One should remember that a hundred and four peasant deputies of the first two Dumas tabled a bill to nationalize all lands and redistribute them under the authority of local committees elected democratically. The passage of such a bill would not be socialism but it would give great impetus to the world labour movement, bolster the status of the Russian socialist proletariat immensely and increase its influence on agricultural labourers and poorest peasants. It would enable the urban proletariat to expand Soviets of Workers' Deputies, obviating the old instruments of oppression employed by bourgeois states, the Army, the police, the bureaucracy, and to carry out a series of revolutionary measures to control production and the distribution of goods, abetted by the unbearable dearth provoked by the imperialist war.
The Russian proletariat alone cannot bring the socialist revolution to a victorious conclusion, but it can bequeath the Russian revolution a mighty sweep that would nurture a socialist revolution and, in a sense, start it. It can foster a situation where its chief most trustworthy and most reliable ally, the European and American socialist proletariat, could join the decisive battles.
[...]
When our Party put forward the slogan, "Turn the imperialist war into a civil war," (civil war of the oppressed against the oppressors for the attainment of socialism) in November 1914, the social-patriots greeted it with abhorrence and malicious ridicule, and the Social-Democratic "Centre" with incredulous, sceptical, meek, expectant silence. David the German social-chauvinist and social-imperialist called it "insane" while Mr. Plekhanov the representative of Russian (and Anglo-French) social-chauvinism (socialism in words, imperialism in deeds) called it a "farcical dream." The representatives of the Centre confined themselves to silence or to cheap little jokes about a "straight line drawn in empty space."
After March 1917 only the blind can fail to see the slogan's worth. Transformation of the imperialist war into civil war is becoming a fact.
Long live the proletarian revolution that is beginning in Europe!
6. THE FEBRUARY THAW.
Petrograd: An imperial decree names Mr. Trepov new president of the State Council and minister of ?#! and communications in substitution of Mr. Sturmer whom the same decree appoints grand chamberlain. The meetings of the Duma and of the State Council have been postponed.
Paris: Reports from Petrograd indicate that the address the new president of the Council of Ministers will make to the Duma will have three parts.
In the first part of the address he will affirm the necessity of continuing the war until final victory is achieved in full consonance with the allies of the Muscovite empire.
He will devote the second part to remarks on how precise the Russian Government's joint work is regarding legislative institutions.
The head of the Muscovite Government will in the third part of his address make a detailed exposition of the measures that the Cabinet will undertake to organize the internal life of the country.
Poldhu (England): Trepov has declared in the Duma the confirmation of the agreement between the Russian government and the allies whereby these cede to Russia her right to the Dardanelles passage and to Constantinople.1
The Berliner Tageblatt informs from the Swedish capital:
A pamphlet entitled, "Why are we fighting?," edited by Sukhanov, a deputy of the Duma, has circulated in Russia these days.1 The tract raised great expectation in Russia and abroad particularly for not having been checked by the Censorship.
In this pamphlet the author endeavours to demonstrate clearly that there is in fact a community of interests between Russia and Germany.
The war is in the author's opinion merely a conflict between the old Anglo-French imperialism and the more modern German one. Russia has nothing to gain from an Anglo-French victory.
In regard to the British thesis that an economic war should follow on the heels of the military war, the author states that the fruition of such an idea would harm Russia.
England acquired us as a necessary ally without having to make any sacrifices of her own, says the author. This ally was destined to immolate himself on the altar of the interests of the Entente.
The publication of this pamphlet is interpreted by the Scandinavian press as a symptom of waning enthusiasm and an anxious desire for peace, not the least because it was written by a member of the Duma.
Petrograd (4): Mr. Trepov the new president of the Government has delivered an interesting speech in the Duma... [content outlined in El Progreso's article of November 29, 1916]. As the president of the Muscovite Government concluded his address there resounded protracted and fervent applause from all sides of the Chamber.
Petrograd (Madrid, 3:35 AM). The president of the Duma has submitted his resignation.
Petrograd: Mr. Rodzianko has been reelected president of the Duma with 255 votes in favour, 26 against.
Petrograd (Madrid, 16): The Duma has passed a motion to refuse any peace negotiations at this time.
Petrograd: The Duma has celebrated a session of the utmost importance. The Chamber was very animated. The point in the agenda was the peace terms offered by the central powers to the allied countries. Government representatives and the spokesmen for the various political parties delivered fiery discourses. The Duma resolved with most rigorous unanimity to reject the peace terms at this time.
Petrograd: The Duma has adjourned until January 25, 1917.
Paris: Telegraphs from Petrograd inform that the political situation remains uncertain. The new Government, like the preceding ones, belongs to the extreme right. The Duma continues opposing the government. Cabinet minister Protopopov was criticized "most fiercely" by Miliukov and the rest of the Liberals. The Duma is expected to resume sitting on January 25.
The sitting of the Duma has been postponed. The press objects.
Petrograd: The Czar received French minister Mr. Doumergue in an audience that lasted more than two hours.
Scarcity of food in Russia. The first session of the second legislative period of the Duma demonstrated the desperate situation of Russia due to the food crisis and to the inability of the government to alleviate it.
London: Telegraphs received from the Russian capital indicate normalcy.
London: The authorities of Petrograd have taken great precautions to bar the access of strikers to downtown. Soldiers were stationed on the Neva Bridge to that end. Nevertheless a large number of strikers managed to cross the bridge. There are no trams running. No disorders are reported so far.
Petrograd: The revolution in Russia. The revolution is officially confirmed.
London: Bonar Law has officially announced in the House of Commons the abdication of the Czar in favour of Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich.
Copenhaguen: Last Saturday (March 10, 1917) Petrograd resembled a battleground. People ransacked the shops and troops machine-gunned them; thousands of people gathered in front of a bakery; police and cavalry broke up the gatherings, but the people regrouped and assaulted several factories, plundering and demolishing the buildings.
Paris: Sturmer the former president of the Council of Ministers and Protopopov the Interior Minister were murdered; both were stigmatized Germanophiles.
The new government: President and Minister of the Interior: Prince Lvov. Prince Lvov was president of the Zemstovs Union and mayor of Moscow. Justice: "Saratov Kirnisky" (?). Revenue: Tereshchenko. State: Milyukov the head of the Cadets. Trade and Commerce: Konovalov. Transportation: Nekrasov the procurator of the Holy Synod.
The new heads of government were always outstanding friends of England and France and consequently are for continuing the war. Only a few newspapers reject the premise that the revolutionary events were provoked deliberately by the British ambassador in Petrograd. "The tight bond between the British Embassy and the revolutionary government endorses the assertion that what happened is a British revolution on Russian soil." Labour deputies of the Duma delivered violent speeches which were banned from publication.
Paris: The city was surprised by the swift pace of the revolutionary events in Russia.
London: Russian revolutionaries ransacked the archives of the secret police and burned all the files. The Minister of the Imperial House was arrested and his palace plundered. Mobs seized "Baron Kolpk" (?), tried, sentenced and executed him on the spot. A leader of the Labour Party saved an ex-Minister of War from the fury of the multitude.
Editorial (excerpt): There are two trends in the new constitutional government of Russia: the pro-war monarchist and the pro-peace republican-socialist. The present circumstances lead one to believe that the first party will prevail.
Nauen (Germany): Petrograd experienced isolated hunger riots up to the afternoon of March 10. The public got wind of a secret meeting scheduled for that night at the home of the president of the Duma, and thousands of people promptly surrounded the house. General "Potinanov" (?), long seen as a potential military leader of a revolt, attended the meeting. Duma deputy "Adskemov" (?) left the meeting and told the crowd on the street, "There won't be an Imperial Duma but a popular Duma tomorrow."
Excitement spread throughout the night. Armed civilians dug up street cobblestones and erected barricades and even trenches.
The city dawned in revolutionary mood on the 11th. At midday Rech the central organ of the Cadets published an imperial ukase adjourning the Duma. Simultaneously the Cadets assembled in their Club. The military commander of Petrograd went to the front to receive orders; his departure profited the work of the revolutionaries.
The first bloody confrontation took place in the night of the 11th to the 12th. Many soldiers sided with the revolution. Imperial troops kept control of the downtown area while revolutionaries held the opposite bank of the Neva River and set up their headquarters at the Finland Railway Station.
The revolution peaked on the 12th at noon. At 1:00 PM revolutionaries occupied all the public buildings, the telegraph and postal offices and the railway stations. Mobs broke into the homes of Ministers and arrested them.
On the morning of the 13th the majority of the troops formerly loyal to the Government went over to the side of the revolutionaries and these triumphed.
Petrograd: Large quantities of flour have arrived in the city, enough to satisfy the needs of the population.
Paris: The Czar is inside the railway coach that doubled as his military headquarters. The sovereign ordered the suppression of the insurrection and left for Petrograd but on his way he received a delegation of the Duma which informed him about the situation in the capital and persuaded him to abdicate in favour of his son in order to preserve the dynasty.
Petrograd: The hounding of the imperial police force continues. Banks and public offices will reopen tomorrow. The new Minister of Justice drew up a general amnesty for political prisoners.
Effects of the revolution: Russian troops on the front line cheered news of the revolution. Widespread enthusiasm reigns among the troops. Generals Brusilov and Alekseyev sent their allegiance to the revolution. Rifle fire persisted throughout the afternoon of the 15th as police fired from rooftops. Street demonstrators carry banners that say, "Liberty," "Equality" and "Brotherhood." Troops surround the Duma.
The Russian revolution followed a normal evolution: first it was the fictitious Duma (Bulygin), then a constitutional system and now the telegrams tell us that "the soldiers and the people wander over Petrograd's streets singing La Marseillaise." All these things are a natural consequence of the dynamic laws of politics; there is nothing new or extraordinary about them. Oppressed peoples always react and the Russian, crushed by so immoral and despotic a regime, has flung itself into revolution.
Great Russia produces two antipodean types whom reality and the novel have acquainted us with: those who graze moral sublimeness and fly straight like a proyectile to do their duty, and those who plunge to the utmost baseness which degraded souls are capable of, like Azef. Protopopov belonged to the second camp. His murder can not surprise in the swirl of loosened revolutionary passions, and it is even comprehensible that the Minister of the Interior should have been one of the first victims picked by the vindictive mobs.
Less than a year ago the eloquent and enthusiastic Protopopov was a radical vice president of the Duma. In mid-May he went to Paris as head of the Russian parliamentary Commission and his fine smiles garnered him the rapport of his French colleagues. Shortly afterward a day of great celebration arrived for the liberals of the Czarist empire. For the first time ever the Parliament had a representative of theirs in the Government: Protopopov had been made provisional Minister of the Interior.
How could one account for this sudden triumph of the Duma? Did the Government offer its collaboration frankly? The mystery did not take long to clear up. The new minister was the secret protégé of Rasputin the monk and his rise to power followed a mysterious conference between Council president Sturmer and a German agent in Stockholm. Sturmer denied that trip and so did Protopopov deny another trip to the Scandinavian city for the purpose of negotiating terms of peace between the two countries. The denial only served to expose the treachery of the old radical vice president of the Duma.
No longer having to wear a mask Protopopov became the bitterest enemy of his erstwhile friends, and they began to profess a cordial inextinguishible hatred toward him. Iron-willed and imperious in his decisions, the new minister subdued Sturmer very soon to the point of turning him into his instrument, and thus, after the Duma's stormy session of November 14, 1916, when Protopopov moved the dissolution of the Duma at the Council of Ministers, every minister voted against the motion except Sturmer the president.
The Czar did not wish to dissolve the Duma, so he deposed Sturmer. The parliamentarians believed that their principal adversary would vacate the Ministry of the Interior, so their surprise was not small when they found him chatting with Trepov.
The opposition that Trepov the new president discovered in the Chamber and the tumult that did not let him speak for the span of four hours were forms of protest directed over his head against his collaborator. Purishkevich, an ultra-reactionary converted to parliamentarism by the war, had already declared that the Duma and Protopopov could not coexist, and Count Brobinsky exclaimed in the same sesion, "There is not another man in all Russia who has managed to arouse greater mistrust or excite as much loathing as the Minister of the Interior. I respect his colleagues too much to assume that they can work with him." The Duma passed a resolution stating that "the changes to the Cabinet were not yet complete."
Faced with so much hostility Trepov essayed dumping his minister; but Nicholas II, who had deposed Sturmer on Protopopov's advice, dismissed Trepov (his best assistant) instead and ratifed the Chamber's foe in his post. What obscure influence sustained Protopopov after Rasputin's demise? The speakers of all the parties openly accused him of having mysterious dealings with the enemy to subscribe a separate peace and added that Russian Will the organ of his ministry was financed with German money. Yet his star shone brighter each day.
During the last Ministry his will found no obstacles. From interim he rose to actual minister. Prince Galitzine was a mere figurehead; the Power was held by Protopopov to the growing exasperation of his adversaries. The Council of the Empire which two months earlier inclined to the left now leaned to the right following on the footsteps of the violent minister. It was said that he purposed to lift the ban on the sale of alcohol to the people, then of gagging the Press: he ordered that no number should exit Russia to deny foreigners access to information about the domestic situation of the country.
In the month of January Protopopov ordered the dissolution of the Zemstvo Congress and of the Congress of the Union of Municipalities, routinely celebrated in Moscow. "To comprehend the magnitude of this provocation," wrote a Swiss newspaper, "it will suffice to say that Zemstvos and municipalities are the official organisms that have rendered immense services to Russia in the middle of the unbelievable administrative chaos prevailing, and they have been the most active toilers of resistance and victory."
Is this sufficient to quell passions? Yet Protopopov ambitioned much more. He desired (and said so during a speech) to ban all public meetings, to penalize any criticism of the Government and, in short, to dissolve the Duma, whose legal date of expiry approached, by proscribing new elections...It was too much!...The Duma could not resign itself to its own demise, and out of this attempt to dissolve it sprang the revolution.
Perhaps the revolution might be explained by a natural antagonism between revolution and bureaucracy, but the clash might perhaps have been postponed and even staved off had not Protopopov for several months ignited the stubborn resistance of one faction and store up enormous amounts of odium in the other.
Petrograd: On March 16 all Imperial coat-of-arms were removed from public buildings and burned. Soldiers pass through the streets singing La Marsellaise and fraternizing with the neighbourhood. There was great exultation when the cavalry headed to the Duma with a banner that read, "Long live the socialist Republic."
Paris: Reports from Petrograd state that the Constituent Assembly convened until 5:00 AM on March 14. It was resolved to postpone the elections until public order is restored. Kerensky accepted the post of Justice Minister.
Petrograd: The house of Count Fredericks was plundered and torched by revolutionaries. The elderly countess, almost breathless, was rescued from the flames. The count was taken to the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Petrograd: Common criminals released by the revolutionaries engage in all types of crimes and thefts disguised in military dress. An order was given to capture and shoot them.
Petrograd: The Constituent Assembly resolved to postpone the elections until the end of the war.
Nauen: The French and Italian ambassadors have met Milyukov; the British Embassy is guarded by soldiers and secret police.
Petrograd: Official reports put the number of dead in the revolution at four thousand. The number of victims caused by the revolution in the Imperial capital is two thousand five hundred. The casualties in Moscow were only seven wounded. The Justice Minister was almost assassinated by a captain of the Cavalry who, concealing a loaded revolver, solicited an audience with the minister. Upon being found out, the captain shot himself in the head. The news caused great commotion.
Paris: The mixed Committee of workers and soldiers (i.e., the Soviet) that was created as a result of the revolution increased the number of deputies to one thousand six hundred. Every member represents a thousand workers. This soviet will demand the immediate convening of a Constituent Assembly. It is believed a Republic will be proclaimed.
Moscow: The workers have voted by a big majority to return to work.
Petrograd: Factories have resumed operations; workers have petitioned for overtime hours at plants related to national defense. Railway traffic is restored. Tomorrow the trams will run. The provisional Government has decreed a general amnesty.
Stockholm: Petrograd's Stock Market Gazette announces the publication of letters between the Czarina and Protopopov which will clearly show the Czarist government's Germanophilia. Access to the palace of the Duma was blocked by Socialists demanding the destitution of the Monarchy and the replacement of the Army's top commanders.
Nauen: The Justice Minister of the Provisional Government decreed the arrest of the Czar and his transfer to Tsarkoiselo Palace. The Socialists demand that he be put on trial.
The Governor-General, the prefect and several members of monarchist clubs were arrested in Moscow.
The Czarina's personal guard resisted the arrest order until the revolution threatened to bombard the Palace. The Czarina received the governmental delegates calmly and begged them to view her not as Czarina but as the nurse of her sick children.
Bulgarian politician Malinov declared that he views the Russian revolution favourably because it signals the end of the war.
An interesting document published in Russia highlights the great morale of the troops in Moscow.
Petrograd: General Brusilov made his troops swear loyalty to the Provisional Government. They shouldered the general in triumphal ride after this oath was taken.
Stockholm: Russian revolutionaries sent a letter to the Scandinavian Socialists to inform them about the track of the Russian revolution. The letter affirms that the revolution originated with the workers and the soldiers.
Petrograd: The Government resolved to confiscate the holdings of the Romanov dynasty.
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