Ten Days That Shook the World Part 11

Our troops have left Gatchina in order to avoid bloodshed between themselves and their mistaken brother-Cossacks, and in order to take a more convenient position, which is at present so strong that if Kerensky and his companions in arms should even increase their forces ten times, still there would be no cause for anxiety. The spirit of our troops is excellent.

In Petrograd all is quiet.

Chief of the Defence of Petrograd and the Petrograd District, Lieutenant-Colonel Muraviov.

As we left the Military Revolutionary Committee Antonov entered, a paper in his hand, looking like a corpse.

"Send this," said he.

TO ALL DISTRICT SOVIETS OF WORKERS' DEPUTIES AND FACTORYSHOP COMMITTEES.

The Kornilovist bands of Kerensky are threatening the approaches to the capital. All the necessary orders have been given to crush mercilessly the counter-revolutionary attempt against the people and its conquests.

The Army and the Red Guard of the Revolution are in need of the immediate support of the workers.

WE ORDER THE WARD SOVIETS AND FACTORY-SHOP COMMITTEES: 1. To move out the greatest possible number of workers for the digging of trenches, the erection of barricades and reinforcing of wire entanglements.

2. Wherever it shall be necessary for this purpose to stop work at the factories this shall be done immediately.

3. All common and barbed wire available must be a.s.sembled, and also all implements for the digging of trenches and the erection of barricades.

4. All available arms must be taken.

5. THE STRICTEST DISCIPLINE IS TO BE OBSERVED, AND EVERY ONE MUST BE READY TO SUPPORT THE ARMY OF THE REVOLUTION BY ALL MEANS.

_Chairman of the Petrograd Soviet of Worker's and Soldiers' Deputies,_ People's Commissar LEON TROTZKY.

Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Committee, Commander in Chief PODVOISKY.

As we came out into the dark and gloomy day all around the grey horizon factory whistles were blowing, a hoa.r.s.e and nervous sound, full of foreboding. By tens of thousands the working-people poured out, men and women; by tens of thousands the humming slums belched out their dun and miserable hordes. Red Petrograd was in danger! Cossacks! South and southwest they poured through the shabby streets toward the Moskovsky Gate, men, women and children, with rifles, picks, spades, rolls of wire, cartridge-belts over their working clothes.... Such an immense, spontaneous outpouring of a city never was seen! They rolled along torrent-like, companies of soldiers borne with them, guns, motor-trucks, wagons-the revolutionary proletariat defending with its breast the capital of the Workers' and Peasants' Republic!

Before the door of Smolny was an automobile. A slight man with thick gla.s.ses magnifying his red-rimmed eyes, his speech a painful effort, stood leaning against a mud-guard with his hands in the pockets of a shabby raglan. A great bearded sailor, with the clear eyes of youth, prowled restlessly about, absently toying with an enormous blue-steel revolver, which never left his hand. These were Antonov and Dybenko.

Some soldiers were trying to fasten two military bicycles on the running-board. The chauffeur violently protested; the enamel would get scratched, he said. True, he was a Bolshevik, and the automobile was commandeered from a bourgeois; true, the bicycles were for the use of orderlies. But the chauffeur's professional pride was revolted.... So the bicycles were abandoned....

The People's Commissars for War and Marine were going to inspect the revolutionary front-wherever that was. Could we go with them? Certainly not. The automobile only held five-the two Commissars, two orderlies and the chauffeur. However, a Russian acquaintance of mine, whom I will call Trusishka, calmly got in and sat down, nor could any argument dislodge him....

I see no reason to doubt Trusishka's story of the journey. As they went down the Suvorovsky Prospect some one mentioned food. They might be out three or four days, in a country indifferently well provisioned. They stopped the car. Money? The Commissar of War looked through his pockets-he hadn't a kopek. The Commissar of Marine was broke. So was the chauffeur. Trusishka bought the provisions....

Just as they turned into the Nevsky a tire blew out.

"What shall we do?" asked Antonov.

"Commandeer another machine!" suggested Dybenko, waving his revolver. Antonov stood in the middle of the street and signalled a pa.s.sing machine, driven by a soldier.

"I want that machine," said Antonov.

"You won't get it," responded the soldier.

"Do you know who I am?" Antonov produced a paper upon which was written that he had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of all the armies of the Russian Republic, and that every one should obey him without question.

"I don't care if you're the devil himself," said the soldier, hotly. "This machine belongs to the First Machine-Gun Regiment, and we're carrying ammunition in it, and you can't have it...."

The difficulty, however, was solved by the appearance of an old battered taxi-cab, flying the Italian flag. (In time of trouble private cars were registered in the name of foreign consulates, so as to be safe from requisition.) From the interior of this was dislodged a fat citizen in an expensive fur coat, and the party continued on its way.

Arrived at Narvskaya Zastava, about ten miles out, Antonov called for the commandant of the Red Guard. He was led to the edge of the town, where some few hundred workmen had dug trenches and were waiting for the Cossacks.

"Everything all right here, comrade?" asked Antonov.

"Everything perfect, comrade," answered the commandant.

"The troops are in excellent spirits.... Only one thing-we have no ammunition...."

"In Smolny there are two billion rounds," Antonov told him. "I will give you an order." He felt in his pockets. "Has any one a piece of paper?"

Dybenko had none-nor the couriers. Trusishka had to offer his note-book....

"Devil! I have no pencil!" cried Antonov. "Who's got a pencil?" Needless to say, Trusishka had the only pencil in the crowd....

We who were left behind made for the Tsarskoye Selo station. Up the Nevsky, as we pa.s.sed, Red Guards were marching, all armed, some with bayonets and some without. The early twilight of winter was falling. Heads up they tramped in the chill mud, irregular lines of four, without music, without drums. A red flag crudely lettered in gold, "Peace! Land!" floated over them. They were very young. The expression on their faces was that of who know they are going to die.... Half-fearful, half-contemptuous, the crowds on the sidewalk watched them pa.s.s, in hateful silence....

[Graphic page-184 Pa.s.s to the Northern Front]

This pa.s.s was issued upon the recommendation of Trotzky three days after the Bolshevik Revolution. It gives me the right of free travel to the Northern front-and an added note on the back extends the permission to all fronts. It will be noticed that the speaks of the Petersburg, instead of the Petrograd Soviet; it was the fashion among thorough-going internationalists to abolish all names which smacked of "patriotism"; but at the same time, it would not do to restore the "Saint."... (Translation) Executive Committee Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies Military Section 28th October, 1917 No. 1435 CERTIFICATE The present certificate is given to the representative of the American Social Democracy, the internationalist comrade JOHN REED. The Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies gives him the right of free travel through the entire Northern front, for the purpose of reporting to our American comrades-internationalists concerning events in Russia. For the President For the Secretary At the railroad station n.o.body knew just where Kerensky was, or where the front lay. Trains went no further, however, than Tsarskoye....

Our car was full of commuters and country people going home, laden with bundles and evening papers. The talk was all of the Bolshevik rising. Outside of that, however, one would never have realised that civil war was rending mighty Russia in two, and that the train was headed into the zone of battle. Through the window we could see, in the swiftly-deepening darkness, ma.s.ses of soldiers going along the muddy road toward the city, flinging out their arms in argument. A freight-train, swarming with troops and lit up by huge bonfires, was halted on a siding. That was all. Back along the flat horizon the glow of the city's lights faded down the night. A street-car crawled distantly along a far-flung suburb....

Tsarskoye Selo-station was quiet, but knots of soldiers stood here and there talking in low tones and looking uneasily down the empty track in the direction of Gatchina. I asked some of them which side they were on. "Well," said one, "we don't exactly know the rights of the matter.... There is no doubt that Kerensky is a provocator, but we do not consider it right for Russian men to be shooting Russian men."

In the station commandant's office was a big, jovial, bearded common soldier, wearing the red arm-band of a regimental committee. Our credentials from Smolny commanded immediate respect. He was plainly for the Soviets, but bewildered.

"The Red Guards were here two hours ago, but they went away again. A Commissar came this morning, but he returned to Petrograd when the Cossacks arrived."

"The Cossacks are here then?"

He nodded, gloomily. "There has been a battle. The Cossacks came early in the morning. They captured two or three hundred of our men, and killed about twenty-five."

"Where are the Cossacks?"

"Well, they didn't get this far. I don't know just where they are. Off that way...." He waved his arm vaguely westward.

We had dinner-an excellent dinner, better and cheaper than could be got in Petrograd-in the station restaurant. Nearby sat a French officer who had just come on foot from Gatchina. All was quiet there, he said. Kerensky held the town. "Ah, these Russians," he went on, "they are original! What a civil war! Everything except the fighting!"

We sallied out into the town. Just at the door of the station stood two soldiers with rifles and bayonets fixed. They were surrounded by about a hundred business men, Government officials and students, who attacked them with pa.s.sionate argument and epithet. The soldiers were uncomfortable and hurt, like children unjustly scolded.

A tall young man with a supercilious expression, dressed in the uniform of a student, was leading the attack.

"You realise, I presume," he said insolently, "that by taking up arms against your brothers you are making your-selves the tools of murderers and traitors?"

"Now brother,"answered the soldier earnestly, "you don't understand. There are two cla.s.ses, don't you see, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. We--"

"Oh, I know that silly talk!" broke in the student rudely. "A bunch of ignorant peasants like you hear somebody bawling a few catch-words. You don't understand what they mean. You just echo them like a lot of parrots." The crowd laughed. "I'm a Marxian student. And I tell you that this isn't Socialism you are fighting for. It's just plain pro-German anarchy!"

"Oh, yes, I know," answered the soldier, with sweat dripping from his brow. "You are an educated man, that is easy to see, and I am only a simple man. But it seems to me--"

"I suppose," interrupted the other contemptuously, "that you believe Lenin is a real friend of the proletariat?"

"Yes, I do," answered the soldier, suffering.

"Well, my friend, do you know that Lenin was sent through Germany in a closed car? Do you know that Lenin took money from the Germans?"

"Well, I don't know much about that," answered the soldier stubbornly, "but it seems to me that what he says is what I want to hear, and all the simple men like me. Now there are two cla.s.ses, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat--"

"You are a fool! Why, my friend, I spent two years in Schlusselburg for revolutionary activity, when you were still shooting down revolutionists and singing 'G.o.d Save the Tsar!' My name is Vasili Georgevitch Panyin. Didn't you ever hear of me?"

"I'm sorry to say I never did," answered the soldier with humility. "But then, I am not an educated man. You are probably a great hero."

"I am," said the student with conviction. "And I am opposed to the Bolsheviki, who are destroying our Russia, our free Revolution. Now how do you account for that?"

The soldier scratched his head. "I can't account for it at all," he said, grimacing with the pain of his intellectual processes. "To me it seems perfectly simple-but then, I'm not well educated. It seems like there are only two cla.s.ses, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie--"

"There you go again with your silly formula!" cried the student.

"--only two cla.s.ses," went on the soldier, doggedly.

ldquo;And whoever isn't on one side is on the other..."

We wandered on up the street, where the lights were few and far between, and where people rarely pa.s.sed. A threatening silence hung over the place-as of a sort of purgatory between heaven and h.e.l.l, a political No Man's Land. Only the barber shops were all brilliantly lighted and crowded, and a line formed at the doors of the public bath; for it was Sat.u.r.day night, when all Russia bathes and perfumes itself. I haven't the slightest doubt that Soviet troops and Cossacks mingled in the places where these ceremonies were performed.

The nearer we came to the Imperial Park, the more deserted were the streets. A frightened priest pointed out the headquarters of the Soviet, and hurried on. It was in the wing of one of the Grand Ducal palaces, fronting the Park. The windows were dark, the door locked. A soldier, lounging about with his hands in the top of his trousers, looked us up and down with gloomy suspicion. "The Soviet went away two days ago," said he. "Where?" A shrug. "Nie znayu. I don't know."

A little further along was a large building, brightly illuminated. From within came a sound of hammering. While we were hesitating, a soldier and a sailor came down the street, hand in hand. I showed them my pa.s.s from Smolny. "Are you for the Soviets?" I asked. They did not answer, but looked at each other in a frightened way.

"What is going on in there?" asked the sailor, pointing to the building.

"I don't know."

Timidly the soldier put out his hand and opened the door a crack. Inside a great hall hung with bunting and evergreens, rows of chairs, a stage being built.

A stout woman with a hammer in her hand and her mouth full of tacks came out. "What do you want?" she asked.

"Is there a performance to-night?" said the sailor, nervously.

"There will be private theatricals Sunday night," she answered severely. "Go away."

We tried to engage the soldier and sailor in conversation, but they seemed frightened and unhappy, and drew off into the darkness.

We strolled toward the Imperial Palaces, along the edge of the vast, dark gardens, their fantastic pavilions and ornamental bridges looming uncertainly in the night, and soft water splashing from the fountains. At one place, where a ridiculous iron swan spat unceasingly from an artificial grotto, we were suddenly aware of observation, and looked up to encounter the sullen, suspicious gaze of half a dozen gigantic armed soldiers, who stared moodily down from a gra.s.sy terrace. I climbed up to them. "Who are you?" I asked.

"We are the guard," answered one. They all looked very depressed, as undoubtedly they were, from weeks and weeks of all-day all-night argument and debate.

"Are you Kerensky's troops, or the Soviets'?"

There was silence for a moment, as they looked uneasily at each other. Then, "We are neutral," said he.

We went on through the arch of the huge Ekaterina Palace, into the Palace enclosure itself, asking for headquarters. A sentry outside a door in a curving white wing of the Palace said that the commandant was inside.

In a graceful, white, Georgian room, divided into unequal parts by a two-sided fire-place, a group of officers stood anxiously talking. They were pale and distracted, and evidently hadn't slept. To one, an oldish man with a white beard, his uniform studded with decorations, who was pointed out as the Colonel, we showed our Bolshevik papers.

He seemed surprised. "How did you get here without being killed?" he asked politely. "It is very dangerous in the streets just now. Political pa.s.sion is running very high in Tsarskoye Selo. There was a battle this morning, and there will be another to-morrow morning. Kerensky is to enter the town at eight o'clock."

"Where are the Cossacks?"

"About a mile over that way." He waved his arm.

"And you will defend the city against them?"

"Oh dear no." He smiled. "We are holding the city for Kerensky." Our hearts sank, for our pa.s.ses stated that we were revolutionary to the core. The Colonel cleared his throat. "About those pa.s.ses of yours," he went on. "Your lives will be in danger if you are captured. Therefore, if you want to see the battle, I will give you an order for rooms in the officers' hotel, and if you will come back here at seven o'clock in the morning, I will give you new pa.s.ses."

"So you are for Kerensky?" we said.

"Well, not exactly for Kerensky." The Colonel hesitated. "You see, most of the soldiers in the garrison are Bolsheviki, and to-day, after the battle, they all went away in the direction of Petrograd, taking the artillery with them. You might say that none of the soldiers are for Kerensky; but some of them just don't want to fight at all. The officers have almost all gone over to Kerensky's forces, or simply gone away. We are-ahem-in a most difficult position, as you see...."

We did not believe that there would be any battle.... The Colonel courteously sent his orderly to escort us to the railroad station. He was from the South, born of French immigrant parents in Bessarabia. "Ah," he kept saying, "it is not the danger or the hardships I mind, but being so long, three years, away from my mother...."

Looking out of the window of the train as we sped through the cold dark toward Petrograd, I caught glimpses of clumps of soldiers gesticulating in the light of fires, and of cl.u.s.ters of armoured cars halted together at cross-roads, the chauffeurs hanging out of the turrets and shouting to each other....

All the troubled night over the bleakflats leaderless bands of soldiers and Red Guards wandered, clashing and confused, and the Commissars of the Military Revolutionary Committee hurried from one group to another, trying to organise a defence....

Back in town excited throngs were moving in tides up and down the Nevsky. Something was in the air. From the Warsaw Railway station could be heard far-off cannonade. In the yunker schools there was feverish activity. Duma members went from barracks to barracks, arguing and pleading, narrating fearful stories of Bolshevik violence-ma.s.sacre of the yunkers in the Winter Palace, rape of the women soldiers, the shooting of the girl before the Duma, the murder of Prince Tumanov.... In the Alexander Hall of the Duma building the Committee for Salvation was in special session; Commissars came and went, running.... All the journalists expelled from Smolny were there, in high spirits. They did not believe our report of conditions in Tsarskoye. Why, everybody knew that Tsarskoye was in Kerensky's hands, and that the Cossacks were now at Pulkovo. A committee was being elected to meet Kerensky at the railway station in the morning....

One confided to me, in strictest secrecy, that the counter-revolution would begin at midnight. He showed me two proclamations, one signed by Gotz and Polkovnikov, ordering the yunker schools, soldier convalescents in the hospitals, and the Knights of St. George to mobilise on a war footing and wait for orders from the Committee for Salvation; the other from the Committee for Salvation itself, which read as follows: To the Population of Petrograd!

Comrades, workers, soldiers and citizens of revolutionary Petrograd! nary Petrograd! | | The Bolsheviki, while appealing for peace at the front, are inciting to civil war in the rear.

Do not dig their provocatory appeals!

Do not dig trenches!

Down with the traitorous barricades!

Lay down your arms!

Soldiers, return to your barracks!

The war begun in Petrograd-is the death of the Revolution!