Heroic Story of the Czecho-Slovak Legions/The Russian revolution
VI.
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.
The scenes witnessed by the Czecho-Slovaks at the outbreak of the revolution, and in which they at first joined with enthusiastic demonstrations, are described by Captain “S.“ in the following narrative. The first impression of the Czechs was that all the difficulties which they had encountered from the old régime would now be removed, and that they would receive encouragement and help from the Republic, which they had not received from the Empire. Their joy was of short duration. Captain “S.“ continued his story as follows:
My apprenticeship was short. I learned little about mechanics, but much about revolutions. I had little expected such an upheaval when in Turkestan. The day I arrived at Rostov, a town of over 70,000 inhabitants and full of workmen and factories, everything was quiet. There were already 1,700 Czechs at the works to which I was sent. I was introduced into a workshop and assigned to a machine for cutting the threads on the covers of shells. I was to look on for two days and learn. On the second day all about my apprenticeship was forgotten. The workmen came in, talking with excitement. A strange rumour was going about the town. There had been a revolution in Petrograd, the Tsar had abdicated, and the Republic had been proclaimed. When the news reached the telegraph and telephone offices the public officials would not believe it. They asked for connection with Moscow and Petrograd. Petrograd was cut off. But communications with Moscow continued, and it kept confirming the news and adding many details.
It was impossible, in the excitement, to work, and after a few hours the factory was closed. All the workmen rushed out into the streets. They formed excited gatherings, and the Czechs joined them. Some workmen must have got to the bell towers, for all the bells started ringing, the faclories joined with their whistles and blew off steam. The Russians in our factory numbered about 4,500, and the 1,700 Czechs joined them, parading through the town. The workmen in the other factories did the same thing, and their wives and children came out, and all paraded through the town. There was an excitement and a movement among that working population which I shall never forget.
CHEERING THE REPUBLIC.
All the pent-up feelings, all the long-suppressed emotions, exploded. Men got on boxes, on doorsteps, on balconies, on carts and wagons, and made speeches. Everybody applauded, waved hands, handkerchiefs, and hats, and cheered the revolution. Profesor Maxa, one of our leaders, who was the delegate of our Provisional Government at Rostov, made a speech, first in Russian, then in Czech. He exalted and glorified the Russians for what they had done. He exhorted us Czechs to be ready and do the same. But first we should have to work and fight, and fight and work, till Austria and Germany, the last autocracies in the world, were crushed. All the nations on earth would be democracies. He foresaw a glorious future for Russia, and woe and speedy destruction for the German and Austrian autocracies. Alas! He little anticipated, little did any of us anticipate, that the new Russian Republic would soon fall to pieces, and that the crushing of Germany and Austria would have to be the work of others. But we were frantic enthusiasts. The “Republic“ made us delirious.
Our factory consisted of six buildings. No work was done for several days in any of them. But in all the excitement there were some signs of moderation. The better-minded among the workmen tried to calm their comrades. They made speeches full of common sense. They said: “We must show ourselves worthy of revolution. We must work more diligently than ever. Before, we worked for the Tsar, now we work for ourselves, for our wives and families. We must be a credit to the Republic. We must see that our soldiers at the front don’t lack ammunition to fight the Germans. Get to work, men, and do your duty. That is the best way to help the Republic.“ When they said this we Czechs applauded unanimously. Our men got up and made similar speeches. I also stood on a box and spoke. But all this time work slackened at the factory. The men were loth to return. Speech-making and listening was a tempting form of idlenes. The foremen tried to establish order and threatened. They were threatened in turn with expulsion by the workmen.
EFFECTS OF INDUSTRY.
The Governor of the Province was removed. A new Mayor was appointed. A Commitee of Public Safety was constituted. A militia police was formed, the Imperial police having all disappeared. The rejoicings lasted about a week. The first Sunday was a holiday of holidays. The whole town was out parading. The garrison joined. All the local societies were out. We took a pride in falling in line too. The Czechs in the factories numbered nearly 3,000. There were 1,700 in our facfory, 600 at the foundery, 400 in the tannery, and a number of others scattered in different establishments. We celebrated the Russian Revolution with our own banners and marched behind the Russians. After about a week an effort was made to get the men to resume steady work. The men asked privileges. They had held meetings to demand new conditions, These were a rise in wages, shorter hours, and the right to choose their own foremen! Men who had been getting 10 roubles a day demanded 30; helps who had 3 roubles wanted 9; those who got only kopeks wanted roubles! I was to get 20 kopeks a day as an apprentice. I, too wanted a rise!
The factory belonged to a company with headquarters at Reval. They sent word that some concessions were to be made, but, naturally not to the extent the men demanded. The men took matters into their own hands, and discharged the director. He resisted, of, course, but eventually the company had to remove him. The foremen were removed by the men without consulting the directors of the company. A foreman who was disliked was simply placed by the men on a wheelbarrow and ignominiously wheeled out of the workshop and dumped in the yard.
Things went from bad to worse. The workmen got into the habit of idling. There was no authority in the shops. The Czechs continued working as before but this did not please the Russians. They said that the Czechs were doing too much work. Some of the ringleaders came round and hinted to us that we ought to do as they did, and not overwork ourselves. We did not like this interference. Our men continued to do their duty. I learned that the same things were happening in other factories and towns. Most of the technical work at that time was done by our engineers, who had volunteered to work instead of remaining in the prison camps. At Tsaritsin, Mariapol, and many factories near Kieff and Rostoff the Czechs had become directors. At Simferopol Kherson, and most of the works in the Crimea our men began to form the majority of the workers. In the Ural region they worked in the iron and coal mines, and tens of thousands were cutting wood in the forests. At Nijni Novgorod they loaded and unloaded the boats. Our engineers also took an important part in the construction of the railway in Murmansk.
BREAK-UP OF THE ARMY.
Perhaps the factories would have continued to work with a tolerable amount of regularity had the first revolution not been followed by others. The accession of Kerensky to power was the first real fatal blow. His decree authorising-in fact, prescribing—the formation of Soldiers’ and Workmen’s Councils was the beginnig of the end. Russia was like a madhouse in which the chief lunatics had assumed the direction. The soldiers began to come home from the front. They wandered with kit and rifle into the towns. They came, at first, as solitary deserters, and soon in swarms. We then learned what was going on at the front. The front was breaking up. It immediately opened the eyes of us Czechs. Russia was lost.
The soldiers asked no leave to get away from the front; they simply packed their kits, requisitioned their own trains, and travelled to the nearest towns. From these they found trains to other towns, and soon all Russia saw men coming home without leave or license. They walked into the factories, ten or twelve at a time, and told the workmen they had come to take their places. “You are getting thirty roubles a day. In the trenches we got nothing. It is now time for us to get thirty roubles a day.“ There was no resisting that argument once the flood was let loose. The workmen at home, however, were not to be dislodged so easily. They managed for some weeks, in fact, for a few months, to resist the tide of the deserters to some extent. They had the support of all other workers and the railwaymen. The deserters from the front could not come in such numbers as they wished. Had Russia not been a madhouse, governed by its chief madmen, there might still have been some salvation. Order might eventually have been brought out of the incipient chaos. But unfortunately day by day the elements of disorder got fresh encouragement.
We Czechs were the first to be compromised. To make room for the soldiers who had come home, we were told to get out of the factories. We were taking the bread out of their mouths and the roubles out of their pockets. About 700 Czechs were discharged from our factory and told to go and look for work in the country. There was nothing for us to do but to join the army.
FORETASTE OF BOLSHEVISM.
Before the Bolsheviks came we had a foretaste of the extremes to which things were tending Before two months were up there was already a mixture of Bolshevism in the speeches. Socialist leaders came from Petrograd and Moscow. They were received like apostles with wonder and admiration. They indulged in denunciations of the rich and the well-to-do classes. They said: “For whom did you work before the Revolution? For the rich. Who rode in fine carriages? Who travelled in first-class railway cars? The millionaires, the rich, and the Tsar. Now every workman is going to travel firstclass!“ Alas, before I left Russia saw every firstclass railway carriage knocked off the rails and hundreds of them lying in the ditches, wrecked and ruined. No workmen were riding in them. Their wives and children sat on them, haggard, cold, in rags, hungry and starving.
A reaction set in. Kerensky and his followers realised that things were going too far. They made frantic efforts at the last moment to Istop the train of anarchy which they had started, but which was going with all its weight and its mad passengers at a fantastic rate down the decline and into the abyss. Men came from Petrograd and Moscow to reason with the soldiers and the workmen’s councils. They recalled the origin of the war. They spoke of the solemn engagements which Russia had to fight with the Allies against Germany and Austria.
But their words were like a few drops of water on a blazing fire. Every day new speakers came, and one contradicted the other. The men worked two or three hours, then went out and listened to speeches. The worst came when the vodka cellars were re-opened. The sale had been forbidden since the beginning of the war; but the State factories had a large stock left in their cellars. This had been untouched. The revolutionaries longed for the cellars. The Workmen’s Councils decided to break into them. Then the flood-gates of Hell were opened. Vodka, pure alcohol, or “kishmishovka,“ were poured on the revolution, and anarchy blazed up more lurid than ever. Every workman got drunk, and a drunken Russian is ready for murder.
ARRIVAL OF LENIN.
Germany was observing the pandemonium with a sharper eye than the Allies. She was like the tiger watching to pounce upon her prey. The censorship became relayed. The papers had more news from Germany than from the Allies. It was not long before we learned of Lenin’s departure from Zurich for Russia. His name was little known then. Germany had decided to make him great. She embarked him on special train, with restaurant and sleeping cars for himself and his companions. The German Consul at Zurich saw him off. He travelled in state, a real first-class passenger, from Schaffhausen to Berlin. The German papers made no secret of it. On the contrary, it was the policy of the Germans to make this unknown personage important and to hall his entrance into Russia.
His journey through Sweden, his stay at Haparanda, and his free passage across the frontier, were all announced. I now remember well, but nobody had an idea then of the importance to Germany of this particular traveller. It is only after events that opened one’s eyes to the reasons why the Germans and the Socialist Press attached such importance to him. Of Trotsky we heard only later. But before Lenin entered Russia I already heard Bolshevik speakers. They came in May to confound the Mensheviks who had been sent out by Kerensky.
The first Bolshevik speech I heard was from a wild, crazy-looking emissary who had come from Moscow or Petrograd, and who had a sharp, piercing voice that suited his frantic gestures. He said: “Who wanted the war? Was it you or I? Was it any of us workmen? No, it was the Tsar, the rich, the millionaires! Who is fighting the war? Is it the Tsar, the rich, the millionaires? No, it is the workmen. It is for the rich you are made to fight. It is for the millionaires you are shedding your blood and pouring out your sweat. Stop bleeding, stop sweating, and put down the rich! They are hiding in the country. They are glad it you are killed. It will make your numbers smaller and theirs bigger. Is there anyone here who wants to go on with the war for the rich?“ Of course, all the workmen challenged in that tone shouted they did not.
The Bolshevik continued: “Russia is a great country. It is the greatest country on earth. It is ours. The land is ours. The rich have no right to it. You and I have a right to it. No one else. The banks, the railways, the fine houses and palaces are going to be ours. The money of the rich is yours. You have a right to ask it from them. If they don’t give it you have a right to take it. Take it all from them wherever you find it. This is the government the Bolsheviks will give you. If you accept our programme you will have everything. Now you have nothing. We will take the factories and give them to you. We will make the directors work and give them your pay, and you will be the directors and take their pay.“ By the end of May the men had given up all work and the factories were about to close.
FIRST CZECHO-SLOVAK DIVISION.
It was time for us to leave. A sad disappointment for us, it was. In three short months the Russian Revolution, which had raised hopes to the skies, had dashed them all to the ground. We already had come into conflict with the revolutionary elements, the workmen and the soldiers. First, they wanted our place in the factories. Then they wanted us out of the way altogether. Had we then had a distinct vision of the future we might have foreseen from the past what was in store for us. It was not for us to ask to go back to the prisoner camps The revolution was for suppressing them. We could not stay where we were, because we began to be a burden. Our only path lay to join our volunteer armies. Our men had already begun to flock to them. It was no longer for mere patriotic motives. Reasons of self-defence soon dictated it. Many of us began to feel the necessity, as it were, by instinct. Our ex-prisoners in all the stations of Siberia began to feel the need of a closer bond. Joining together and forming an army was the closest bond of all. Instinct, therefore, drove those who might have hesitated to seek enlistment. Luckily, the difficulties were no longer so great as a year before.
Our leaders had during the first days of the revolution urged upon the Revolutionary Government the need of forming our army. During the first two months Government hesitated, and seemed even more opposed to it than had been the Empire. But on the one hand, our great leader, M. Masaryk, came to Russia soon after the revolution, and on the other towards the end of May, Kerensky, seeing the Russian army fall to pieces, gladly authorised the formation of a Czecho-Slovak army, which would compensate some of the losses. He not only authorised, but with a sudden ardour encouraged the formation af our first division. M. Masaryk and our other patriotic leaders got energetically to work, and in a short time formed a brigade out of two regiments with the elements near Kieff, and by the month of June the first division was already formed.
I left Rostov on June 30, 1917. with 250 men, the last that had been left. As we departed from Rostov it was like leaving a town on fire. But other towns were the same. All were ablaze with revolutionary doings, factions fighting against factions, and nobody doing anything useful. It was a sad departure, and sadder for us after two years and more of exile, ex-prisoners, away from our country, and not knowing what would be the final outcome of it all, Would Bohemia independent after all? We kept up our hope, but Russia had disappointed us badly. It was now for us to fight either by ourselves all alone, or i some way join other Allied armies. It was for our leaders to decide
A NATIONAL ARMY.
We had lunch and dinner with M. Masaryk. In private conversation he explained his view to us officers. If the Russians now deserted their front it was our duty to take their places. It was sad for Russia, but we owed Russia a great deal, and in fighting for her we also fought for ourselves. We were to show the Russians that we were true soldiers. I returned to Borispol believing that before long I would be somewhere on the Russian front the once more fighting, but this time face to face with the Austrians and not as one of them, wearing their detested uniform.