The Russians Collection

by Michael Phillips

  “So, Trent has no intention of leaving Russia?”

  “Not while it remains breaking news. Shall I contact him, then?”

  “How will you do that?”

  “We all have friends in the Foreign Office. I’m sure something can be arranged via diplomatic pouch.”

  It was agreed that they would establish and maintain contact with Trent. Bruce would have desired more than just the “wait and see” posture, but if they were to accomplish anything, they had to remain united as a group. Perhaps Gus was right about the Provisional Government. It did seem early enough in the game to give the matter some time and thought. If a rescue of the tsar did become necessary, it would require a great deal of thought and planning.

  Content for the time being, Bruce served his guests sherry while they discussed the stock market and the latest rugby scores.

  7

  Somehow, Yuri felt that in attending the long-delayed funeral for those killed in the first days of the revolution, he might find a kind of closure within himself. There had never been a funeral for Andrei because, of course, there had been no body. A brief memorial Mass had been said for him, but both Anna and Talia had insisted it be performed in a manner that did not put Andrei completely “to rest.” Perhaps the mass funeral this day at Mars Meadow would help him to at least put Andrei to rest in his own heart.

  He was more than happy when his uncle Paul Burenin suggested they attend together. As agreed, he met his uncle at Tauride Palace about an hour before the service was to begin.

  “Ah, you are early,” said Paul as he greeted Yuri at the door of his office. “Perhaps you would like a glass of warm tea before we go out and face the elements again.”

  It was freezing outside, and there was a fresh snowfall.

  “I would like that very much.” Yuri continued as Paul drew the tea from the samovar, “It’s a bit quieter here than I remember from the last time I came.”

  “Yes, but no less confused. I am sorry to say the hold of the Provisional Government is shaky right now.”

  “Andrei used to talk about the theory that a democratic period must precede a final socialist victory. I hope that’s not what we are experiencing now.”

  “Between you and me, I don’t think socialism would be a bad thing—a democratic socialism, of course. Unfortunately, a few minutes in a Duma session, with its pure mayhem, is proof that Russia isn’t ready for democracy of any kind.”

  “Not to mention that the majority of our population is illiterate and uneducated peasantry.”

  Paul sighed. “But my heart still lies with the peasantry. It always will.”

  “Is that why you gave up your seat in the Duma?”

  “The Duma has come to be too closely associated with the bourgeois and privileged classes. The Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet considers itself the watchdog of the Duma and vice versa. But the Soviet is where I belong, and I am fortunate they offered me a seat. They forbid holding duel positions.”

  “Except in Kerensky’s case.”

  Paul smiled. “I don’t doubt they would give Sasha the world.”

  Alexander Kerensky was not the leader of the Provisional Government, that position being held by Prince Lvov, but he was still one of the few leaders the people revered and trusted. Yuri remembered hearing how Kerensky had solidified his position at a meeting of the twelve hundred members of the Petrograd Soviet. Yuri could almost picture that wiry little man with the sallow complexion, whose flair for the dramatic was becoming legendary. Kerensky stood before the crowd, wild-eyed and passionate, defending his choice to accept a position in the new government as Minister of Justice. He had screamed at the gathering that his motives had been to protect the will of the people among the representatives of the old regime. And incredibly, the crowd had cheered him on.

  Kerensky had then attempted to resign his post in the Soviet, but, again, incredibly, the people had shouted for him to remain in both positions. Kerensky’s final response was surely what endeared this fiery politician to the people. “I cannot live without the people! If there ever comes a time when I lose your confidence, kill me!”

  Yuri and Paul talked for a few minutes more, then Paul suggested they make their way to the funeral. Luckily, it was only a short walk to the Meadow because, as was so often the case these days, the public trams were not functioning.

  “Did you know,” Paul said as they walked, “that the people had been clamoring to have the common grave located in the Winter Palace Square in defiance of the monarchy?”

  “It would have been a shame to spoil one of the most beautiful locales in the city,” Yuri replied.

  Perhaps one of the most amazing things to happen following the revolution was that wholesale vandalism and destruction had been averted. There had been several fires, one destroying half of the old Fedorcenko estate, and mobs had pried double-headed eagles and other Imperial emblems from buildings and wrecked a few statues. But that had been the extent of it. Perhaps the people, in the end, had heeded pleas from such as Maxim Gorky, who had written that the beautiful palaces and works of art now belonged to the people. These things were their national pride, “the soul from which will grow your new national art.”

  The funeral service began around noon. Over a million mourners lined the icy streets that day, but amazingly, it was an orderly gathering, full of reverence. No religious ceremony was to be permitted. But Yuri knew many citizens were privately lighting candles and saying novenas in honor of the dead. The procession of coffins, all painted red, was a moving sight even if they were bereft of crucifixes and icons.

  Yuri had come to Mars Meadow that day in hopes of honoring Andrei, and perhaps even to find the strength to accept his brother’s death. Andrei was as much a victim of the revolution as any in the dozens of coffins carried that day. But Yuri could not keep from thinking of the many others over the years who had died in the cause of revolution. His own father had been killed in the Bloody Sunday massacre. How many hundreds of other lives, perhaps even thousands, had been sacrificed since that first major rebellion, the Decembrist Uprising in 1825? No one would ever know the real toll of lives, but the common grave consecrated this day would surely hold the spirits of them all.

  Yuri and Paul were subdued as they departed the Meadow after the service.

  “I wonder,” Paul murmured, “if these people realize that the road to freedom has only begun.”

  “Do you think so, Uncle?” But Yuri knew it to be true. Still, he hated to think of how many more such funerals there would be before the end.

  “There is still so much work to be done,” Paul was saying, interrupting Yuri’s momentary reverie. “The union of Provisional Government and the Soviet is tenuous at best. A mere spark could cause it all to blow apart.”

  “A spark . . .” mused Yuri. The Bolshevik newspaper Paul used to contribute to was called Isrka, the spark.

  “Are you thinking what I am thinking?” Paul asked. “I have been pondering it a great deal lately. There was a time, Yuri, that I believed a revolution would not happen in Russia without my old friend, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.”

  “But it did happen without him.”

  An ironic smile flicked across Paul’s solemn face. “I don’t think we have heard the last of old Ilyich. He has applied for entry back into the country, but the Provisional Government is doing all it can to keep him out.”

  “Does he even have much of a power base left in Russia?”

  “The Bolshevik Party is small. Its present leaders, Stalin and Kamenev, are returning Siberian exiles. They are not enthusiastic about Lenin. Against his wishes, they are supporting—if halfheartedly—the Provisional Government.”

  “There you go. He doesn’t have a chance.”

  A slight arch to Paul’s brow and that lingering ironic slant to his mouth said it all. Paul knew Lenin as well as anyone. And Yuri knew Russia. And he had to agree with his uncle. The struggle had only begun.

  No one could deny that the ragta
g band of Russian Bolsheviks had come through marvelously. Stephan Kaminsky was duly impressed with the large turnout at Petrograd’s Finland Station that Monday morning, especially in view of the fact that it was the day after Easter and a holiday.

  As the train approached the station, Inessa Armand sidled up to Stephan and they both stood on the platform at the back of the car.

  “He pulled it off, didn’t he?” said Inessa with unabashed admiration. She was intensely loyal to Ilyich, and Stephan knew that loyalty came from more than the fact that she was Lenin’s mistress.

  “Even I was beginning to wonder if this day would come.” As Lenin’s bodyguard, Stephan enjoyed a close association with the Bolshevik leader. Like Inessa, he’d been at Lenin’s side the entire time in exile. He had fought the other Party members who had cast doubts about Lenin’s ability to pull off the coup now being realized.

  True, there had been good reason for the reluctance of the Party leaders, especially when Lenin first proposed the plan to travel back to Russia through Germany. They had no guarantees Lenin would not be arrested as a traitor the moment he stepped onto Russian soil. There had been little communication with Russia since the revolution had begun a month ago. Both Lenin and Stephan were disappointed that even Andrei Christinin had failed to communicate. But Stephan was hardly surprised. No doubt the minute Andrei had set eyes on his bourgeois family, he forgot all about his Party loyalties.

  Thus, Lenin had no way of gauging the mood of the people. The Proletariat had lost millions of their number defending Russia in the imperialist war with Germany and might not think kindly of a leader who had, by all appearances, “fraternized with the enemy.”

  But Lenin made certain it was all set up so that he was as distanced from the Germans as possible. He insisted that no conditions be imposed on the travelers. And none would have any direct contact with the Germans even en route. They would travel on a “sealed train,” in essence having the extraterritorial status of an embassy. The Germans had scoffed at all the conditions.

  “I was under the impression that it was not I but rather Mr. Lenin who was requesting permission to travel through my country,” Romberg, the German liaison, had sneered.

  But in truth, the Germans were just as anxious as Lenin for the journey to proceed. With the United States on the verge of entering the war, the Germans were more desperate than ever to eliminate the Russian threat any way they could, even through instigating a socialist uprising.

  “Inessa,” Stephan said, “can you believe we are actually back in Russia?” Stephan had been in exile for seventeen years. One brief visit on Party business about five years ago had been his only and last contact with his beloved Motherland in all that time. It felt good to be back. He felt a surge of hope and anticipation within. This time they would truly set the world on fire. If the people thought that paltry excuse for a revolution in March was the end of it, they were mistaken.

  The rousing sounds from several military bands reached Stephan’s ears and seemed to confirm his thoughts. The strains of the “Marseillaise” caused chills to course through him. The sight of triumphal arches of red and gold cloth made him more proud than ever to have stuck by Lenin even when opposition within their own Party had plagued them.

  The train screeched to a stop, belching steam and noise that nearly drowned out the music. Stephan and Inessa stood back as Lenin and Krupskaya approached the exit where they stood. Lenin gave each of his faithful associates an embrace before debarking the train. He was obviously stunned and pleased at the reception. All fears of immediate arrest that they had entertained even on the seven-day journey were dissolved in a dazzling note of victory.

  As Lenin, now forty-seven, stepped off the train, he clearly looked older than he had ten years before when he was forced into exile. Older, yes, but in no way was his essential strength diminished, nor the aura of power emanating from him. The bouquet of flowers someone thrust into his hand looked incongruous indeed in the grip of the stern-faced, resolute man.

  Chkheidze, the president of the Petrograd Soviet, stepped up to Lenin to offer the official welcome. Rumor had it that the Soviet had been more or less coerced into participating in the event. They must appease the people at all costs. But he managed to convey his displeasure in his stiff, even gloomy appearance. His voice was rather monotone during his speech, but he wasted no time in driving home his most important point.

  “Comrade Lenin,” he said, “in the name of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldiers, we welcome you to Russia. We hope you will pursue with us the goals of the Soviet—the defense of the revolution from any encroachments from either within or without.”

  Stephan cringed as the man paused to allow the effect of his words to sink in. He well knew of Lenin’s desire to end the Imperialist war by any means possible. Chkheidze was drawing up battle lines that conflicted glaringly with his final rhetoric.

  “The success of this glorious goal requires unity among us all, the closing of democratic ranks.”

  Lenin seemed to hardly notice the Soviet president. During the speech, his eyes roamed over the crowd and even focused on the sky for a while. When he delivered his own speech, he deliberately turned his back to the president and addressed his words to the throng.

  “Comrades, I greet you, the vanguard of the worldwide proletarian army. Remember this, when the Provisional Government delivers its sweet speeches and makes promises, they are deceiving you. The people need peace. The people need bread, and the people need land. Yet they are given war and hunger and poverty. It is time to fight for the revolution and for the victory of the Proletariat. Long live the worldwide socialist revolution!”

  As the throng responded with wild cheers, Stephan, too, shouted out his praises. He even rubbed his hands together in anticipation of Lenin butting heads with that upstart, Kerensky. And he had no doubt it would be Kerensky, not a nobody like Chkheidze, who would be Lenin’s major adversary.

  But in the end Lenin would win. This was his destiny. He would wrest power into his hands even if it meant plunging Russia into civil war. And Stephan would stand at his side the entire time. It was his destiny, too—finally achieving the kind of status he had longed for since those days he had been a naïve peasant boy in Katyk. What would that snooty Mariana Remizov Trent think then, to find him lord over her? Like Lenin, Stephan Kaminsky would stop at nothing to achieve that triumph.

  8

  It was the cold that woke Andrei. He felt it through the thick layers of covers; it seemed to cling to his bones, making him feel as if he would never be warm again. Only when he tried to move did he feel the pain. But though it was intense, it still did not let him forget the cold. There was a stabbing ache in his side and a throbbing numbness in his hands and feet.

  Despite the pain it caused, he lifted his hand so he could pull the covers away from his face in order to glimpse his surroundings. Moving away the tattered edge of a blanket, he saw a simple room with dingy walls and old, worn furnishings. It was not a peasant hut, though for some reason he thought that’s where he ought to be. A peasant izba had figured often in his dreams. Across the room was a stove, and he wondered why his bed wasn’t atop it as in many peasant homes. Perhaps then the cold would go away. Then he realized there was no heat emanating from the stove, no flicker of flames inside. This must be a very poor house if there was no fire on such a cold day.

  A few simple icons hung on the wall and he saw a “beautiful corner,” and as his eye moved around the room, he noted that it was also the kitchen, for there was a cookstove and a washbasin and a row of cupboards on the wall.

  That’s when he saw the woman. Her back was to him and she was bent over the washbasin. She was tiny, almost wraithlike, with a slight stoop in her back visible under the worn crocheted shawl draped over her narrow shoulders. Her hair was iron gray and knotted into a bun at the nape of her neck.

  “Hello,” he said in a soft, brittle voice that felt and sounded as if it hadn’t been used in a long tim
e. He vaguely wondered how long he had been lying in this cold bed. He felt as if he had only slept for a night, but he instinctively knew that his legs would not function if he attempted to rise.

  The woman turned and her thin, wrinkled visage lit up into a smile that was far too large for her narrow, almost emaciated face. “The dear boy speaks at last! Praise be to God!” She hurried to him. “My darling Ivan! You have returned to me at last.”

  “Ivan?”

  “Yes, my son. Do you not know your own name?”

  All at once a horrible panic gripped him. The name Ivan sounded completely strange to him yet he could not think of anything to replace it with. “Ivan . . . ?” he said again as if repeating it might make it sound more familiar. She nodded with a warm, loving smile and he wanted that to be his name if for no other reason than to please this woman. Instinct told him that she cared for him and would help take away the pain.

  “My mind is so foggy. . . .”

  “You’ve been asleep for a long while.”

  “I have?”

  “A whole month. Oh, you’ve slipped in and out, but you were never very clearheaded. I can tell now, though, that the long sleep is finally lifting.”

  “What . . . happened . . . to me?” A month! How had he come to be here? Why was he in such pain? Was he dying? Why couldn’t he remember?

  “You were shot, my child. In the War.”

  “The War . . . ?” Yes, he did remember that. There was a war on, with Germany. Was he a soldier then?

  “You were gone such a long time,” she was saying, “but you finally came home to your mama . . . so I could nurse you properly.”

  “You are my mother?” She had seemed to be a stranger to him. If she was his mother, why could he not recognize her? He ought to know his own mother. But even more disturbing was that he could not say for certain that she was not his mother. His panic did not abate.