“That would be selling out my convictions.” But even as Andrei said the words, he knew they were just words. Even Lenin believed in expediency, to a point at least. Still, Andrei knew that loyalty could never bow to expediency.
But, to Andrei’s surprise, when he approached Lenin with the possibility of returning to Russia, he received a positive response.
“If you get through, you can smuggle in some copies of Pravda. It’s been months since we’ve been able to get anything into Russia,” Lenin said.
Lenin also gave him the task of making contact with the small Bolshevik contingent in Petrograd. The organization there had all but collapsed in the last few years. There was little or no communication with those small numbers who remained active. Andrei was glad to have some purpose besides his own personal reasons for returning.
64
Cyril Vlasenko approached a meeting with the tsar with only a fraction of his usual confidence. His short tenure as Minister of the Interior was in serious jeopardy. The Duma was crying daily about forming a “ministry of confidence,” that is, a ministry approved by them, which innately meant a wholesale purge of any and all Rasputin “appointees.”
The mood in the city was tense, old bitternesses rising to the surface to converge with the many newer problems. In recognition of the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, a hundred and forty thousand Petrograd workers went on strike. The garrisons of soldiers in the city were comprised mostly of new, young recruits who simply could not be counted upon to react decisively against civilians. If there were serious outbreaks in the city . . .
Well, Cyril hated to consider the consequences. But the workers were growing more and more militant. They were calling the tsar the “Butcher of Bloody Sunday” and the husband of a traitor, if not a traitor himself. Everywhere there was talk of plots against the dynasty—and supporters of that dynasty.
That left-wing insurgent Kerensky was openly and fearlessly attacking the regime. His speech for the opening of the Duma had blatantly called for “the immediate overthrow of the medieval regime at all costs.” The man ought to be sent to Siberia for such words. The empress had an even better idea.
“Kerensky should be hanged for such a speech. There ought to be martial law in the city,” she had declared.
If only her poltroon of a husband had the backbone for such measures. Cyril remembered fondly the days when as chief of the Third Section he could slap irons around dissenters at will. But members of the Duma were untouchable these days.
When the Duma opened for its new session in mid-February, Cyril, expecting trouble, did authorize the arrest of several labor members. He also ordered a large and intimidating showing of police and Cossacks at the Tauride Palace. But there were no demonstrations that day, and his premature move backfired on him. The public accused him of trying to provoke a clash with the workers.
How the tsar could think of leaving the city now was beyond Cyril. And therein lay the purpose of Cyril’s audience with the emperor. He must convince him to stay. Cyril did not want to face what might come alone—that is, he did not want to take full responsibility for it. But the tsar claimed that the war needed his attention. That was as good an excuse as any for running away. Poor deluded man—he still thought the war could be concluded victoriously in three or four months!
Nicholas greeted Cyril with his usual warm formality. But he seemed vague, detached throughout the interview. At one point his gaze wandered toward a window, and he was completely distracted from what Cyril was saying. Cyril had to repeat himself. The tsar had never been a strong or confident man, but now he appeared absolutely lost. His fatalism was in full bloom. He was prepared to surrender to the whim of fate.
Fear was not something with which Cyril was well acquainted, but he knew it now and knew it intensely. After the meeting with the tsar, he went home and instructed his wife to pack all their valuables away in the secret vault in the basement and be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice. He wanted to flee now, but his natural greed was still a bit stronger than his growing fear. He couldn’t bear to lose all he had gained if there was still the slightest possibility of beating the current political upheavals.
As he left, he glanced wistfully around the grand Fedorcenko palace. Although he had not had a chance to bring the place back to its former glory, it was still richly opulent—a symbol, in Cyril’s mind, of what Russia was all about. The glory of tsarism, the wealth of aristocracy, the pomp and circumstance of Holy Orthodoxy. These were things worth fighting to save.
Worth dying for, too?
No . . . Cyril supposed not. Saving his own neck was all that truly mattered.
When he returned to his office, he had a call from Rodzianko, the president of the Duma. Apparently the tsar had agreed to speak to the Duma the next day and announce his intention of forming a ministry of confidence. Cyril nearly dropped the telephone receiver in shock. Where had that reversal come from? Two hours before, the man was firmly set on the status quo. Now Cyril was truly afraid.
He immediately caught the next train back to Tsarskoe Selo.
“I was about to telephone you,” the tsar said as Cyril entered his study, “to let you know I will be leaving for Stavka tonight.”
“Your Majesty, I am confused. I heard you would be addressing the Duma in the morning?” Cyril only barely kept his tone controlled.
“Oh, that . . . I’ve changed my mind.”
“What about the ministry of confidence?”
“No, it was a mistake. I will try to return in a week or so. Then we can deal with these problems. I think they can wait. Things will settle down a bit.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Cyril should have been relieved. But the dull ache in the pit of his stomach flamed to life with a vengeance.
Nicholas wrote to Alix from Stavka, “Am finally able to relax a bit. No troublesome ministers to contend with. I’ve been reading a French translation of Caesar’s Gallic Wars. I look forward to whiling away my evenings with a few games of Dominos. Kiss the kiddies for me.”
Alix sat at her writing desk, dipped a pen in ink, and began a reply to her husband. She wrote, as she had so many times before, encouraging him to be firm, to be the autocrat he was born to be.
But for the most part, her letter was dominated with troubles at home, that is, with the children. Olga and Alexis had come down with measles. They both had high fevers and were confined to their beds. It was Alexis’s first crisis since the death of Grigori, and Alix felt her Friend’s loss more acutely than ever. Within two days, Tatiana and Anna Vyrubova had both gone to their beds with the infection. Alix spent all her waking moments going between the sickrooms, tending and fretting and praying.
Disturbing reports began to filter into the Alexander Palace about disorders in Petrograd. Vlasenko frequently assured her that matters were under control. But with three sick children to tend, Petrograd was the least of her worries.
Besides, she simply did not believe in the possibility of revolution.
When it happened, it was like a match set to dry brush. A moment of smoke, then—puff!—a conflagration. It took even those who had seen it coming by surprise.
Paul could barely make his way through the crowds to get to his office in the Tauride Palace. The huge lines of people waiting for bread and meat and tea were more rowdy than usual. Several shops had been broken into and sacked. Nearly all Petrograd workers were now on strike, surging idly through the streets, discontented and angry. They seemed not at all affected by temperatures of forty below zero.
And now a new sight could be seen in the streets. Red banners, red flags, red sashes, and armbands.
The color of revolution.
It had come!
He didn’t know whether to weep or laugh. For over forty years he had been working for this moment. But now he suddenly was gripped with a fear that it would be a bloody, violent event. He had always known that in theory, of course, but now he knew in the very depths of his soul. He only prayed that out of
the ashes and blood a new and better Russia would rise.
Impulsively, Paul took a red armband handed to him by one of the workers and slipped it over his jacket sleeve. It helped get him through the mob gathered in front of the Tauride Palace. Among other demands, they were shouting for the dismissal of Vlasenko. Paul smiled.
Some Petrograd residents were doing more than shouting. A mob of about fifty had attacked the Vlasenko residence. Luckily, Cyril and his wife, having been warned of trouble by one of their few loyal servants, had vacated the palace early that morning. Poznia was staying with a cousin in another part of the city. Cyril had managed to get to his office, where he was frantically burning incriminating papers. He had ordered the arrest of the insurgent leaders, but there were no real leaders, and the few that he could get his hands on were replaced quickly by others. Hope of quelling the uprising was quickly fading.
While he was at the office, the report came of the attack on the Fedorcenko estate. The house had been set on fire, and over a quarter burned before the harried firefighters, who were busy quelling fires in many parts of the city, arrived and contained the blaze. The malcontent workers had robbed the place as well. Cyril only hoped the vaults had not been discovered.
Anna and the other women and the children stayed inside as much as possible. Little Katrina sat by the window gazing out on the street below at the roaming insurgents.
“Grandmama, why are they wearing red and carrying red flags?”
“You know, in Russian red is the name for ‘beautiful.’”
“It doesn’t look very beautiful.”
“No . . . but many think a revolution would be a beautiful thing.”
“Do you?”
“I think it might be a necessary thing. I’m not sure it will be so beautiful.”
“Are you frightened?”
“A little, sweetheart. But God will protect us.”
“I still wish my papa was here.”
“So do I, but we’ll be all right.” Anna put her arm around the child. “We have each other, we have our faith, and especially, we have our love. It is so much more than many of those people out there have.”
“Maybe they wouldn’t be angry and yelling if they had love, Grandmama.”
“If they ever had it, they have forgotten about it just now. But we will be strong if we don’t forget. Your uncle Yuri is fond of the saying, ‘A threefold cord is not easily broken.’ That’s what our family is, Katrina. Together we are a strong cord.”
“Is Papa weaker because he is not here?”
“No, because he is still part of us, as are Misha and Uncle Andrei. The strength of the cord is in our hearts, and that we can always take with us. We should pray for them, though, that they don’t forget and lose heart.”
“I’ll pray for the angry people outside, too.”
“That’s a wonderful idea, sweetheart.”
Yuri had to walk to the hospital. There were no trams running, no public transportation of any sort, and he dared not take the motorcar or a carriage, for there was no telling what the mobs would do to such symbols of the nobility. Perhaps he should have heeded Katya’s pleas and remained home. But he had to work.
Those first weeks after Rasputin’s death, Yuri had stayed away from the hospital. He felt a murderer had no right to practice medicine. Then the idleness nearly drove him mad. His mama had encouraged him to go to church, to make confession. But he simply wasn’t ready to face God.
It had been Uncle Paul who had helped him the most. Paul, of all those close to him, knew what Yuri was suffering. Paul had once been a terrorist. He’d had a hand in planting bombs and had come close to killing a tsar, only a faulty wire preventing his deed.
“How did you live with yourself, Uncle Paul?”
“Each man must find his own way, I suppose. For your papa, that way was the path of God.”
“Yes . . .” mused Yuri. “I had almost forgotten the reason he had been sent to Siberia. He killed a man, too . . .” Yuri shook his head miserably. “How it must grieve him to see that I didn’t learn by his mistakes.”
“It’s not too late to learn.”
“I can’t undo what I have done.”
“No, but you can—you must—go on, somehow. Your papa did so with God’s help.”
“I can’t face God, Uncle Paul, I just can’t. Every time I try I can’t get past the fact that I did wrong fully realizing it was wrong—even if I believed it was for the right reasons. It’s not right to blatantly sin and then expect God to forgive you.”
“I wouldn’t know about that, Yuri.”
“That’s why I’ve come to you, Uncle. I can’t accept the answers my mama has right now. I need something, though, to help me survive.”
“What I did,” offered Paul, “was to throw myself into my cause.”
“I have no cause.”
“What about your work?”
“I am no longer worthy—”
“Stop it, Yuri! Now you are whining. If you have no work, no cause, and no God, then you may as well just end it all. Why go on indeed?”
Yuri looked at his uncle with surprise, then a shadow of a smile flickered across his lips. He wanted to live, and something deep within, an irrepressible seed of hope, gave him the sense that he would someday get beyond his present misery. Thus, he decided to take Paul’s suggestion. He would go back to work. He might not be worthy, but his hands and his mind were still perfectly capable. He wasn’t going to purposefully kill another human—he was sure of that, if nothing else.
He had been back at his post for a week now, and with each minute he felt himself coming more and more to terms with what he had done. But it was not good for his morale to see the mobs in the streets, shouting hateful epithets against the tsar. Yuri had risked everything to save the tsar, and now it appeared as if all his suffering would be for naught.
65
Day by day the crisis mounted rather than diminished. Several government buildings had been taken by the rebels. The Okhrana building had been gleefully sacked and its hated occupants chased out or arrested. Many police stations around the city had also been captured, and the police who did not don civilian clothes and join the rebellion were pursued and arrested.
On Sunday morning, Paul was awakened by the telephone to hear Kerensky’s excited voice. “The Pavlosky Guards mutinied last night! The Volhynsky and Preobrajensky regiments quickly followed suit. They refused to lift a hand against their own people. The Cossack Guards rebelled a few hours ago, killing several officers, arresting others.”
“Sasha, if the tsar can’t count on his guards, then he is truly lost.”
“I’m trying to get a message now to these units to come over to the defense of the Duma. Pavushka, you must get here quickly.”
“I’ll get there as soon as I can, Sasha. But—” He glanced at his wife. “I’ll see you soon.”
Paul wished now he had spent the night at the Tauride Palace. It was a good half-hour trip from his flat on Vassily Island to the Duma headquarters, especially when no trams or buses were running. But he had been worried about Mathilde. She hadn’t been well lately. He looked over at her now, sitting at the kitchen table studying him as he spoke on the phone. She looked pale and had lost weight. Yuri had examined her and feared she might have cancer, but he had wanted to perform some tests before making a conclusive diagnosis. There would be no tests now with all that was going on in the city.
She smiled at him, perhaps perceiving his concern and his inner turmoil.
He told her what Kerensky had reported.
“You must go,” she said simply. “We have both worked too hard to miss this. You must go for my sake, too.”
“I’m going to take you to Anna’s place on my way. You shouldn’t be alone today.”
She shrugged. “I’d like to spend some time with Anna.”
By the time Paul arrived at the Duma, the soldiers had not yet come. Some of the Duma deputies ridiculed Kerensky about his tardy troops. The
n about thirty of the socialist leaders met in a private session to discuss their response to recent events. The previous evening the Duma leaders, of whom a large contingent were Kadets—moderate bourgeois who supported a constitutional monarchy along British lines—had taken the small step of forming the Provisional Committee of the Duma with Rodzianko as chairman. They were dragging their feet, though. Rodzianko still hoped for a decisive move from the tsar. The Duma president continued to believe that forming a ministry of confidence would appease the masses.
Thus the left-wing faction of the Duma, including for the most part, Social Democratic Mensheviks, some Jewish Bundists, and the Social Revolutionaries, of which Paul and Kerensky were part, met in a private session. Their immediate intent was not to usurp power, but rather to act as a protector of the revolutionaries in the streets and to ensure that the gains made by them were not lost. They formed the Petrograd Soviet, led by Kerensky and the Menshevik, Chkheidze.
In the meantime, the Provisional Committee called for Vlasenko to resign. But the fat old count said he’d commit suicide instead. Paul was a little disappointed that someone talked him out of it. Finally, the Grand Duke Michael said he would take over leadership of the government if the tsar approved.
The tsar, still at the Front, did not approve. His country was falling down around him and still he refused to compromise.
Nicholas’s only action was to send his adjutant general to Petrograd with a battalion of his most loyal troops, men who had all received the St. George cross for valor. They were to make only one stop, at Tsarskoe Selo, to make sure the royal family was safe.
The tsar prepared to depart Stavka shortly after the departure of the troops. He had his train routed the long way back so as not to impede the speed of his general.
He was still not seriously worried. He had made it through 1905, with many crises in between. He would survive this. When he received a telegram from Rodzianko, he did not take it seriously.
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