Russia & The Struggle for Peace/Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE CLASH
WHO made the Revolution, and how was the Revolution accomplished? One would imagine that nothing could be simpler than the answer to this question. All the phases of the Revolution were enacted quite openly; nay, more, all the preliminary stages, the events which led up to the Revolution, took place in the public view. The revolutionary spirit was growing visibly; revolution and counter-revolution were mustering their forces without making any secret about it.
And yet an absurd confusion has arisen, not only about the details of the Revolution, but even about its outstanding events. For instance, in this country it has become fashionable to consider that the Revolution was made by the Duma, and that the workers with their Soviets usurped the power which rightly belonged to Russian Liberalism. This idea has taken root so firmly in this country that anyone who says anything to the contrary is liable to be branded as an anarchist—even if he merely suggests that the workers played the chief part in the Revolution.
This attempt to represent the Duma as the author of the Revolution, though it is a sheer perversion of perfectly evident facts, is none the less comprehensible. For the question of who made the Revolution involves the question of what the Revolution stands for. Having accused the workers and soldiers of usurping the power which was won by the Duma, one can then declare that all the ideals of the Soviets were alien to the Revolution and not inherent in it. Then one can begin a "holy war" (i.e., really counter-revolution), not in the name of counter-revolution, but in the name of the "real Revolution," defending it from the Soviets, the "anarchists" and "usurpers."
The first point of confusion is the question: Was the Revolution provoked by the Government? Those who adhere to the theory that the Duma created the Revolution affirm that "to imagine that he (Protopopov) 'provoked' the Revolution would be to accept a palpable absurdity."[1] According to the majority of observers in Russia, the provocation of the Revolution was, however, to say the least of it, a palpable fact. It was deliberately organised many weeks in advance of the Revolution.
This is indicated by a whole series of Government measures—measures which were utterly senseless except on the assumption that they were deliberately intended to provoke revolt. First there was the sudden and unfounded arrest of the Workers' representatives in the War Industrial Committee, which was bound to arouse the greatest possible indignation among the munition workers. Then there were the aggressive proclamations of the Military Commandant of the Petrograd district, Habalov, especially the one which was issued on the day of the opening of the Duma, a fortnight before the Revolution. These proclamations threatened to crush by force any attempted demonstrations; but there were in fact no crowds in the Petrograd streets at that time except the food queues. There was no reason for these proclamations, but their phraseology and style were familiar to the people of Petrograd. They were not invented by Habalov or Protopopov; they represented the traditional form in which the most ruthless use of the iron hand of oppression had been announced in Russia many times before. It was not the first time that risings were provoked by such threats in advance.
But of all the provocative actions of the Government, the most significant were their dark manœuvres in dealing with the bread supply. In the midst of a prolonged food crisis, which was already making the population very nervous, there was a sudden fall in the supply of bread. The bakers' shops were empty, but the Government made repeated declarations insisting that there was no diminution in the supply of flour to the bakers, and suggesting that it was the bakers themselves who were withholding bread from the people. This provoked intense excitement among the people, who began to loot the bakers' shops, and the bakers hastened to close down. By means of these obvious lies and manœuvres the bread crisis was purposely aggravated.
Altogether, the behaviour of the Government during the last few weeks before the Revolution was without rhyme or reason, except on the assumption that they were inviting a premature rising. Next to the deliberate muddle with the food supply, the most significant thing was the action of the Tsar in relation to the Duma. On the very day of its opening, he invested the Prime Minister with an undated Ukaz for its prorogation, which the Government was at liberty to issue when it liked. Had the Government not intended to provoke revolution, they would undoubtedly have endeavoured to meet it half-way, and to forestall it by granting reforms. But the Tsar and the Government, confident that they could rely on the support of the army at the front, continued to aggravate the excitement of the people and to incense them to the point of revolt.
The rôle of the Tsar in the Revolution has been obscure from the very beginning. Lately there have been particularly obvious attempts to draw a veil over the part which he played. It has been said that the Tsar did not know what was going on in Petrograd, that the messages which were sent to him by Rodzianko and other members of the Duma were intercepted by the Palace Commandant, and so forth. But as a matter of fact the Tsar played a most active part in the Revolution. He knew all that was going on in Petrograd. He was in constant communication by special wire with the Empress at Tsarskoe Selo; and the Empress in turn was connected by special wire with Protopopov. The Tsar knew that a revolt was going to be provoked, and he was getting ready. On Saturday, on the eve of the Revolution, when the Government suddenly perceived that the revolutionary spirit was rising to dangerous heights, when they saw that the garrison was not reliable and that even the Cossacks were inclined to fraternise with the people, they decided to climb down on the most crucial question of the food supply. They consented to hand over the food supplies to the Zemstvos. This amounted to a virtual capitulation on the most important point. But then a very curious thing happened. In the first place, the concessions to the Zemstvos were not announced to the people. Instead, the Government came out on Sunday morning with a violent and arrogant proclamation, which practically inaugurated a state of siege. Instead of announcing the concessions and thereby pacifying the people, they issued this provocative proclamation, which could only have one effect: to transform the latent unrest and indignation into open revolt. This was followed by the prorogation of the Duma and the Revolution began.
Whence came this sudden stiffening in the attitude of the Government? The Government were beginning to be frightened by the defiant spirit of the Petrograd garrison, and had already begun to climb down. Their sudden return to high-handed and provocative methods is to be explained by the arrival of orders from the Tsar at headquarters. The Tsar told them to hold on till the arrival of troops from the front. They were informed that troops were on their way to the capital under General Ivanov. These troops did not reach Petrograd: the railway workers, who were on the side of the Revolution, refused to convey them.
What now was the attitude of the Duma? To the very last moment, their attitude was thoroughly loyal to the Tsar and to the Monarchy. The moderate majority of the Duma were indignant with the Government for their inefficient and reactionary conduct; they were angry with the Tsaritsa and even with the Tsar; but they never went a step farther than the Monarchist mentality would allow. At the last moment, when Petrograd was in the hands of the revolutionary forces, they were still sending messages to the Tsar imploring him to grant reforms. They were afraid of revolution; they wanted urgent reforms and an efficient conduct of the war. Only when they saw that if they did not join the Revolution the Revolution would do without them—only then did they drop their loyalty to the Tsardom and come out openly on the side of the Revolution. Even after the Socialists had taken the leadership of the Revolution and the whole garrison had gone over, the right wing of the Duma was still persevering in its loyalty to Nicholas II., while the left wing (Miliukov) dreamed of a Constitutional Monarchy under the Tsarevich as Tsar.
So much for the Tsar and the Duma. The Tsar and his Government deliberately provoked an early Revolution; the Duma did not make the Revolution, but, on the contrary, tried to annul its effects. There remained the workers and soldiers.
The soldiers themselves would have revolted of their own accord sooner or later; their sufferings and humiliations under the old disciplinary system had become well-nigh unbearable. As it was, they saw the revolution of the people and sympathised. It was their chance of revolution against their own evils; they could not hold aloof. They saved the Revolution by joining the people. Protopopov was defeated by his miscalculation on the attitude of the Petrograd garrison. He knew and expected that some units would probably waver; but he never dreamt that the revolutionary contagion would spread so far and so fast. Nor will history blame him especially for want of insight: nobody expected the wonderful conversion that took place. It was a miracle. And the Tsar was defeated by a similar turning of the tables, when the soldiers at the front stood faithful not to him but to the Revolution.
By their support the soldiers saved the Revolution. But it was not they who initiated it. It was the workers. It was the workers who went out on to the streets to fight it out with Protopopov's police and (as they expected) with the garrison. The soldiers joined them; thus they liberated Russia from the brutal yoke of the reaction. But they did more. They upheld the Revolution as a revolution against the Monarchy, and resisted all attempts to degrade it into a mere overthrow of the existing Government. They vetoed the Duma's project of proclaiming Russia a Constitutional Monarchy. In a critical moment they upheld the character of the Revolution, opening wide the doors for a real regeneration of Russia.
We may now pass on to the very important question of the foundation and organisation of the institutions of the Revolution: the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Delegates and the Provisional Government. The rapidity with which the Soviet came into being is simply marvellous, considering the complete absence of any kind of open and legal political organisation of workers up to the Revolution. The first manifesto of the Soviet to the workers and soldiers, calling on them to send delegates, was issued on Monday morning, at the very beginning of the soldiers' revolt. This manifesto formed a kind of rallying point for the revolutionary people and for the soldiers who were in revolt; it undoubtedly did a great deal to give the rising a better organised and more definite character. The first sitting of the Soviet took place on the same day. From the very first the delegates were exceedingly practical and objective; they formulated their task with remarkable clarity. Being conscious that the workers were in the vanguard of the Revolution, they still did not consider themselves as a purely class organisation. They spoke in the name of the people, of the democracy; not in the name of a class. They issued their appeal "to all the inhabitants of Petrograd." On this first Monday, when the Tsar was not yet deposed, and the Provisional Government did not yet exist, they formulated their chief demand: "To join forces an fighting for a complete overthrow of the old order; and for the convocation of a Constituent Assembly."
So much for the Soviet. The other organisation formed in the first days of the Revolution was the Provisional Committee of the Duma. But while the workers were bearing the whole weight of responsibility of revolutionary leadership, and running all the risks, the Duma, as I already mentioned, wavered and hesitated. The Duma did not begin to act until the Revolution was already achieved. Only when the revolutionary army came to the Duma and expressed to Rodzianko the will of the army that the old Government should be swept away—only then did the Duma leaders decide to act. But even then the Duma elements did not break with the Tsar and with Tsarism. Rodzianko still went to the Tsar's Government at its invitation to consult with it. As Mr. Wilton, the great partisan of Rodzianko and the "Duma" theory, says: "He (Rodzianko) hoped to learn from them that the Tsar had summoned a Duma Government. He found all the Ministers assembled, and also the Grand Duke Michael. But they had no news."[2] This consultation would have led to a Government under the Grand Duke Michael as Regent, except for the resistance of the then War Minister, General Belaiev, who refused to violate his allegiance to the Tsar. The failure of this consultation, which was going on while the Soviet was already formulating its revolutionary programme, led to the formation of the Provisional Committee of the Duma.
Thus the two forces of the Revolution—the Soviet of Workers and Soldiers and the Provisional Committee of the Duma—were formed.
The initiative for the creation of the Provisional Government came from the Duma Committee. The Soviet was consolidating the enormous popular forces which came under its leadership, and had the Duma Committee not taken the initiative in forming the Provisional Government at that moment, it would probably have been formed a day or two later on the initiative of the Soviet.[3] A Government formed on the initiative and under the auspices of the Soviet would certainly have been quite different in spirit, and the fortunes of the Revolution would have been very different in that case. As it was, the Soviet had to formulate the conditions of its adherence to the Provisional Government formed by the Duma Committee.
The succeeding days were marked by an unexampled revolutionary joy and enthusiasm, which caught the moderates no less than the revolutionary workers; it even infected the reactionaries. The whole of Russia was experiencing a kind of spiritual upheaval which nothing could resist. It was in this atmosphere that the moderate elements began to co-operate with the revolutionary democracy.
The moderate elements of the Duma, which only yesterday were communicating with the Tsar, were so carried away by the greatness of the revolutionary impetus that at this moment they were quite transformed. They actually believed in the programme of the revolutionary democracy, and were ready to adopt it. Thus, when the Soviet laid their programme before the Duma Committee, it was unexpectedly accepted, with a single reservation of which we shall speak presently. The Soviet abstained from joining the Provisional Government for two reasons. One was their traditional principle, as Socialists, of taking no part in bourgeois Governments; the other was the fact that it appeared to them quite unnecessary. The Provisional Committee had accepted their programme; they considered it more profitable in the interests of the democracy to exert pressure from outside. Only Kerenski, who was Vice-President of the Soviet Executive, joined the Government on his own risk. He resigned his position in the Soviet, but the Soviet re-elected him and expressed their confidence in him. In the Provisional Government Kerenski alone represented the true democratic principle.
The one point in the Soviet's demands which was not accepted as part of the famous programme of the Provisional Government was point 3, which demanded "abstention from all activities prejudicial to the question of the form of the future Government." And that was at a time when the Tsar was still technically on the throne and the monarchy had not yet been definitely discarded. It is interesting to note that the greatest opposition to this point came from Miliukov and the Cadet Party. There was a great struggle, but the Soviet had so great a faith in the Republican ideals of the Russian people that they did not consider it worth while to break off on this point. They were so sure that the people would reject the monarchy, that they consented to the adoption of their programme without this point.
The successful formation of this Provisional Government was the surprise, and at the same time the great misfortune, of the Revolution. The Revolution had certain clear and definite issues to solve. If they were not solved, it had missed its purpose. First it had to solve the political question: to abolish the autocracy and create a democratic republic. This task was entrusted to a Government which had no connection with Republican traditions, which consisted in the main of convinced partisans of the monarchist principle. Then the Revolution had to solve the land question. Without opening the land to the peasantry and satisfying the peasants' "hunger for land," the Revolution would be in vain. This great reform was to be carried out by a Government of landowners and politicians who were the avowed enemies of nationalisation of land. Similarly the Revolution had the great task of democratising the foreign policy of Russia and of abolishing all Imperialistic aims. And for the post of Foreign Minister was chosen Miliukov, the most consistent Imperialist of Russia. Finally the Revolution had the task of democratising the army, a task which was of vital importance to the success of the Revolution and the stability of the State. This task was entrusted to the new War Minister, Guchkov, who was the last person, to think of carrying out such a policy.
In a few days the wonderful atmosphere of revolution which led to this extraordinary union between the revolutionary and moderate elements had passed by. The Provisional Government honestly tried to fulfil their obligations and to carry out their adopted programme, but it went against the grain. Their real feelings and opinions asserted themselves more and more, and one point after another was shelved or indefinitely postponed. Then began the fatal disagreements and the still more fatal compromises between the Provisional Government and the revolutionary democracy.
- ↑ Mr. Wilton, "Russia's Agony," p. 104. Mr. Wilton says at this point: "He (Protopopov) was not yet a lunatic, and nothing short of complete insanity could have impelled him into such courses." I am by no means of opinion that it is necessary to postulate Protopopov's madness in order to explain the deliberate provocation of the Revolution. The provocation policy was based on a miscalculation as to the eventual attitude of the army. But it is interesting to note that even Mr. Wilton's argument breaks down on his own showing. In an earlier chapter entitled "Razputinism," Mr. Wilton shows that Protopopov was really insane; and in the very chapter from which the above quotation is taken, he says (p. 107), "Protopopov had succumbed to nervous prostration on the Saturday" (i.e., on the eve of the Revolution). And in the same chapter, on p. 114: "Habalov lent himself to a 'brilliant idea' emanating from the half crazed Minister (Protopopov): to dress up the police as soldiers." (Italics are mine.)
- ↑ "Russia's Agony," p. 121.
- ↑ In the Supplementary Edition to "Izvestia," No. 1, Feb. 28th (two days before the Provisional Government was formed), a Manifesto of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers' Party "to all Citizens of Russia" clearly indicates that the revolutionaries had the clear idea that they themselves must form a Provisional Government of Russia. "… It is the duty of the working class and of the revolutionary army to create a Provisional Revolutionary Government, which shall lead the newly born Republican order. . . . .
"The workers in the factories and the revolutionary army must at once elect their representatives for the provisional revolutionary government, which must be formed under the protection of the revolutionary people and army who have risen against the old order."