Part 8 (1/2)
While the fighting was still going on, the president of the Duma sent the following telegram to the Czar:
The situation is grave. Anarchy reigns in the capital. The government is paralyzed. The transport of provisions and fuel is completely disorganized. General dissatisfaction is growing.
Irregular rifle-firing is occurring in the streets. It is necessary to charge immediately some person enjoying the confidence of the people to form a new government. It is impossible to linger. Any delay means death. Let us pray to G.o.d that the responsibility in this hour will not fall upon a crowned head.
RODZIANKO.
The Duma waited in vain that night for an answer from the Czar. The bourgeois elements in the Duma were terrified. Only the leaders of the different Socialist groups appeared to possess any idea of providing the revolutionary movement with proper direction. While the leaders of the bourgeois groups were proclaiming their conviction that the Revolution would be crushed in a few hours by the tens of thousands of troops in Petrograd who had not yet rebelled, the Socialist leaders were busy preparing plans to carry on the struggle. Even those Social Democrats who for various reasons had most earnestly tried to avert the Revolution gave themselves with whole-hearted enthusiasm to the task of organizing the revolutionary forces. Following the example set in the 1905 Revolution, there had been formed a central committee of the working-cla.s.s organizations to direct the movement. This body, composed of elected representatives of the unions and Socialist societies, was later known as the Council of Workmen's Deputies. It was this body which undertook the organization of the Revolution. This Revolution, unlike that of 1905, was initiated by the bourgeoisie, but its originators manifested little desire and less capacity to lead it.
When Monday morning came there was no longer an unorganized, planless ma.s.s confusedly opposing a carefully organized force, but a compact, well-organized, and skilfully led movement. Processions were formed, each under responsible directors with very definite instructions. As on the previous day, the police stationed upon roofs of buildings, and at various strategic points, fired upon the people. As on the previous day, also, the soldiers joined the Revolution and refused to shoot the people. The famous Guards' Regiment, long the pet and pride of the Czar, was the first to rebel. The soldiers killed the officer who ordered them to fire, and then with cheers joined the rebels. When the military authorities sent out another regiment to suppress the rebel Guards' Regiment they saw the new force go over to the Revolution in a body. Other regiments deserted in the same manner. The flower of the Russian army had joined the people in revolting against the Czar and the system of Czarism.
On the side of the revolutionists were now many thousands of well-trained soldiers, fully armed. Soon they took possession of the a.r.s.enal, after killing the commander. The soldiers made organized and systematic warfare upon the police. Every policeman seen was shot down, police stations were set on fire, and prisons were broken open and the prisoners released. The numerous political prisoners were triumphantly liberated and took their places in the revolutionary ranks. In rapid succession the great bastiles fell! Peter and Paul Fortress, scene of infinite martyrdom, fell into the hands of the revolutionary forces, and the prisoners, many of them heroes and martyrs of other uprisings, were set free amid frenzied cheering. The great Schlusselburg Fortress was likewise seized and emptied. With twenty-five thousand armed troops on their side, the revolutionists were practically masters of the capital. They attacked the headquarters of the hated Secret Service and made a vast, significantly symbolical bonfire of its archives.
Once more Rodzianko appealed to the Czar. It is no reflection upon Rodzianko's honesty, or upon his loyalty to the people, to say that he was appalled by the development of the struggle. He sympathized with the people in their demand for political democracy and would wage war to the end upon Czarism, but he feared the effect of the Revolution upon the army and the Allied cause. Moreover, he was a landowner, and he feared Socialism. In 1906 he had joined forces with the government when the Socialists led the ma.s.ses--and now the Socialist leaders were again at the head of the ma.s.ses.
Perhaps the result would have been otherwise if the Duma had followed up its repudiation of the government by openly and unreservedly placing itself at the head of the uprising. In any other country than Russia that would have been done, in all probability, but the Russian bourgeoisie was weak.
This was due, like so much else in Russia, to the backwardness of the industrial system. There was not a strong middle cla.s.s and, therefore, the bourgeoisie left the fighting to the working cla.s.s. Rodzianko's new appeal to the Czar was pathetic. When hundreds of dead and dying lay in the streets and in churches, hospitals, and other public buildings, he could still imagine that the Czar could save the situation: ”The situation is growing worse. It is necessary to take measures immediately, for to-morrow it will be too late,” he telegraphed. ”The last hour has struck to decide the fate of the country and of the dynasty.” Poor, short-sighted bourgeois!
It was already ”too late” for ”measures” by the weak-minded Nicholas II to avail. The ”fate of the country and of the dynasty” was already determined!
It was just as well that the Czar did not make any reply to the message.
The new ruler of Russia, King Demos, was speaking now. Workers and soldiers sent deputations to the Taurida Palace, where the Duma was sitting.
Rodzianko read to them the message he had sent to the Czar, but that was small comfort. Thousands of revolutionists, civilian and military, stormed the Taurida Palace and clamored to hear what the Socialists in the Duma had to say. In response to this demand Tchcheidze, Kerensky, Skobelev, and other Socialists from various groups appeared and addressed the people.
These men had a message to give; they understood the ferment and were part of it. They were of the Revolution--bone of its bone, flesh of its flesh, and so they were cheered again and again. And what a triumvirate they made, these leaders of the people! Tchcheidze, once a university professor, keen, cool, and as witty as George Bernard Shaw, listened to with the deference democracy always pays to intellect.
Kerensky, lawyer by profession, matchless as an orator, obviously the prophet and inspirer rather than the executive type; Skobelev, blunt, direct, and practical, a man little given to romantic illusions. It was Skobelev who made the announcement to the crowd outside the Taurida Palace that the old system was ended forever and that the Duma would create a Provisional Committee. He begged the workers and the soldiers to keep order, to refrain from violence against individuals, and to observe strict discipline. ”Freedom demands discipline and order,” he said.
That afternoon the Duma selected a temporary committee to restore order.
The committee, called the Duma Committee of Safety, consisted of twelve members, representing all the parties and groups in the Duma. The hastily formed committee of the workers met and decided to call on the workmen to hold immediate elections for the Council of Workmen's Deputies--the first meeting of which was to be held that evening. That this was a perilous thing to do the history of the First Revolution clearly showed, but no other course seemed open to the workers, in view of the att.i.tude of the bourgeoisie. On behalf of the Duma Committee, Rodzianko issued the following proclamation:
The Provisional Committee of the members of the Imperial Duma, aware of the grave conditions of internal disorder created by the measure of the old government, has found itself compelled to take into its hands the re-establishment of political and civil order.
In full consciousness of the responsibility of its decision, the Provisional Committee expresses its trust that the population and the army will help it in the difficult task of creating a new government which will comply with the wishes of the population, and be able to enjoy its confidence.
MICHAIL RODZIANKO, _Speaker of the Imperial Duma_.
February 27, 1917.[4]
That night the first formal session of the Council of Workmen's Deputies was held. Tchcheidze was elected president, Kerensky vice-president. The deputies had been elected by the working-men of many factories and by the members of Socialist organizations. It was not until the following day that soldiers' representatives were added and the words ”and Soldiers” added to the t.i.tle of the Council. At this first meeting the Council--a most moderate and capable body--called for a Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly on the basis of equal, direct, and secret universal suffrage. This demand was contained in an address to the people which read, in part:
To finish the struggle successfully in the interests of democracy, the people must create their own powerful organization.
The Council of the Workmen's Deputies, holding its session in the Imperial Duma, makes it its supreme task to organize the people's forces and their struggle for a final securing of political freedom and popular government in Russia.
We appeal to the entire population of the capital to rally around the Council, to form local committees in the various boroughs, and to take over the management of local affairs.
All together, with united forces, we will struggle for a final abolition of the old system and the calling of a Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly on the basis of universal, equal, direct, and secret suffrage.
This doc.u.ment is of the highest historical importance and merits close study. As already noted, Tchcheidze, leader of the Mensheviki, was president of the Council, and this appeal to the people shows how fully the moderate views of his group prevailed. Indeed, the manner in which the moderate counsels of the Mensheviki dominated the Council at a time of great excitement and pa.s.sion, when extremists might have been expected to obtain the lead, is one of the most remarkable features of the whole story of the Second Russian Revolution. It appeared at this time that the Russian proletariat had fully learned the tragic lessons of 1905-06.