Russka

by Edward Rutherfurd

  He was sorry for the Tsar, personally. He didn’t think he was a monster – just an inadequate man in an impossible position. But although he had worked hard for years to reach some sort of liberal compromise with the stubborn ruler, now Nicholas was gone, he realized he was relieved. Democracy could begin at last.

  What was it his son had said the other day? He had argued so passionately.

  ‘You don’t see what you’re doing, Father,’ he had warned. ‘The whole empire has been set up to revolve around the Tsar. Everything, everyone, is attached to him. It’s like some huge machine that turns around a single lynchpin. Take that pin out and the whole apparatus will just fly apart.’

  Would Russia fly apart? Nicolai didn’t see why. ‘The Duma is there,’ he had said. ‘There are sensible men in it.’

  ‘Ah, you liberals,’ Alexander had replied with sad affection. ‘You always think people are going to be reasonable.’

  The Duma would do very well, in Nicolai’s view. At least for the time being. It was, after all, the nearest thing to a democratic body that Russia possessed. Already it had chosen a group to act as a Provisional Government, and almost all the parties had agreed to support it. Yesterday, he had heard, some of the workers’ leaders and Mensheviks in St Petersburg had formed some sort of workers’ council – a ‘soviet’, they called it. He knew one or two of the leaders, not bad fellows. They could certainly help to restore some order in the factories.

  And then there would be progress. The programme of the Provisional Government was already clear – prosecute the war. Everyone except the Bolsheviks agreed to that – and the Bolsheviks didn’t count for much these days. Then move quickly to hold elections to a new Constituent Assembly which would replace the Duma. A full democratic body. One man, one vote. Everyone, left and right, was agreed about that too.

  ‘I can feel it,’ he murmured, as he gazed into the street. ‘A warm ray of hope.’

  And then he saw Alexander.

  The fellow was hurrying along, certainly. He had a piece of paper in his hand and he looked excited. This must be it, then: the formal abdication. With a happy smile, Nicolai prepared to greet him.

  So why was the boy frowning? Had the Tsar said something foolish, even now?

  ‘The abdication came through?’ he enquired.

  ‘No. The Tsar still can’t bring himself to sign it. But he will. He hasn’t any choice. The army chiefs are telling him to go as well.’

  ‘Then what’s this?’ Nicolai pointed to the paper.

  Alexander handed it to him without a word. And Nicolai read.

  It was not long. It was addressed to the Petrograd military garrison, and it contained seven terse clauses.

  It told every company to elect committees who would remove control of all arms and equipment from the officers. Officers were no longer to be addressed by honorary titles or saluted off duty. The committees were also to elect representatives to the Petrograd Soviet, which announced that it, and not the Provisional Government, was now the final authority on all military matters.

  It was signed by the Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, dated the previous day. And it was headed, simply and without further explanation: Order No. 1.

  Nicolai stared at it in disbelief. Then he exploded with laughter.

  ‘This is absurd! The Petrograd Soviet is just an informal workers’ body. It’s not elected by anyone and has no authority. Nobody’s going to take any notice of it.’

  ‘But they already are. I’ve been to some of the barracks. They’re all going to comply. Some of them just laughed at me because I was wearing an officer’s uniform.’

  ‘But the regular troops, our soldiers at the front …’

  ‘The order’s already on its way to them. I tell you, most of the troops will follow it.’

  Nicolai was silent, thunderstruck.

  ‘Then who’s in charge?’ he cried.

  Alexander shrugged.

  ‘God knows.’

  1917, July

  Boris Romanov grunted with satisfaction as he stepped from the shady verandah into the salon. Only the ticking of the clock in its marble case could be heard.

  He enjoyed the house with its green walls, its little white portico and its cool interior. He went up every afternoon and sat on the verandah. Once it had belonged to the Bobrovs; then Vladimir Suvorin. And now, to all intents and purposes, it was his. He smiled grimly at the thought. The revolution – his revolution – had finally come.

  The last few months at Russka had been strange. News of the Tsar’s abdication and of the new Provisional Government had only filtered slowly through to the provinces. Boris had not known for sure until ten days afterwards. He had met a peasant travelling from Riazan province who, a month later, still refused to believe it.

  And what did these events in Petrograd mean? The Provisional Government had promised a Constituent Assembly. Good. There was complete freedom of speech and assembly now. No harm in that. But above all, the fall of the Tsar must mean one thing.

  ‘Now,’ he told his family, ‘we shall get the land.’

  Everyone knew it. The Provisional Government was discussing how it was to be done. All that spring, soldiers had been deserting from the front and making their way home, so as not to miss out on the distribution. Two had appeared back in the village.

  But nothing had happened. The Provisional Government, as it did in all things, moved slowly, legalistically and hesitantly.

  It was in late April that he had led the villagers onto the estate. It had been very simple. There was nobody to stop them. When he entered the house, only Arina had been there to protest.

  ‘What right have you got to do this?’

  He had grinned. ‘The people’s right.’ And when she had foolishly tried to bar his way, he had just shoved her aside with a laugh. ‘This is the revolution,’ he had told her.

  It was a curious situation – as if the place had entered a sort of limbo. Technically the estate still belonged to Vladimir Suvorin, just as did the factories at Russka. But Vladimir was in Moscow now. Arina continued to live in the house; so did her son Ivan, who for the time being continued his woodwork. Meanwhile, the villagers cut down some of Suvorin’s trees and grazed their cattle on the slope before the house. And who was going to say anything? It was only a question of time before it was all made legal, whatever that might mean.

  And as far as Boris Romanov was concerned, this was the revolution.

  To others, perhaps, it might involve something more. That very month there had been an attempt to take over the Provisional Government in Petrograd. A madcap plan – an armed rising – by those Bolsheviks. Boris knew about Bolsheviks. They were fellows like that accursed red-head, Popov. They had been growing in numbers lately with their slogan ‘All power to the Soviets’, and their screaming editorials in their paper, Pravda. But their revolt had been smashed. One of their leaders, Trotsky, was in jail. Another, Lenin, had fled abroad. ‘And let’s hope that’s the last of them,’ Boris had said.

  There was a new man at the head of the government now, a Socialist called Kerensky. He’d called in General Kornilov to restore order. Perhaps he’d speed up the Constituent Assembly and the legalizing of the land distribution, too.

  Slowly now Boris mounted the stairs. During the last three months he had examined the house and its contents with interest. There were certainly some strange-looking books and paintings there. The grand piano, however, he had much admired. One of his sons had played a tune on it.

  Only today had it occurred to him that there was one part of the house he had never investigated. He would go to the attic.

  Rather to his disappointment, however, he found that Suvorin had made no use of it. The long low room under the roof was almost empty, the floorboards bare. Only at one end did he notice, under a small round window, a few dusty old boxes.

  With slow deliberation, but not much interest, he opened them, then made a grimace. Papers. Old letters, bills, and other nonsense of the
Bobrovs. He shrugged. He couldn’t be bothered to look at them, and he was just about to turn away when he noticed one piece of paper that seemed to be sticking out slightly from the rest. Along the top, he noticed, was a heading: ‘Fire at Russka’.

  He frowned and pulled it out, to find another slip of paper folded inside the first. It seemed to be a letter of some sort.

  It was signed: Peter Suvorin.

  1917, 2 November

  It was one in the morning and they were alone.

  The night before, when the Moscow Kremlin had still been holding out, there had been fighting in the streets; but now the city was quiet. In Petrograd and in Moscow, Lenin and his Bolsheviks were now in power.

  Or were they?

  Popov smiled at Mrs Suvorin, and despite all that was passing, she smiled back. She thought he looked younger.

  ‘So tell me,’ she said, ‘what really happened.’

  And then he laughed.

  The world-shattering event known as the October Revolution was, strictly speaking, nothing of the kind. It was a coup by a minority party, about which the majority of the population did not even know.

  All through that year of 1917, since the abdication of the Tsar, Russia had staggered along under a strange duality: a Provisional Government, which had little real power, and a Congress of Soviets, which had a growing network of local bases in factory, town and village, but no real legitimacy. Elections were needed to form a democratic Constituent Assembly; but the government, even after its leadership fell upon the popular Socialist, Kerensky, was painfully slow. Meanwhile the economy was collapsing, there were food shortages, and the members of the government themselves were becoming weary.

  It was while this government was wavering that the Bolshevik party began to make steady progress in the soviets. In July, foolishly, they had attempted an insurrection which was crushed; but this did not stop their political advance. By the start of September, Trotsky and his Bolsheviks had a majority in the Petrograd Soviet. A few days later, the Bolsheviks also had a majority in Moscow. In the country as a whole, however, they remained in a minority. With time it seemed possible that the Bolsheviks would become the dominant leftist party: but then again they might not. And it was in this rather uncertain situation that, in the month of October 1917, Lenin with some difficulty persuaded his fellow Bolsheviks to gamble once more on a bid for instant power.

  It began on the night of 24 October and it was orchestrated, chiefly by Trotsky, from the former convent and girls’ school, the Smolny Institute, which had become the home of the Petrograd Soviet.

  ‘And the amazing thing,’ Popov declared, ‘was how easy it all was.’ He grinned: ‘We did the main part by stealth.’

  All through the evening the conspirators had done something so simple it was brilliant. They had just gone from one vital installation to another, picketing or taking over, and few of the workers they had relieved had bothered to oppose them. They had already done their best to win the military garrisons over, but they need not have worried, for the military was not much inclined to act, and poor Kerensky failed to make any proper defensive plans. By morning, almost all the city’s key points had been quietly taken over.

  ‘Kerensky went off to get military support from outside the city,’ Popov told her, ‘but had little luck. That just left the ministers of the Provisional Government sitting in the Winter Palace with a guard of some Cossacks and, if you please, the Women’s Death Battalion. There were forty war invalids too, God bless them!’

  ‘Then you stormed the Winter Palace?’

  ‘More or less. Actually, some of the women, I suppose, knew how to shoot, so our people wouldn’t go near the place. Then we got five thousand sailors. But when they saw there was shooting, they went away too!’

  ‘I heard the Winter Palace was bombarded.’

  ‘Correct. The heroic cruiser Aurora fired upon the palace. They hadn’t any live shells unfortunately, so they fired a single blank. Then the Peter and Paul Fortress had a go. But they missed.’

  ‘That’s impossible. The fortress is directly opposite the Palace.’

  ‘I was there. They missed.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Oh, in the end they gave up and our people went in and looted the place.’ He chuckled. ‘Though in the future, I’m sure we shall tell the story rather differently.’

  Mrs Suvorin looked at Popov thoughtfully. She had seen little of him in the last year, but they still felt an attraction for each other. She could understand why, in his moment of triumph, he should have sent a message that he would call upon her that night.

  Several thoughts went through her mind. What would this change mean politically? Some people, she knew, were outraged. The civil service, the banks, and a number of unions had resisted the usurpation of the Duma by going on strike. It was still possible that armed forces would be used against the Bolsheviks. Yet other people were taking things very calmly. The Petrograd stock exchange had not reacted at all: prices were firm. As a businessman had remarked to her: ‘These Bolsheviks are just a party within the workers’ soviets: and it’s the soviets, not Kerensky, who’ve had the real power for months. I doubt it will make much difference.’

  True, the first act of the new group had been to declare that all estates were now to be distributed to the peasants but that had been coming anyway, and she knew very well that the peasants had already occupied the estate at Russka. She had reconciled herself to that.

  What about the men involved? What were they like? She had seen the list of ministers. Lenin she felt she knew about; also Trotsky. Them she feared. Yet Lunachazsky, the Minister of Culture, she had met and found to be a cultivated and sympathetic man. Other names meant less. And one, the Chairman for Nationalities, named Stalin, meant nothing at all.

  Which brought her back to Popov. Even now, after a decade, she did not really know him. Sometimes, like that time in 1913, she had broken through and found a man of warmth; yet at other times the thick shell of the revolutionary had descended. She felt he would kill without caring. And, perhaps worse, he would lie without hesitation.

  Somehow, she felt instinctively now, he represented them. If she could gauge him, she might have an insight into these men who were his colleagues.

  And it was with this in her mind that she now asked him the question that had been troubling her more than any other.

  ‘What, then, are you going to do about the Constituent Assembly?’

  All the parties, including the Bolsheviks, had been calling for it. Before being overthrown, the Kerensky Provisional Government had set the dates for elections in November. Now, with this coup, what would become of those?

  He looked at her in surprise.

  ‘The elections are scheduled.’

  ‘Will they take place?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Nothing is certain. How do I know that your Lenin isn’t a dictator.’

  ‘You have my word he isn’t.’ Popov gazed at her earnestly. ‘I assure you the Constituent Assembly will be called. It’s part of our programme. Not only that, all the decisions of this government – the distribution of the land, everything – are only provisional, and subject to ratification by the Assembly.’

  His eyes looked straight into hers. She supposed she must believe him.

  ‘Do you promise me that?’

  ‘I do.’

  1918, January

  On 5 January, 1918, the Constituent Assembly met in Petrograd. Since the elections had taken place well after the Bolshevik coup, it would be hard to deny that the results reflected the people’s will under present conditions. Of the 707 members, the largest group – 370 – belonged to the peasants’ party, the Socialist Revolutionaries. Of the lesser parties, the Bolsheviks had 170 members. Other parties included the Mensheviks, and there were over a hundred members with marginal or no party affiliations. The ruling Bolsheviks, therefore, were in a definite minority, with only 24 per cent of the vote.

  The Constituent Assem
bly met for one day. Lenin watched the proceedings from a balcony. The Assembly refused to agree that the Bolshevik Government was the supreme power or to bow to the decisions of the soviets. That same night, Lenin, with a show of military force, disbanded it.

  Thus, after centuries of tsarist rule, and after its February and October revolutions, Russia enjoyed its one and only day of democracy. ‘It’s a pity,’ one of the sailors who disbanded it remarked, ‘but,’ using the tsarist term of affection which many soldiers then applied to Lenin, ‘the Little Father doesn’t like it.’

  The following day, Mrs Suvorin sent a note to Yevgeny Popov.

  You lied. You must have known.

  It was all planned.

  Do not come to see me again.

  1918, February

  The fate of Alexander Bobrov was decided in an icy Moscow street. It was foolish of him to have lost concentration – and all the more so since it was the very eve of his departure.

  For it was clear that, for the two Bobrovs, it was time to leave. ‘It seems,’ Alexander said wryly, ‘that we shall not be required in the modern age.’

  And the new age had, indeed, begun. Officially it started on 31 January. For on that day, by government decree, Russia moved to the western, Gregorian calendar, and ceased to be thirteen days behind the rest of the world. Whatever the date, however, the Russia that Alexander knew was dissolving in the strangest way, before his eyes.

  She was neither at war nor at peace. An armistice had been signed with Germany, but the peace terms, negotiated by Trotsky, had yet to be agreed. The assumption of some idealistic revolutionaries, that if they offered to go home, the Germans would do so too, had been swiftly disproved. The general revolution in Europe that some, including Lenin, had hoped for, showed no sign yet of taking place. Meanwhile, in this uncomfortable half world, the old Russian empire was showing every sign of breaking up. In the north, Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia had already declared independence. In the west, Poland was sure to be lost. In the south, formal authority in the Ukraine had broken down, but while the Bolsheviks were trying to get control, the Ukranian nationalists had already proclaimed a new Ukrainian state.