Russia & The Struggle for Peace/Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE GOVERNMENT
AT first the war evoked an unusually proud and high-spirited feeling in Russia. It was a period of great moral elevation. A series of altruistic acts on the part of the Russian Government gratified the national vanity. The abolition of alcohol was not only felt as a pleasing moral victory; it also roused great hopes for the future. Vodka had always been the most devoted ally of the reaction in Russia. By means of vodka the people were kept in darkness and ignorance. All their sense of human worth and self-respect was drowned in vodka. In short, vodka was the chain of Russia's slavery. And while Russia was making this great cultural step forward, the bankruptcy of German Kultur made the Russian people all the more proud. While Germany was grinding Belgium underfoot, Russia was declaring the freedom of Poland and issuing manifestoes to the oppressed peoples of Austria, bringing them the glad message that Russia's armies were hastening to their rescue. Then Russia began the successful dash into East Prussia to save France. All this was really sufficient ground for pride and satisfaction. Thus there began a period of self-praise and self-admiration.
People went about in a mood of exaltation, carrying flags, cheering and expressing their joy. The Government was delighted, thinking that at last the Tsar and his people were to be welded together for ever. To celebrate this "union of the Tsar with his people" even the national flag was altered. A combination of the yellow Tsar's standard with the national tricolour represented the new reconciliation of Russia. Patriots began to wear small enamelled emblems of this unity in their buttonholes.
This idyllic beginning was a little shaken by the sudden and abrupt dissolution of the Duma. The Duma was so irreproachably loyal and patriotic that simple people could not understand why the Government did not want to co-operate with the people through the Duma. But this incident did not make a very serious breach at the moment. Russia was victorious; the armies were advancing; why worry the Government with such trifles? However, by and by, a kind of uneasiness began to steal in. Dark and undefined rumours began to get about, to the effect that all was not well in and about the army. It was said that there were too many German generals in the army. The famous generals with German names who had distinguished themselves in the suppression of the 1905 Revolution might not be equally reliable in the present war. Some of the rumours were obviously fantastic for instance, persistent stories, giving names and the details of the alleged occurrences, stated that the Grand Duke Nicholas, as Commander-in-Chief, was in the habit of boxing the ears of some of his Generals. And the remarkable thing is that people were inclined to believe this and equally absurd reports.
Then suddenly the storm broke. The defeat of the Russian armies in East Prussia revealed in a flash the corruption of the Government, the incompetence of the High Command, and the tragic inefficiency in the equipment of the army. It was the end of the idyll. The Government and the Court saw the spectre of defeat before them and shuddered.
The first to express misgivings were the "Black Hundred." They were the first to understand that all this popular enthusiasm for the war, followed by the abolition of vodka, the suspiciously democratic proclamation to the Poles and the far-reaching undertakings in Austria, would not lead to anything good. Altogether, this war was not to their taste. Suppose we crush Germany—terrible thought!—Wilhelm was always the great protector of our Autocracy. Germany is the only Christian country in Europe where the people have any decent respect for law and order and discipline! If the Allies crush Germany, it will lead to revolution in Germany—which God forbid—and then how long can the Autocracy hold out in Russia?
The "Black Hundred" reactionaries in Russia were certainly not averse to a victorious war. They would have welcomed any war which aimed at the conquest of "Tsargrad" (Constantinople) and the erection of the Holy Cross on St. Sophia. But what they could not abide was a war which led to the defeat of Germany—especially if it was a defeat of the German military autocracy at the hands of the Western democracies. The case of progressive society and the revolutionaries was just the opposite. They certainly had ample reason for misgivings at the prospect of a victorious and triumphant Tsarism. But their enthusiasm for a defeat of German militarism, which they regarded as the bulwark of reaction in Eastern Europe, was sufficient to outweigh such misgivings. Their fear of the consequences of a Tsarist victory was outweighed by their confidence in the results of a victory by the Western democracies. Thus we see that while progressive society advanced towards immediate revolutionism, the "Black Hundred" became more and more definite in their pro-Germanism. And the "Black Hundred" openly proclaimed their point of view in their newspapers, which were patronised and subsidised by the Government.
The chief organ of the "Black Hundreds," the "Russkoe Znamia" (The Banner of Russia), was so cynical and so unabashed in its defeatism that it was ever afterwards referred to in the progressive Russian Press as the "Prusskoe Znamia" (The Banner of Prussia). The "Rech," the organ of the Cadets, made a speciality of exposing the anti-national doctrines of the "Prusskoe Znamia," and it is significant that the "Black Hundred" organisations did not sue the "Rech" for libel, nor did the Government prosecute or suppress the " Black Hundred " papers. The other "Black Hundred" papers inclined towards the same point of view, but expressed it a little more mildly.
But the "Black Hundreds" were not content with merely expressing defeatist sympathies, or with propagating and spreading their views; they were themselves acting as defeatists. For instance, their share in the notorious Miassoiedov affair is undoubted. Not only were all the chief accomplices in this treachery influential members of "Black Hundred" organisations; but the whole spirit of "Miassoiedovism" was permeated with the defeatist ideology of the "Black Hundreds." It is a great misfortune that the Miassoiedov affair was never cleared up in its details. It was decided by a court-martial at the front, and thus the whole tragic reality of the business was hushed up and never came to light. This much, at any rate, is certain: Miassoiedov and his chief associates were intimate friends of the Minister for War and the Minister for the Interior, and they based their defence on the "Black Hundred" contention that the crushing of Germany would be more disastrous for Russia than the defeat of the Russian armies in the field.
They hinted that very influential members of the Government and high personages at the Court were in sympathy with their views; and they considered that they were fulfilling a very necessary function by helping the German armies. This was their defence. The traitors were executed, it is true, but the Government never made any attempt to investigate, to clear up or to refute the very grave allegations which the traitors made against members of the Government and the Court. Miassoiedov announced that the money they received from the Germans for their treacheries had been handed on to the "Black Hundred" organisations. But even this was never investigated.
The doubts which were sown in people's minds by this affair were accentuated by the fact that the conduct of General Rennenkampf, whose incompetence or suspicious behaviour was considered as the chief cause of the disaster in East Prussia, was never investigated. People had a fixed idea that Rennenkampf was in collusion with the Germans, and yet nothing was done by the Government. Rennenkampf's name was simply dropped from the official reports, and no more was heard of him. This naturally gave rise to the suspicion that some high personage might be shielding him.
The Court and the militarists, who had started out on a victorious war as a means of preventing revolution, began to see that the war, if unsuccessful, might have just the opposite effect. And from that moment they lived in a perpetual dread of revolution, and their one thought was of how to prevent it. Their anxiety increased as the war went on, for they saw that the war was spending their best and most trusted forces. The enormous casualties in the Imperial Guards and other ultra-loyal units during the heroic offensive in East Prussia were realised as a severe blow to the potential strength of the Government in case of a rebellion. Those who were not killed in that offensive became inspired with a more real patriotism and permeated with hatred and indignation against the corrupt and inefficient Government. The Court began to look about for new sources of strength. Then began the game which became known in Russia as "political leap-frog": I refer to the feverish and repeated changes of Ministers, notably of Ministers of the Interior. Every adventurer who came to the Tsar with an elaborate scheme for checkmating the forces of revolution was received with open arms. The idea of crushing the coming Revolution by efficient police forces is generally attributed to Protopopov. It is true that Protopopov specially trained the police for the coming Revolution and equipped it with machine guns. But as a matter of fact all his predecessors during the war paid great attention to the police forces, and foresaw that in case of Revolution the police would have to take the place of the depleted Guards.
There is a very remarkable parallelism between the attitude of the people towards the coming Revolution and that of the Government. At first the people had thought that the Revolution could be deferred till after the war. Only gradually and very reluctantly they came to the conclusion that the Revolution would have to take place during the war and in spite of it.
The Government went through an analogous transition in their thought. At first they thought that the Revolution would be killed by the war and swamped by war enthusiasm. But when threatening defeat opened the eyes of the Government to realities, they began to be terribly afraid of revolution. But they, too, expected that revolution would not take place till after the war. However, as the spirit of revolution grew stronger at the one pole and the defeatist mood gained ground at the other, the Government began to feel that the sooner the war was over, the more easily they could crush the Revolution. Thus the Government, which had begun the war with the idea of avoiding the Revolution, came to the idea of making peace in order to prevent the Revolution.
In this country and in France attempts have recently been made to deny that the Tsar's Government ever entertained the idea of a separate peace. I do not want to discuss the motives of this manœuvre, but I would only like to emphasise that this whitewashing of the Tsar's Government contradicts all the established facts. A separate peace was not concluded, not because the Government did not cherish the idea, but because it was afraid of the army and the people. As soon as the rumours of an intended separate peace became more definite, such an outcry was raised by the people and the army that the Government hastened to withdraw the idea in favour of a renewed outburst of warlike ardour. This is the origin of the periodical declarations of the Tsar and the Government about "war to the finish" and so forth.
The Government was in a dilemma. Then came Protopopov, and introduced his project for saving the country from revolution. His programme was simple and ingenious. He argued: you cannot make peace at once because it will arouse universal indignation and make the revolutionary forces absolutely irresistible. You cannot wait till the end of the war, because you do not know how the war is going to end and whether the forces of revolution will not be stronger than ever. You must crush the revolutionary forces at once before it is too late. When you have done with the revolutionaries you are free to do what you like. You can then go on with the war, or you can stop it, at your pleasure. Protopopov was hailed by the Court and the "Black Hundreds" as a saviour. Never was a Minister more powerful. He was allowed to proceed with his project undisturbed, and he went straight to his goal. He increased the police forces of Petrograd, equipped them with machine guns taken from the army, made machine-gun emplacements on the roofs of the houses, trained the police for their task, and said "We are ready."