The Russian Revolution

by Richard Pipes

  In November 1918, the Revolutionary Tribunal tried the Left SR Central Committee, most of whose members had fled or gone underground. Spiridonova and Iu. V. Sablin, who did stand trial, received one-year terms. Spiridonova did not serve out her sentence; she was sprung from the Kremlin prison by the Left SRs in April 1919.* She spent the rest of her life in and out of prison. In 1937, she was condemned to twenty-five years for “counterrevolutionary activity”: in 1941, as the German armies approached Orel, where she was imprisoned, she was taken out and shot.134 Neither of Mirbach’s assassins lived to a ripe old age. Andreev died of typhus in the Ukraine the following year. Bliumkin led an underground existence until May 1919, when he turned himself in. Having repented, he was not only forgiven but admitted into the Communist Party and appointed to Trotsky’s staff. In late 1930 he had the bad judgment to carry messages to his followers in Russia. He was arrested and executed.135

  In the wake of the July uprising the Left SRs split into two factions, one of which approved of it, the other of which disowned it. In time, both factions dissolved in the Communist Party, except for a minuscule group which went underground.136

  Dzerzhinskii was suspended from his job. Officially, he resigned as chairman and member of the Cheka to serve as a witness in the forthcoming trial of Mirbach’s assassins,137 but since the Bolsheviks did not normally observe such legal niceties and no such trial took place, this was merely a face-saving formula. His suspension was almost certainly due to Lenin’s suspicion that he had been implicated in the Left SR conspiracy. Latsis directed the secret police until August 22, when Dzerzhinskii was reinstated.

  The Left SRs failed dismally not only because they had no clear objective and rebelled without being willing to assume responsibility for the political consequences, but also because they had completely miscalculated Bolshevik and German reactions. As it turned out, the two had much too much at stake to allow themselves to be provoked by the murder of an ambassador (which was followed by the assassination of Field Marshal Hermann von Eichhorn by Left SRs in the Ukraine). The German Government virtually ignored the killing of Mirbach, and the German press, under its instructions, played it down. Indeed, in the fall of 1918, the two countries moved closer than ever. The Bolsheviks were very fortunate in their choice of opponents.

  By a remarkable coincidence another anti-Bolshevik rebellion broke out on the very same day, the morning of July 6, in three northeastern cities, Iaroslavl, Murom, and Rybinsk. It was the work of Boris Savinkov, the best organized and most enterprising of the anti-Bolshevik conspirators.

  Born in Kharkov in 1879, Savinkov received his secondary education in Warsaw, following which he enrolled at the University of St. Petersburg.138 There he became embroiled in student disorders, including the university strike of 1899. He joined the SRs and quickly rose to a leading position in its Combat Organization, in which capacity he carried out major terrorist missions, including the assassinations of Plehve and Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich. In 1906 his terrorist activities came to a halt when the police agent Evno Azef betrayed him to the Okhrana. Sentenced to death, Savinkov managed to flee abroad, where he remained until the outbreak of the February Revolution, writing novels about the revolutionary underground. The war awakened in him patriotic impulses. He served in the French army until February 1917, when he returned to Russia. The Provisional Government appointed him a front-line commissar. Savinkov grew increasingly nationalistic and conservative, and, as we have seen, in the summer of 1917, while serving as acting director of the Ministry of War under Kerensky, he worked with Kornilov to restore discipline in the armed forces. Surrounded by an aura of romantic adventure, articulate and persuasive, he made a strong impression on whomever he cared to impress, including Winston Churchill.

  In December 1917, Savinkov made his way to the Don, where he participated in the formation of the Volunteer Army. At Alekseev’s request, he returned to Bolshevik Russia to make contact with prominent public figures.139 His mission was to enlist those officers and politicians who, regardless of party affiliation, wanted to continue fighting the Germans and their Bolshevik minions. By virtue of his radical past and more recent patriotic record, Savinkov was ideally suited for this task. He spoke with Plekhanov, N. V. Chaikovskii, and other socialist luminaries known to follow a “defensist” line, but he had little success in enlisting them because, with a few exceptions, they preferred to wait for the Bolsheviks to collapse on their own rather than collaborate with nationalistic officers. Plekhanov refused even to receive him, saying: “I have given forty years of my life to the proletariat and it is not I who will shoot at workers even if they take the false path.”140 He had better success with demobilized officers, especially those who had served in the elite Guard and Grenadier Regiments.

  His main problem was shortage of money: he was too poor even to afford a streetcar ticket. To build up a military force he had to pay allowances to his officers, most of whom were equally destitute, since no one dared to give them employment. To obtain funds, Savinkov turned to the representatives of the Allies. His private plans called for assassinating Lenin and Trotsky as a prelude to a coup against the Bolshevik regime. But he realized that the Allies did not much care who governed Russia, as long as she fought the Central Powers. Indeed, at this very time (March—April 1918) the French were assisting Trotsky organize the Red Army. Savinkov, therefore, concealed from the Allied representatives his true political objectives and presented himself as a patriotic Russian whose sole purpose was to restore Russia’s military capabilities and resume the war against Germany.

  The first to help was Thomas Masaryk. The Czech leader’s motives in assisting Savinkov are obscure because in early 1918 he was negotiating with the Bolsheviks for the evacuation of his men from Russia and he could have had no conceivable interest in becoming involved in anti-Bolshevik activity. In his memoirs he writes that he had agreed to meet with Savinkov out of curiosity and was very disappointed to see a man seemingly unable to grasp the distinction between a “revolution” and a “terrorist act,” whose moral standards did not rise above the “primitive level of a blood vendetta.”141 But this could well have been hindsight. What is certain is that in April 1918 Masaryk gave Savinkov his first money, 200,000 rubles.142 A likely explanation for this transaction is that Savinkov, an expert at dissimulation, persuaded Masaryk that the money would be used to help Alekseev’s Volunteer Army build up an anti-German force in central Russia.

  Savinkov also contacted Lockhart and Noulens. Lockhart reacted skeptically to Savinkov’s proposal to build an anti-German army under the very noses of the Bolsheviks, but he too came under Savinkov’s spell, and might have helped him were it not that he received categorical instructions from Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour “to have nothing whatever to do with Savinkov’s plans, and avoid inquiring further into them.”143

  Noulens, a leading advocate of the idea of forming on Russian territory a multinational anti-German army, proved more helpful. He found Savinkov most impressive:

  He had a curious expression of impassivity, with a fixed gaze that shone from under his barely open Mongol eyelids, with permanently sealed lips, as if meant to conceal all his secret thoughts. By contrast, his profile and complexion were Western. It appeared that in him combined all the energy of one race and all the cunning and mystery of the other.

  144

  At the beginning of May, Noulens gave Savinkov 500,000 rubles, which he followed with additional subsidies, for a total of up to 2,500,000.145 As best as can be ascertained, these funds were to be used for military purposes, mainly the expenses of the Volunteer Army but also for some work behind German lines on behalf of Allied military intelligence.146 There exists no reliable evidence that Noulens conspired with Savinkov to overthrow the Bolshevik regime or that he was even acquainted with Savinkov’s revolutionary plot.* Noulens extracted from Savinkov a promise that he would coordinate his action with the other Russian parties, presumably the pro-Allied National Center, but Savinko
v broke this promise because he did not trust the latter to keep his plans secret. Grenard wrote in his memoirs that when Savinkov raised the banner of rebellion in July 1918, he “acted on his own in violation of the promises he had given to undertake nothing except in concert with the other Russian parties.”147

  89. Boris Savinkov.

  With the help of Czech and French money, Savinkov expanded recruiting activities and by April 1918 enrolled in his organization, the Union for the Defense of the Fatherland and Freedom (Soiuz Zashchity Rodiny i Svobody), over 5,000 members, 2,000 of them in Moscow, the remainder in thirty-four provincial towns.† Most were officers, for Savinkov planned armed action and had little use for intellectuals and their endless chatter (boltovnia). As his deputy he chose a forty-two-year-old professional artillery officer and graduate of the Imperial General Staff School, Lieutenant Colonel A. P. Perkhurov, a man with a distinguished war record and of legendary courage.

  Savinkov had a program, or rather several programs, but he attached to them little importance because political discussions tended to divide and divert his followers from the task at hand. His stress was on patriotism. One program of the Union was divided into immediate and long-term objectives.* The immediate objective was to replace the Bolsheviks with a reliable national authority and create a disciplined army to fight the Central Powers. The long-term objective was vague. Savinkov spoke of holding fresh elections to the Constituent Assembly, presumably after the war, to give Russia a democratic regime. In recollections, published in Warsaw in 1923, he stressed that his organization enrolled representatives of all the parties, from monarchists to Socialists-Revolutionaries.148 Savinkov could be all things to all men and it would be futile to expect from him a specific, formal plan for the future: it is certain only that he stood for firm national authority and the pursuit of the war, much as did Kornilov. To be admitted to Savinkov’s Union, one only had to be committed to fighting the Germans and the Bolsheviks.

  Savinkov structured his organization on a military model, drawing on his terrorist experience to conceal it from the Cheka. Under his command were several dozen skeletal “regiments” in Moscow and the provincial cities, staffed by professional officers. These units were isolated from one another and known only to their immediate superiors, so that in the event of arrest or betrayal the Cheka could not capture the entire organization.149 This arrangement passed its test in mid-May, when a woman who had been jilted by one of the Union’s members denounced it to the police. Following her lead, the Cheka discovered the Union’s headquarters in Moscow, disguised as a medical clinic. It seized over 100 members (they were executed in July), but even though this discovery forced the Union to suspend its activities for two weeks, the Cheka failed to capture Savinkov or to liquidate his organization.150

  Perkhurov had under him 150–200 officers, working in an elaborate command structure: there were departments responsible for recruitment, intelligence and counterintelligence, relations with the Allies, and the principal branches of the armed forces (infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineering).151 The Cheka later complimented Savinkov and Perkhurov on running their organization with “clocklike precision.”152

  Savinkov built up an organization but he had no concrete strategic plan. By June, he came under mounting pressure to act. Because the Czechs and the French had suspended their subsidies, his money was running out, and the nerves of his followers were becoming frayed from the constant danger of betrayal. According to his testimony, he initially contemplated striking at Moscow, but he gave up this idea out of fear that the Germans would respond by occupying the capital.153 In view of persistent rumors, confirmed to him by French representatives, that the Allies would make additional landings at Archangel and Murmansk in early July, he decided to stage his uprisings in the region of the middle or upper Volga, from where he could establish contact with both the Czechoslovak armies and the Allied forces at Murmansk. His plan called for cutting the Bolsheviks off from the northern ports as well as Kazan and areas to the east.

  In 1924, when he stood trial before a Soviet court, Savinkov claimed he had received from the French a firm commitment that if his men managed to hold out for four days, they would be relieved by an Allied force from Archangel, following which the combined Franco-Anglo-Russian army would advance on Moscow. Without such a promise, he said, his uprising made no sense.154 He further claimed that Consul Grenard gave him a cable from Noulens that the Allied landings would take place between July 3 and 8 and that it was essential for him to move during that time.155 According to the testimony he gave at his trial, he coordinated all activities with the French mission.

  Unfortunately, one can never take Savinkov’s statements at face value, not only because as an experienced conspirator he rarely told the full truth but also because he was quite capable of telling outright lies. Thus, at one time he claimed credit for Fannie Kaplan’s attempt on Lenin’s life (see below, this page), with which he is known to have had no connection; he also stated that in July 1918 he had acted on orders of the Moscow National Center, which happens to be untrue as well.156 The Bolsheviks liked to link all resistance to them with foreign conspiracies to incite native xenophobia. It is almost certain that after his arrest in Soviet Russia in 1924, Savinkov struck a deal with the Bolshevik prosecutor to place the blame for his abortive coup of 1918 on the French, for now that the Allied archives for the period have been made available to scholars, no evidence has come to light to support this allegation. If the French mission indeed had not only authorized him to stage an anti-Bolshevik rebellion but demanded it, as he alleged, and further promised to help him capture Moscow, such an enterprise would certainly have left documentary evidence. Since none exists, one must conclude that Savinkov lied, perhaps in the hope of saving his life. As we have noted, Savinkov’s main liaison with the French, Grenard, attested that he acted “on his own.”*

  Savinkov chose as the principal locus of his uprising Iaroslavl, and this for two reasons. One was the city’s strategic location, on the railroad linking Archangel with Moscow, which facilitated both offensive and defensive operations. The other had to do with the fact that Perkhurov, whom Savinkov had sent to reconnoiter, brought from Iaroslavl encouraging reports of popular support.157

  The final operational plans were drawn up at the end of June, when the Czech uprising was at its height. Perkhurov, who was to command the Iaroslavl operation, had barely ten days to organize. Savinkov undertook personally to direct a secondary uprising in nearby Rybinsk; a third action was scheduled at Murom, on the Moscow-Kazan railroad. Savinkov is said by Perkhurov to have told his officers that he had firm promises of Allied assistance from Archangel, and that if they managed to hold out for four days, they would be relieved.158

  Savinkov scheduled the Iaroslavl rising for the night of July 5–6, which preceded only by hours the time at which the Left SRs staged their rebellion. The coincidence notwithstanding, there is nothing to indicate that the two events had been coordinated. The Left SRs and Savinkov pursued entirely different aims, the former intending to leave the Bolsheviks in power, while Savinkov intended to overthrow them. Furthermore, it is inconceivable that the Left SRs would have had any dealings with a representative of the “counterrevolutionary” generals. Had he known of their plans, Savinkov would surely have followed his first inclination and staged a coup in Moscow rather than in Iaroslavl. This lack of coordination, about which Lenin spoke to Mirbach, was typical of the anti-Bolshevik opposition and a major reason for its ultimate failure.

  To confuse the enemy and force him to scatter his forces, Savinkov and Perkhurov scheduled their rebellions at staggered times, with the Rybinsk operations to commence during the night of July 7–8 and the one at Murom the following night.

  Perkhurov, who despite having little time had prepared the Iaroslavl rebellion with great precision, caught the Bolshevik authorities completely by surprise.159 The action began at 2 a.m. on July 6, when a detachment of officers seized key points in the city
: the arsenal, militia headquarters, the bank, and the post office. Another detachment proceeded to arrest leading Bolshevik and soviet officials, some of whom it is said to have shot. Officers employed as instructors in a local Red Army school promptly sided with the rebels, bringing along several machine guns and an armored car. Perkhurov proclaimed himself commander of the Iaroslavl Branch of the Northern Volunteer Army. These initial operations met with almost no resistance, and by daybreak the center of the city was in rebel hands. Soon others went over to the rebels, among them members of the militia, students, workers, and peasants: a Communist historian estimates that of the 6,000 participants in the Iaroslavl uprising, only 1,000 or so were officers.160 It was a genuine popular rebellion against the Bolshevik regime, in which the peasants from the nearby villages proved especially helpful. The rebels tried to enlist for their cause German POWs who happened to have been passing through Iaroslavl en route home, but they met with refusal, following which they interned the Germans in the city theater. On July 8 Perkhurov informed them that his forces considered themselves at war with the Central Powers.161

  Whereas the Murom and Rybinsk uprisings, each involving 300–400 men, collapsed in a matter of hours, Perkhurov held out for sixteen days. The pro-Bolshevik forces, gathered in the suburbs, counterattacked the following night, but failed to recapture the city. They then subjected it to intense artillery bombardment, which destroyed the water supply, with disastrous consequences for the rebels because the Reds controlled access to the Volga River, the only alternative source. After a week or so of inconclusive fighting, Trotsky placed in charge of the Iaroslavl operation A. I. Gekker, an ex-captain of the Imperial Army who had gone over to the Bolsheviks on the eve of the October coup. Gekker attacked the city with infantry, artillery, and airplanes. In the heavy shelling, most of the city, with its celebrated medieval churches and monasteries, was gutted.162 The rebels, so short of water they scooped it up from gutters, finally had to give up. On July 20, their representatives approached the German Repatriation Commission and declared they wished to surrender: since they were at war with Germany, they expected to be treated as prisoners of war. The head of the German commission accepted these terms and promised not to turn the rebels over to the Red Army. On July 21, the rebels laid down their arms and for a few hours Iaroslavl was under the occupation of German POWs. That evening, however, confronted with an ultimatum from the Bolsheviks, the Germans broke their promise and turned over to them the prisoners. The Red Guards sorted out some 350 officers, ex-officials, affluent citizens, and students, marched them out of town and had them shot.163 It was the first mass execution by the Bolsheviks. One consequence of the Iaroslavl uprising was that Moscow ordered indiscriminate arrests of former Imperial officers: many of them were shot without a trial even as others were being inducted into the Red Army.