Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty

by Robert K. Massie

  At the Duma, events were moving with breathtaking speed. The Imperial order suspending the Duma had reached Rodzianko the previous night. At eight the next morning, he summoned the leaders of all the political parties to a meeting in his office. There it was decided that, in view of the collapse of law and order, the Imperial order should be ignored and the Duma kept in session. At half past one, the first large crowds of workers and soldiers, carrying red banners and singing the “Marseillaise,” arrived at the Duma to offer their support and to ask for instructions. Swarming through the unguarded doors, they surged through the corridors and chambers and engulfed the parliament. It was a motley, exuberant mob. There were soldiers, tall and hot in their rough wool uniforms; students shouting exultantly; and here and there a few gray-bearded old men, just released from prison, their knees trembling, their eyes shining.

  “I must know what I can tell them,” Kerensky cried to Rodzianko, as the mob jostled and crowded the uncertain deputies. “Can I say that the Imperial Duma is with them, that it takes the responsibility on itself, that it stands at the head of the government?”

  Rodzianko had little choice but to agree. Still personally loyal to the Tsar, he protested to Shulgin, a monarchist deputy, “I don’t want to revolt.” Shulgin, a realist as well as a monarchist, overrode him, saying, “Take the power … if you don’t, others will.” Reluctantly, Rodzianko mounted a platform which creaked under his bulk, and assured the crowd that the Duma would refuse to be dissolved and would accept the responsibilities of government. At three in the afternoon, the Duma met and appointed a temporary executive committee for the purpose of restoring order and gaining control over the mutinous troops. The committee included the leaders of all the parties of the Duma except the extreme Right.

  Nor was the collapse of the Imperial government and the rise of the Duma all that happened on that remarkable day. On the same day, there arose a second, rival assembly, the Soviet of Soldiers’ and Workers’ Deputies, consisting of one delegate from each company of revolutionary soldiers and one delegate for each thousand workers. Incredibly, by nightfall, the Soviet was sitting under the same roof as the Duma.

  It was Kerensky who created this astonishing situation. As he explained it later: “The entire garrison had mutinied and … the troops were marching towards the Duma.… Naturally a question arose … as to how and by whom the soldiers and workmen were to be led; for until then their movement was completely unorganized, uncoordinated and anarchical. ‘A Soviet?’ The memory of 1905 prompted this cry.… The need of some kind of center for the mass movement was realized by everyone. The Duma itself needed some representatives of the rebel populace; without them, it would have been impossible to reestablish order in the capital. For this reason the Soviet was formed quickly and not by any means as a matter of class war: simply about three or four o’clock in the afternoon, the organizers applied to me for suitable premises; I mentioned the matter to Rodzianko and the thing was arranged.”

  The Tauride Palace, an eighteenth-century building presented by Catherine the Great to her favorite Prince Potemkin, possessed two large wings; one was the chamber of the Duma, the other, formerly the budget committee room of the Duma, was given to the Soviet. Thereafter, wrote Kerensky, “two different Russias settled side by side: the Russia of the ruling classes who had lost (though they did not realize it yet) … and the Russia of Labor, marching towards power, without suspecting it.”

  Although Rodzianko assumed the chairmanship of the temporary Duma committee, from the first it was Kerensky who became the central figure. Only thirty-six years old, he became the bridge between the Soviet and the Duma committee. He was elected Vice-Chairman of the Soviet; within three days, he was also Minister of Justice in the new Provisional Government. “His words and his gestures were sharp and clear-cut and his eyes shone,” wrote Shulgin. “He seemed to grow every minute.” A stream of important prisoners—Prince Golitsyn, Stürmer, the Metropolitan Pitirim, all the ministers of the Cabinet—were brought in or presented themselves for arrest. It was Kerensky who saved their lives. “Ivan Gregorovich,” he said, striding up to one prisoner and speaking in a ringing tone, “you are arrested. Your life is not in danger. The Imperial Duma does not shed blood.”

  With justification, Kerensky later took credit for averting a massacre. “During the first days of the Revolution, the Duma was full of the most hated officials of the monarchy …,” he wrote. “Day and night the revolutionary tempest raged around the arrested men. The huge halls and endless corridors of the Duma were flooded with armed soldiers, workmen and students. The waves of hatred … beat against the walls. If I moved a finger, if I had simply closed my eyes and washed my hands of it, the entire Duma, all St. Petersburg, the whole of Russia might have been drenched in torrents of human blood as [it was] under Lenin in October.”

  Toward midnight, Protopopov came to ask for protection. After leaving the final meeting of the Council, he had spent the night hiding in a tailor shop. He arrived now in a makeshift disguise: an overlong overcoat and a hat down over his eyes. Sighting Kerensky in one of the corridors, he crept alongside and whispered, “It is I, Protopopov.” Shulgin, at that moment, was in the adjoining room. “Suddenly,” he wrote, “there was coming something especially exciting; and at once the reason was whispered to me. ‘Protopopov is arrested,’ and at that moment I saw in the mirror the door burst open violently and Kerensky broke in. He was pale and his eyes shone, his arm was raised; with this stretched out arm, he seemed to cut through the crowd; everyone recognized him and stood back on either side. And then in the mirror I saw that behind Kerensky there were soldiers with rifles and, between the bayonets, a miserable little figure with a hopelessly harassed and sunken face—it was with difficulty that I recognized Protopopov. ‘Don’t dare touch that man!’ shouted Kerensky—pushing his way on, pallid, with impossible eyes, one arm raised, cutting through the crowd, the other tragically dropped, pointing at ‘that man.’ … It looked as if he were leading him to execution, to something dreadful. And the crowd fell apart. Kerensky dashed past like the flaming torch of revolutionary justice and behind him they dragged that miserable little figure in the rumpled greatcoat surrounded by bayonets.”

  By Tuesday morning, March 13, except for a last outpost of tsarism in the Winter Palace, which General Khabalov held with 1,500 loyal troops, the city was in the hands of the revolution. In the afternoon, the revolutionaries in the Fortress of Peter and Paul across the river gave Khabalov’s men twenty minutes to abandon the palace or face bombardment; having lost all hope, the dejected loyalists marched out and simply melted away.

  In the anarchy that followed, wild celebrations were mingled with violent outbursts of mob fury. In Kronstadt, the naval base outside the city, the sailors brutally slaughtered their officers, killing one and burying a second, still living, side by side with the corpse. In Petrograd, armored cars, with clusters of rebel soldiers perched on their tops, roared up and down the streets, flying red flags. Firemen, arriving to put out the fires blazing in public buildings, were driven away by soldiers and workmen who wanted to see the buildings burn. Kschessinska’s mansion was sacked by the mob from top to bottom, the grand piano smashed, the carpets stained with ink, the bathtubs filled with cigarette butts.*

  On Wednesday, March 14, even those who had wavered flocked to join the victors. That morning saw the mass obeisance to the Duma of the Imperial Guard. From his Embassy window, Paléologue watched three regiments pass on their way to the Tauride Palace: “They marched in perfect order,” he wrote, “with their band at the head. A few officers came first, wearing a large red cockade in their caps, a knot of red ribbon on their shoulders and red stripes on their sleeves. The old regimental standard, covered with icons, was surrounded by red flags.” Behind came the Guard, including units from the garrison at Tsarskoe Selo. “At the head were the Cossacks of the Escort, those magnificent horsemen who are the flower … and privileged elite of the Imperial Guard. Then came His Majesty’s
Regiment, the sacred legion which is recruited from all the units of the Guard and whose special function it is to secure the personal safety of their sovereigns.”

  Even more spectacular was the march of the Marine Guard, the Garde Equipage, most of whom had served aboard the Standart and personally knew the Imperial family. At the head of the marines strode their commanding officer, Grand Duke Cyril. Leading his men to the Tauride Palace, Cyril became the first of the Romanovs publicly to break his oath of allegiance to the Tsar, who still sat on the throne. In the presence of Rodzianko, Cyril pledged allegiance to the Duma. Then, returning to his palace on Glinka Street, he hoisted a red flag over his roof. Writing to his Uncle Paul, Cyril coolly explained, “These last few days, I have been alone in carrying out my duties to Nicky and the country and in saving the situation by my recognition of the Provisional Government.” A week later, Cyril gave an interview to a Petrograd newspaper: “I have asked myself several times if the ex-Empress were an accomplice of William [the Kaiser],” he said, “but each time forced myself to recoil from the horror of such a thought.”

  Cyril’s behavior drew a terse, prophetic comment from Paléologue: “Who can tell whether this treacherous insinuation will not before long provide the foundation for a terrible charge against the unfortunate Empress. The Grand Duke Cyril should … be reminded that the most infamous calumnies which Marie Antoinette had to meet when she faced the Revolutionary Tribunal, first took wing at the elegant suppers of the Comte d’Artois [the jealous younger brother of Louis XVI].”

  Petrograd had fallen. Everywhere in the city, the revolution was triumphant. At the Tauride Palace, two rival assemblies, both convinced that tsarism was ended, were embarking on a struggle for survival and power. Yet, Russia was immense and Petrograd only a tiny, artificial mound, scarcely Russian, in a corner of the Tsar’s empire. The two million people of Petrograd were only a fraction of the scores of millions of subjects; even in Petrograd, the revolutionary workers and soldiers were less than a quarter of the city’s population. A week had gone by since Nicholas had left for Headquarters and the first disorders had broken out. In that week, he had lost his capital, but still he kept his throne. How much longer could he keep it?

  The Allied ambassadors, desperately concerned that the fall of tsarism would mean Russia’s withdrawal from the war, clung to the hope that the Tsar would not topple. Buchanan still talked in terms of Nicholas “granting a constitution and empowering Rodzianko to select the members of a new government.” Paléologue thought that the Tsar had a chance if he pardoned the rebels, appointed the Duma committee as his ministers and “appeared in person … and solemnly announced on the steps of Our Lady of Kazan that a new era is beginning for Russia. But if he waits a day it will be too late.” It was Knox who sensed more accurately the ominous future. Standing at a corner of the Liteiny Prospect, watching the burning of the district court across the street, he heard a soldier say, “We have only one wish: to beat the Germans. We will begin with the Germans here and with a family that you know called Romanov.”

  * Krupskaya’s mother died while Lenin was in Switzerland. There is a story that one night Krupskaya rose exhausted from her vigil beside her dying mother and asked Lenin, who was writing at a table, to awaken her if her mother needed her. Lenin agreed and Krupskaya collapsed into bed. The next morning she awoke to find her mother dead and Lenin still at work. Distraught, she confronted Lenin, who replied, “You told me to wake you if your mother needed you. She died. She didn’t need you.”

  * One elegant Petrograd mansion was saved by the quick wits of its owner, the artful Countess Kleinmichel. Before the mob arrived, she barred her doors, shuttered her windows and placed in front of her house a sign which read: “No trespassing. This house is the property of the Petrograd Soviet. Countess Kleinmichel has been taken to the Fortress of St. Peter and Paul.” Inside, Countess Kleinmichel then packed her bags and planned her escape.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Abdication

  NICHOLAS, leaving home for Headquarters on the night of March 7, was subdued and downhearted. Twice, from the train, he sent melancholy telegrams tinged with the loneliness that overwhelmed him on leaving his family after two months at Tsarskoe Selo. In Mogilev, he missed the buoyant presence of the Tsarevich. “Here in the house it is so still,” he wrote to Alexandra. “No noise, no excited shouts. I imagine him sleeping—all his little things, photographs and knicknacks, in exemplary order in his bedroom.”

  Nicholas’s last letters as Tsar, written as it were from the brink of the abyss, have often been cited as evidence of his incorrigible stupidity. The most famous remark of all, invariably quoted in even the briefest estimate of Nicholas’s character, is the line: “I shall take up dominoes again in my spare time.” Taken by itself, the remark is devastating. Any tsar with so little wit as to sit playing dominoes while his capital revolts deserves nothing: neither his throne nor understanding.

  Yet, there is more to it than that. It was the Tsar’s first night back at Army Headquarters and he was writing to his wife of familiar things. Immediately before this much-quoted line, he is talking about his son. He says that he will greatly miss the games they had played every evening; in lieu of them, he will take up dominoes again to relax in his spare moments. Even more significantly, the letter was written not against a backdrop of revolution, but at a moment when Nicholas believed that the capital was quiet. The date on the letter is March 8, the day on which the first bread riots occurred in the city. The first reports of these disorders arrived at Headquarters on the morning of the 9th; Nicholas did not learn until the 11th that anyone in Petrograd considered them serious.

  Despite the weeks of rest with his family, Nicholas returned to Mogilev still mentally fatigued and physically exhausted. A vivid warning signal on the state of his health flashed on Sunday morning, March 11. As he stood in church, Nicholas suffered “an excruciating pain in the chest” which lasted for fifteen minutes. “I could hardly stand the service out,” he wrote, “and my forehead was covered with drops of perspiration. I cannot understand what it could have been because I had no palpitation of the heart.… If this occurs again, I shall tell Fedorov [the doctor].” The symptoms are those of a coronary occlusion.

  If the revolution in the streets of Petrograd came as a shock to everyone in the city, it is not entirely surprising that the Tsar, at Headquarters five hundred miles away, was neither more alert nor more prescient. Indeed, Nicholas had less information than those who continued blithely to attend dinners, parties and concerts in the capital. He depended on reports passed to him through a chain of officials which included Protopopov in Petrograd and General Voeikov at Headquarters. Both Protopopov and Voeikov served him badly, deliberately underplaying the seriousness of the situation as it developed. Protopopov was defending his own position; disorders which he could not control were a damning reflection on his abilities as Minister of Interior. Voeikov, at the other end of the line, was a conservative, unimaginative man who simply could not face the prospect of walking into the presence of the Tsar and announcing a revolution.

  From Thursday, March 8, until Sunday, the 11th, Nicholas heard nothing which caused him serious alarm. He was told that the capital was afflicted with “street disorders.” “Street disorders” were not a matter to worry Nicholas: he had faced them innumerable times in the twenty-three years of his reign. There were officials to deal with them: Khabalov, the Military Governor, and above him Protopopov, the Minister of Interior. The Tsar of all the Russias, the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, need not bother himself with an affair which was a matter for the city police.

  On the night of the 11th, after the troops had been called out and had fired into the crowd and two hundred people lay dead, Nicholas was told that the “street disorders” were becoming nasty. Reacting quickly, he sent an order to Khabalov commanding that the disorders, “intolerable in these difficult times of war with Germany and Austria,” be ended immediately. That same night,
he wrote to Alexandra, “I hope Khabalov will be able to stop these street disorders. Protopopov must give him clear and definite instructions.”

  On Monday, the 12th, the news was much worse. “After yesterday’s news from town, I saw many frightened faces here,” Nicholas wrote. “Fortunately, Alexeiev is calm, but he thinks it is necessary to appoint a very energetic man, so as to compel the ministers to work out the solution of the problems—supplies, railways, coal, etc.” Late that night, a jolting telegram arrived from the Empress—”Concessions inevitable. Street fighting continues. Many units gone over to the enemy. Alix.” At midnight he ordered his train, and at five a.m. he was under way for Tsarskoe Selo. Nevertheless, even at this point Nicholas did not proceed straight to the capital. Knowing that the most direct route was heavily used by troop supply trains, he chose a longer route to avoid dislocations. He still could not believe that his presence was so urgently required that supplies for the army and hungry civilians should be shunted aside.

  As the Imperial train traveled north on Tuesday, the 13th, rumbling through village stations where local dignitaries still stood saluting on the platform to honor the passage of the Tsar, the grim news continued to come. Telegrams from the capital announced the fall of the Winter Palace and the formation of an executive committee of the Duma under Rodzianko. At two a.m. on the morning of the 14th, the train was at Malaya Vishera, just a hundred miles south of the capital, when it was slowed to a halt. An officer boarded the train and informed Voeikov that revolutionary soldiers with machine guns and artillery were just up the track. Nicholas was awakened, and in the middle of the night, alternative possibilities were discussed. If they could not go north to Petrograd and Tsarskoe Selo, they might go east to Moscow, south to Mogilev or west to Pskov, headquarters of the Northern Group of Armies, commanded by General Ruzsky. The discussion leaned in the last direction. Nicholas concurred and declared, “Well, then, to Pskov.”