by H Schmidt
“The ambassador told me that he had a young American who has taken the time to learn the Russian language. It is a pleasure meeting you, Lieutenant.”
The consular officer had spent over an hour briefing him on Richard Carson. Mr. Carson was the gentleman sought after by American businesses who wanted to do business in Russia. There were reports that Moscow was filled with arms dealers representing British, Frenc, Italian, and Japanese firms, but that Carson had been extremely successful in opening doors and obtaining business for American manufacturers. Where the embassy often got vague promises, Richard Carson got the business.
Richard Carson did not want Russia out of the war. Although purportedly for different reasons but in fact the same, the American government did not, either. Richard Carson did not like the Bolsheviks. The reasons were business and personal. If the Bolsheviks ran Russia, he would lose fifteen years of contacts in the Russian government. The brother of his wife, Elena, had been assassinated on the orders of a high-ranking Bolshevik. The killer was known, yet still was free.
“It is a pleasure meeting you, sir. I’m afraid my Russian still needs a great deal of work but I can admit to trying hard.”
“I asked the ambassador if he might spare you for a few hours tomorrow. I have the good fortune of knowing the curator of the Hermitage. There are some works purchased by Alexander the First that I would hope you would look at with me.”
“It would be a great pleasure, sir, but I’m afraid there is some work the ambassador has asked me to do in the morning, however, the afternoon is free.”
“I will be by with my carriage at one o’clock. I will see you then, Lieutenant.” Billy’s instructions were to wait. He would be contacted. He had been in Petrograd for over a month, and was beginning to think that something had happened to abort his mission. The instructions he had received in New York when he was about to depart for Europe were that he would be contacted after he reached Petrograd. Billy had not known that it would be Richard Carson, but he was not surprised after it had happened. Was the ambassador aware of what was going on? In New York, it had been made clear to him that no one in the embassy was to be made aware of the operation. It made sense. If discovered, it could hurt America’s chances to do business in Russia. No American knew more about what was happening in Russia than Carson. Billy wondered if he could be trusted.
At one o’clock sharp the next day, the blue carriage of Richard Carson pulled up to the American Embassy and Billy climbed in beside his host. When he entered the carriage, Carson had talked of the weather and talked about his dacha, clearly warning Billy that he did not want to discuss business with his driver present. As they neared the Winter Palace, Carson called to his driver.
“Nikita, stop. We will walk from here. Please plan to return in one hour.” As the carriage pulled away, and the two men walked along the Neva, Carson spoke. “You can trust no one today. They are either convinced that the socialists are going to take over the country and are afraid, or they believe all the nonsense they are being fed by the Lenin gang.”
“Mr. Carson, does Minister Kerensky know that the Bolsheviks are planning something soon?”
Carson looked at the young man. “Why do you say that?”
“Have you noticed the number of young men and women handing out Bolshevik propaganda the last few days? Have you read any of it? Lenin is explicit about what he wants.”
For several moments, Carson was silent. As they stood together, a large crowd was crossing the river from the university. Billy found the crowds in Russia unusual. He had never seen one that seemed to have gathered on its own. Always, there were cadre. Sometimes, they seemed like small army units, taking the field. This one was led by young men and women with great red flags, waving them like the armies of earlier centuries, to control the movements of the soldiers.
“I am told by members of the Okhrana that their leaders can assemble a crowd at the university in a matter of minutes. A telephone call or another kind of message and the cadre have them walking toward the government offices. They are a very tough and determined lot, Lieutenant. They are extraordinarily clever. Very able enemies. Perhaps they are the best kind. They make us better.”
Billy could hear their shouts now. They were chanting something. They were chanting down with Lvov. The prince was the head of the Provisional Government.
“They are not after Lvov, they are after the Provisional Government.” Billy had been fascinated with Nicolai Lenin from the first days in Washington. He had remembered him even before then, when a professor at the academy, obviously an admirer of Lenin, mentioned him during a European history class. Making a special trip to New York, he had obtained a copy of Max Eastman’s periodical, the Masses, which described Lenin in godlike terms. Billy’s research on Pancho Villa brought him across the path of the figure of Lenin, painted with the same brush by socialist writers as Villa. What had always surprised him was the way the image painted by people like Eastman and John Reed belied Lenin’s own words. He is no friend of democracy, Billy thought . Except as abstractions like “the people”, he expresses contempt for ordinary people.
Richard Carson knew a great deal about Lieutenant William Housman, the man his friends called Billy. He had known of him months before he arrived in Petrograd. What the young lieutenant did not know was that he had been chosen for this assignment long before he had any notion he would be coming to Russia. The people who had chosen him had watched him consume everything he could about Russia, as if drawn to this great country by more than his innate curiosity. They had researched his early interest while at West Point and the interest he had shown in Lenin. They would have liked someone more experienced, in order to have a better understanding of the person they were looking for. They were troubled by the independent streak shown in Mexico, but admired his loyalty to the people in the village. Major Somersville had been helpful, but perhaps his own bitterness had made him less objective about the young man he praised so highly.
The official position of the United States government was to support the Provisional Government. The star it had attached itself to was Alexander Kerensky. Perhaps, Carson thought, it was his skill as a lawyer, a measure used often by American leaders who so often were lawyers themselves. The people whom Carson represented in Russia, the people who determined the United States’ policy, saw Kerensky as overmatched. Perhaps it was his training in the law, and its flirtation with right and wrong, that caused him to think that reason was the weapon that would win the battle in Russia. Perhaps it was his weakness for women and his inflated view of his own abilities. Whatever the reasons, Kerensky could not protect the interests of those he represented.
What these people wanted were the markets that Russia offered. They wanted the cheap labor she could provide, and her natural resources. They wanted them on terms which they dictated, and for that Kerensky was not the man. They had another in mind.
“I think you are right, Lieutenant. While we were in the carriage, I put something in your coat pocket, the one on your right side. It is a telegram. I don’t want you to read it now, but when you are somewhere where no one else can see you. You will find the telegram was sent from the United States to Sweden, then carried here. It states who you are, and says one thing I found of great interest. It says you are dangerous. I find that curious.”
“So do I, Mr. Carson. Who was the telegram sent to?”
Carson smiled at the young man’s obvious intelligence. “It was sent to Fedor Riezler, a member of intelligence for the Bolsheviks. My guess is that we are being watched. This is a dangerous position for us both, Lieutenant. We will have to limit our contacts. There will be someone else contacting you from this moment on. I will not be doing so. We may be running into each other at diplomatic get-togethers, but don’t expect any business to be discussed, unless it is so urgent it cannot be avoided.”
As they walked into the Hermitage, they could see the tension on the faces of the employees. Count Skeranski greeted them as they
entered.
“Mr. Carson, such a pleasure. Would you like me to provide a guide for you? Of course, you have been here many times, and I suppose you will prove a most able guide for your young friend.”
“Count Skeranski, may I introduce Lieutenant William Housman from the American Embassy.”
“Count Skeranski, I am very pleased to meet you. I have wanted to see the Hermitage since I first arrived.”
The count glanced quickly at Carson, then back to Billy. He lost his reserve for a brief moment as he smiled at the young American. “It is not often that Americans honor us by speaking our language so well.”
For a brief moment, he had the urge to thank the count in French. Better keep that light under the bushel, he thought. He had begun to find that speaking Russian had its disadvantages. He would have preferred less attention on himself. Now that he was gaining such notoriety, he would have to be even more careful in his work.
Leaving the count, the two men talked of the statuary, the paintings, and the other pieces of art. Billy had to confess to his companion that he was woefully equipped to carry on an intelligent conversation about the works in the Hermitage. Carson, who had spent many hours there with his wife, Elena, proved a most able guide. Not a hint of the serious business they were now in. An afternoon at the Hermitage, a business agent trying to cultivate the new member of the Consular Office. Not implausible at all.
---
Anna had met Fedor Riezler at the university. She had accompanied her father to a lecture there on evolution. That was two years ago. Fedor was speaking to a crowd of students. He was tall and too thin, she thought. He wore small, round, wire-rimmed glasses. When he spoke, she noticed that his eyes seemed to shine, and he seemed to play the crowd, pausing to wait for their applause, their shouts of approval or disapproval. He had power, she thought. She liked men who had power.
She had friends at the university and when they would tell her Fedor Riezler was to speak there, she would find a way to come and listen. She would think of questions to ask him each time he spoke. At first, he seemed impatient with her, dismissing her as another of the addled young aristocrats who seemed to crave the edge of danger. But it was not long before Fedor saw her beauty and standing as something he wanted to possess, to treat as he, a Jew, had been treated by her kind. He took her as his mistress, taking pains to remind her of her good fortune to be allowed in his bed. Anna was happy playing her part in the revolution.
As she had come to worship Fedor, she came to despise her father. All her life, she had thought her father an enlightened man, someone who cared about ordinary people. She knew now that he was a member of what everyone called the Progressive Bloc, comprised of members of the Duma critical of the power of the czar and the limited voice given to people. Fedor had shown her that her father was someone who wanted to retain the privileges granted by his lands in Georgia while speaking of such things as democracy and socialism as if they would never touch him and his family. Such men had no place in the new world Fedor had shown her.
When her lover discovered that Count Tsereteli stood up to support Alexander Kerensky, it was Fedor who suggested that she go to work for Kerensky. It was Fedor who explained to her that she must be willing to give everything to the Party, for Lenin. She had begged him not to make her sleep with another man. She was given a choice. She would do what she was told or leave him.
They lay in bed in the small room near the Kshesinskaya Palace. There was no breeze from the river, and the smells of tobacco smoke, sweat, and stale sex swept over the room. Anna lay with her head on Fedor’s bony chest. While the man stared at the ceiling, watching the smoke from his cigarette rise, he could feel the girl’s body shaking as she sobbed. She had been crying for almost ten minutes. He had not slapped her as he had often done before, because he knew she would calm down and accept her new orders. For a brief moment, when he had told her, there was pity for this wretched girl. He had shown her none of that pity, simply waiting until she stopped crying.
Anna had met the American. He was tall, very polite, a pleasant smile on his face. Fedor had told her of a different American, one dedicated to stamping out the revolution, to restoring the czar to the throne. The Party must find out why he was in Petrograd, why had he talked to the American Carson. Anna was to meet him, seduce him, then be taken into his confidence.
Anna could not believe that Fedor, who said he loved her, would ask her to do this thing once more. His voice had been cold as he spoke. Once again, he had threatened her that he would leave her, and once again, she had begged him not to. As she lay on his chest, the sweet smells of his body became stale and foul, and the chest bony and uncomfortable. Gradually, the sobs stopped.
---
Rumors had spread that the Petrograd Garrison, most loyal to the Bolsheviks, would be dispatched to the front. The rumors were strongest in the eleven thousand man Machine Gun Regiment, also the most committed to the Bolsheviks. On July 3, while Billy pored over the Bolshevik papers, the regiment had worked itself into a frenzy. Shouting they did not want to fight the nobles’ and bourgeoisie’s war, they assembled at the Narodnyi Dom, the People’s Palace. They listened to speakers berate the Provisional Government and demand all power be transferred to the Soviet. Selecting Lieutenant Samashko as their leader, it was agreed the following morning they would take to the streets. As word spread, naval units from Kronstadt led by Raskolnikov voted to join the putsch along with workers from the Vyborg District. In the morning, fifty thousand sailors and workers would march on the Provisional Government.
By midafternoon on July 4, the Kronstadt naval units, the Machine Gun Regiment and workers ringed Taurida Palace beside the Neva north of the Winter Palace. Inside was the Soviet representing the socialist parties of Russia and claiming to speak for one hundred fifty million Russians. The Soviet, presided over by Ispolkom, was a parallel government in Russia. While the world recognized the Provisional Government, its timid leaders were afraid to move without support from the Soviet. As the crowd gathered around the Palace, shouts were heard from the crowd demanding that Ispolkom, on behalf of the Soviet, declare itself the official government of Russia. Preposterous as it may have seemed to outsiders, there were those who sensed the moment had come. To the rational, the question could be asked, why would a mob of fifty thousand assume it could take over a country of one hundred fifty million? To the daring, the reply was why not? One man, a tall, powerful worker, shook his fist at those Ispolkom members present.
“Take power, you sons of whores.”
Inside a large room leading out onto a balcony overlooking the great crowd, the men who had created the mob stood. Among them, at their center, stood Nicolai Lenin. For almost twenty years, Nicolai Lenin had dreamed of this moment. Most of Petrograd had been occupied by forces sympathetic to him. Machine guns under his control were placed on street corners throughout the city. The Peter and Paul Fortress, across from the Winter Palace, was controlled by his Red Guards. He had but to step on the Palace balcony and declare the new Soviet. The Bolsheviks had already prepared a series of proclamations which would have put in motion a new nation. Power to the workers, land for the peasants, an end to war. What enticements to throw off the old and begin the new! The new Russia. So preposterous yet so possible. A dream made real by simply declaring it so. Trotsky, Stalin, Kamenev, Zinoviev stood inside the building with their commander, watching him.
“It is too soon. We must wait.” With that, Lenin disappeared with Antoniev, leaving the others stunned. What had happened? The man of iron will, who had taught them all that the will can overcome armies, had walked away from the balcony. It was empty and no one dared walk out and be seen. Why had he left? They soon found out.
Minister of Justice Pereverzev watched the demonstrators march toward Taurida Palace. Reports came to him early in the afternoon about the intentions of the Bolsheviks. He could wait no longer. Kerensky had told him to wait. He could not. He had contacted the Petrograd Garrison commander and requ
ested that he send representatives from the eighty installations in and around Petrograd. He had his apparatchiks call the editors of all the newspapers. He asked all to be present for an important announcement on which the future of Russia depended. At five p.m., when the nation’s future teetered in the balance at Taurida Palace, the room was packed. He tossed his bombshell among those gathered.
“Evidence has come to light over the last several months that Nicolai Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders have entered into secret agreements with the government of Germany to seize control of Russia. Such evidence, including bank statements and telegrams from Stockholm to Petrograd, show that the German government has already transferred millions of German marks to Swedish banks to be converted into rubles by Lenin and his coconspirators. It is our intention, based on this evidence, to arrest Lenin and the other men involved, to have them stand trial for treason.”
As he made the statement, clerks handed out a written, expanded version. Twenty minutes before the announcement, Lenin had disappeared. Five minutes before that, Trotsky had observed Lenin take a call at the Palace, and watched as the blood seemed to leave his face. Trotsky did not know that the call was from Karinskii, a clerk at the Ministry of Justice loyal to Lenin who understood the implication of Pereverzev’s treachery. Among those who were there and observed his leader was the quiet Georgian, Josef Stalin. On pure speculation, he called Karinskii, and the frantic man confirmed what he had told Lenin. Stalin, cool and assured, called together the members of Ispolkom who were in the building. “Pereverzev has betrayed us. He has used forged documents to accuse Ispolkom of secret dealing with the Germans. If this information becomes known to the people of Petrograd and Russia, the counterrevolution will drown us all.”