The SRs were busy organizing the peasantry. They reconstituted the Peasants’ Union, destroyed after 1905. The Union was favorable to the Provisional Government and its messages to the peasants urged patience and restraint.178 The appeals from the government and the Peasants’ Union had a calming effect: many peasants concluded that their claim to the land would be more secure if obtained legally rather than by force. But the agrarian disorders subsided only in June, after the socialists had entered the Provisional Government and the SR leader, Victor Chernov, took over the Ministry of Agriculture. Even so, the peasants could not be expected to wait forever: by failing to enact a land reform, the government soon dissipated its popularity with the communal peasantry.
To ensure the cities’ food supply, Petrograd introduced on March 25 a state monopoly on trade in cereals. Under its provisions, peasants were required to turn over to government agents surplus grain at fixed prices. But there were no means of enforcing this law and the peasants ignored it, continuing to dispose of their surplus on the open market.
The early agrarian disturbances had a pernicious effect on the armed forces. News at the front of an imminent Black Repartition stimulated the first mass desertions of soldiers who hurried home from fear of being left out.179
To stabilize the situation nothing was more urgently required than a speedy convocation of the Constituent Assembly. Only a body elected on a democratic franchise would have enjoyed incontestable legitimacy and, as such, been able to beat back challenges both from the extreme right and from the extreme left. The electoral complexities admittedly were daunting. Still, the matter was of such urgency that practiced politicians would have realized it was better to convene an imperfect Assembly immediately than a perfect one later. When the July Monarchy in France collapsed in 1848, a Constituent Assembly met in two months to choose the new government. In Germany in late 1918 after defeat in the war, in the midst of social upheavals, the authorities who took over would manage to convene a National Assembly in less than four months. The Russian Provisional Government could not do it in the eight months that it stayed in office.
On March 25, the government appointed a commission of seventy jurists to work out the electoral procedures. They immediately got bogged down in technicalities; weeks passed by without anything being accomplished. Nabokov says, probably correctly, there were always more urgent matters to attend to.180 By postponing the elections, the government not only violated a provision of the eight-point program but laid itself open to charges that it was playing for time until revolutionary passions subsided.181 Its dilatoriness contributed heavily to the government’s eventual overthrow: as we will note, one of the main pretexts the Bolsheviks would use when seizing power in the name of the Soviets was that only a Soviet government could ensure the convocation of a Constituent Assembly.
Then there was the issue of war and peace. In theory, all the leading parties represented in the government and the Soviet, the Bolsheviks excepted, favored continuation of the war until victory. This stand reflected the mood of the population. Contrary to a widespread belief that the February Revolution was brought about by war weariness, anti-German sentiment ran high. The overthrow of the tsarist regime had been in the first place inspired by the beliefs that it was too incompetent to lead the country to victory, it sought a separate peace, and it even betrayed secrets to the enemy. “In the first weeks [of the February Revolution],” observes Sukhanov, “the soldier mass in Petrograd not only would not listen to talk of peace, but would not allow it to be uttered, ready to bayonet any uncautious ‘traitor’ and anyone who ‘opened the front to the enemy.’ ”182 In March and April, it was common to see soldiers carry placards calling for “War to the End!”183 A French historian who had the opportunity to read the messages sent to the Provisional Government and the Soviet in the first two months of the new regime, confirms Sukhanov’s impression. Worker petitions placed at the head of demands the eight-hour working day; only 3 percent called for peace without annexations and contributions. Twenty-three percent of the peasants’ petitions wanted a “quick and just peace,” but even among them this was a secondary issue. As for the soldiers, their petitions indicated they “were likely to treat proponents of immediate peace as supporters of the Kaiser.”184 The issue was so sensitive that the Bolsheviks, who alone favored such a peace, exercised great caution in public pronouncements. It is indicative of the Petrograd garrison’s animosity toward them because of their war stand that in the elections to the Ispolkom in the Soviet Soldiers’ Section on April 8 no Bolshevik won a seat.185 Much of the violence perpetrated in February and March was directed against individuals who bore German names and for this reason were suspected of treason. Admiral Kolchak, commander of the Black Sea Fleet, reported that the main disturbances under his command were against officers with German names.186 The same held true for the naval base of Kronshtadt. When on February 27 a mob set fire to the Petrograd residence of Count Fredericks, the Tsar’s aide (who happened to be of Swedish ancestry), it did so because his name aroused suspicions of pro-German sympathies.187
47. Officer candidates (iunkers) parading in Petrograd: March 1917. The sign reads: “War for Freedom until Victory.”
Despite the hatred of Germans and the general support of the war against them, the question of war aims acquired great importance in the popular mind due to socialist agitation. It was characteristic of the socialist intellectuals to advocate contradictory policies linked by pious intentions. They wanted war to victory, yet labeled the war “imperialist” and passed legislation (e.g., Order No. 1 and the eight-hour working day) that made the pursuit of the war all but impossible. They wanted national victory, yet in their declarations spoke of the masses of all the belligerent countries sharing a common interest in bringing down the “ruling classes.” In an “Appeal to the Peoples of the World” on March 15, the Ispolkom called on the world’s peoples to rise in revolution:
Turning to all nations, bled white and ruined by the monstrous war, we declare that the time has come to launch the decisive struggle against the rapacious strivings of the governments of all countries. The time has come to take the decision on war and peace into one’s own hands.
Conscious of its revolutionary might, Russian democracy declares that it will resist with all means the rapacious policy of its ruling classes, and calls on the nations of Europe to undertake jointly decisive actions on behalf of peace.…
We shall staunchly defend our own freedom against all reactionary infringements from within and from without. The Russian Revolution will not yield to the bayonets of conquerors and will not allow itself to be crushed by foreign military might.
188
Such rhetoric must have appeared reasonable to the intellectuals who drafted the “Appeal,” but, like the concept of “dual power,” it left the man in the street perplexed. If Russia’s “ruling classes” indeed pursued a “rapacious policy,” why keep them in power and why be “bled white” in their “monstrous war”?
Miliukov, who was in charge of foreign policy, went his own way. He did not share the socialists’ optimism about the peace movement in Germany, and believed that their appeal would evoke no response. From Trepov’s revelations the preceding December, it was known that the Allies had promised Russia Constantinople and the Straits. Miliukov did not wish to renounce these claims for two reasons: such renunciation would raise doubts in the West about Russia’s commitment to stay in the war, and it would open the floodgates to German peace propaganda. His insistence on Russia’s adhering to its territorial claims led to the first clash between the government and the Soviet.
At a press conference on March 22, Miliukov outlined the Government’s war aims. These included “liberation” of the Slavic peoples of Austria-Hungary, the “fusion” of the Ukrainian territories of Austria-Hungary (i.e., Galicia) with Russia, and acquisition of Constantinople and the Straits.189 Socialist intellectuals interpreted Miliukov’s views as a challenge to their “Appeal,” which demanded
the renunciation of “rapacious” acquisitions. Under pressure from the Soviet, and at the insistence of several cabinet members, especially Kerensky, the government agreed to issue an official statement of war aims more in line with the position of the Ispolkom. Approved by the latter with some revisions, it was released on March 27.190 The statement asserted that Russia had no desire to “lord it over other nations, to deprive them of their national property, to seize by force territories belonging to others”: her objective was a “lasting peace on the basis of national self-determination.” This formula represented a capitulation to the socialists, although Miliukov would later argue that it could have been interpreted to mean Russia’s right to claim enemy territories.191 One month later the controversy over war aims would flare up again, this time causing a major political crisis.
From February 23 until February 28, the Revolution was confined to Petrograd. The country went about its business, as if unaware that anything unusual had occurred. The chronicle of these days192 indicates that the first city to react was Moscow, which had strikes and demonstrations on February 28 and the following day elected a workers’ soviet. On March 1, meetings took place in several provincial towns, including Tver, Nizhnii Novgorod, Samara, and Saratov. On March 2, other cities followed suit. There was no violence: when the Communist chronicler says that the inhabitants of various cities “joined the Revolution,” he means that crowds held peaceful celebrations in support of the Provisional Government. The slow pace at which the Revolution spread indicates the extent to which its origins were connected with the specific conditions in the capital city—namely, exceptionally severe shortages of food and fuel and grievances of the military garrison. It helps explain why as late as March 2 the generals and politicians could still believe that the Tsar’s abdication would keep the Revolution confined to Petrograd. As it turned out, however, it was the news of Nicholas’s abdication, published on March 3, that made the nation realize it had had a revolution: the result was a rapid breakdown of authority.
In the course of March there emerged in all the cities soviets modeled on that of Petrograd, the executives of which were taken over by socialist intellectuals. In early April, the provincial soviets sent representatives to Petrograd where they entered the Petrograd Ispolkom to form an All-Russian Ispolkom (VTsIK, or CEC).
The Revolution spread across the country peacefully: in the phrase of W. H. Chamberlin, it was “made by telegraph.”193 The change of regimes was everywhere accepted as an accomplished fact: no resistance was encountered and therefore no force used. As yet, neither class nor ethnic hostilities emerged to disturb the nearly unanimous relief at the end of the old regime. In some localities, celebrations in honor of the Provisional Government were joined by army officers and ex-tsarist officials.
One of the unanticipated effects of the Revolution and the ideal of democracy which it promoted was the emergence of nationalist movements in areas where the population was predominantly non-Russian. They were led by the indigenous intelligentsia which, in addition to the usual socialist or liberal demands, claimed for their regions some degree of autonomy. The first to be heard from were the Ukrainians, who on March 2 formed in Kiev a soviet called Rada: its initial demands on the government were cultural, but it soon also asked for political powers. Other nationalities followed suit, among them Russia’s scattered Muslims, who in May held an All-Russian Congress.194
Vasilii Rozanov said of Nicholas’s abdication that the Tsar let it be known he “disowned such a base people.”195
According to his diary, Nicholas slept soundly the night that followed the signing of the abdication manifesto. He arrived in Mogilev on March 3 in the evening to learn from Alekseev that his brother had renounced the crown and left the fate of the monarchy up to the Constituent Assembly. “God knows who talked him into signing such rot,” he noted. He now drafted yet another abdication manifesto in which he transferred the crown to his son. Alekseev decided not to inform the government of Nicholas’s latest change of mind. He subsequently entrusted the document to General Denikin for safekeeping.196
The following day, Nicholas sent Prime Minister Lvov a list of requests. He asked to be allowed to proceed to Tsarskoe with his suite and to remain there until the children recovered, following which he wished to take up residence in Port Romanov on the Murmansk coast. Once the war was over, he wanted to retire to the Crimean resort of Livadia. In a coded message to headquarters, the Provisional Government approved these requests.197
Because the ex-Tsar threatened to become a major issue of contention between the government and the Soviet, the cabinet soon decided that it would be politically more expedient to have Nicholas and family out of the country. In the first week of March, it sounded out the British, Danish, and Swiss governments about the possibility of asylum for the Imperial family. On March 8/21, Miliukov told the British Ambassador that he was “most anxious that the Emperor should leave Russia at once” and would be grateful if Britain offered him asylum, with the proviso that Nicholas “would not be allowed to leave England during the war.”198 Britain hesitated at first but on March 9/22 the Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, cabled to the British Embassy in Petrograd:
After further consideration it has been decided that it would be better for the Emperor to come to England during the war rather than to a country contiguous to Germany. Apprehension is felt lest, through the influence of the Empress, the residence of the Emperor in Denmark or Switzerland might become a focus of intrigue, and that in the hands of disaffected Russian Generals the Emperor might become the possible head of a counter-revolution. This would be to play into the hands of Germany, and a risk that must be avoided at all costs.
199
This offer, formally conveyed to the Provisional Government on March 13, was reinforced by a personal message from King George V to Nicholas in which he assured him of his undying friendship and extended the invitation to settle in England.*
The government’s plans regarding the Imperial family failed to take into account the feelings of the socialist intellectuals, who feared that once abroad the ex-Tsar would become the center of counterrevolutionary plots. For this reason, they preferred to keep him at home and under their control. As noted, on March 3 the Ispolkom voted to arrest Nicholas and his family. The government promptly capitulated to this demand. On March 7 it announced that the Imperial family would be placed under detention at Tsarskoe, and dispatched to Mogilev four deputies to escort Nicholas home. On March 8, having learned of the negotiations with Britain, the Ispolkom voted again to arrest Nicholas and his family, confiscate their property, and deprive them of citizenship. To prevent Nicholas’s departure for England, it resolved to send its own people to Tsarskoe to ensure that the Imperial family was securely guarded.200
While these developments were taking place, Nicholas was in Mogilev taking leave of the army. On March 8, he wrote a farewell letter to the armed forces in which he urged them to fight until victory and “obey the Provisional Government.”201 Alekseev forwarded this document to Petrograd, but Guchkov, acting on instructions from the cabinet, which probably feared antagonizing the Ispolkom, ordered it withheld.202 Later that morning, Nicholas bade goodbye to the officers. He walked up to each and embraced him. Nearly everyone was in tears. When the strain became too great Nicholas bowed and withdrew. “My heart nearly burst,” he wrote in the diary.203 At 4:45 p.m. he boarded his train, without the two inseparable companions, Voeikov and Fredericks, whom he had to dismiss at the request of Alekseev. Before departure, Alekseev informed him he was under arrest.204
On that same day, March 8, General Lavr Kornilov, the new commandant of the Petrograd Military District (he had been appointed by Nicholas on Rodzianko’s urging shortly before abdication) visited Tsarskoe. He informed the Empress that she was in custody and posted guards in the palace and on its grounds. This measure was taken in response to the demands of the Ispolkom, but it also had the effect of ensuring the safety of the Imperial family, for the Tsarsko
e Selo garrison had begun to act in an insolent and threatening manner. According to Benckendorff, Kornilov also advised Alexandra that as soon as practicable the family would be taken to Murmansk to board a British cruiser bound for England.205
Nicholas’s train arrived at Tsarskoe in the morning of March 9. Announced to the guards as “Colonel Romanov,” he was surprised to see guards and patrols posted everywhere and to learn that his and his family’s movements, even within the confines of the palace grounds, were severely restricted. He was not to leave his apartments unless accompanied by an armed soldier.
When it learned that Nicholas had left Mogilev, the socialist intelligentsia grew anxious that he meant to escape abroad: they remembered well the flight of Louis XVI to Varennes. On March 9 the Ispolkom met in a state of great agitation. Chkheidze issued a general alarm that the ex-Tsar, who actually had just arrived at Tsarskoe, was in flight and had to be stopped.206 The Soviet resolved to prohibit Nicholas from leaving Russia “even if this should threaten a break with the Provisional Government”: he was to be incarcerated in the Peter and Paul Fortress.207 An Ispolkom delegation, headed by Chkheidze, met with the government that day and received assurances that Nicholas would not be allowed to leave the country without the Ispolkom’s permission.208
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