Announcements plastered throughout Russia notified people of the old regime’s disintegration and the tenuous creation of a new one. Nobody understood exactly what it meant, but in the days and weeks and months to come, it became clearer that this fledgling reign would extract a great price from those who sought to undermine it, challenge it, or who were, by definition, in conflict with its tenets.
According to the recollections of Vladimir Smirnov, his family, like the majority of wealthy capitalists, fell into that latter category. After the revolution, which he described to his wife as “a dark cloud,” the Smirnovs were “denounced as enemies of the people.”16 Vladimir fled south with Valentina to a resort town near Pyatigorsk. Full of spas, hot mineral springs, and other leisurely pleasures, it was a beautiful region to which many affluent Russians had retreated. Since the end of the eighteenth century, the town had been a refuge of sorts, where the rich and famous came to restore their weary bodies and nurse their bruised souls. Tolstoy, Pushkin, and Chekhov had all escaped at one time or another to this green, mountainous paradise. The home and resting place of one of Russia’s most famous poets, Mikhail Lermontov, the quaint town was approximately 1,440 miles from tumultuous Petrograd and, most importantly, not yet under the control of the Bolsheviks. Vladimir and Valentina rented a nice home and settled in, figuring they would be safe there. They were wrong.
Chapter 22
Escape
The Smirnovs tasted firsthand the bitterness the new Russia served up. The Bolsheviks declared that all private property belonged to the people, including factories, private homes, churches, vacant lands, and even stud farms like Vladimir’s. In addition, the state decreed that Russia’s dusty social infrastructure would be no more. Overnight, the Smirnovs and others like them were stripped of their privileged standing. Titles ranging from prince to noble to merchant to peasant were hurled into obscurity. From then on, everyone was simply a citizen of the Russian Republic.
This new social order, or lack of it, elicited great fear and confusion from the upper classes. For almost everyone else, it represented liberation, albeit a complicated one. Lenin, sticking to his message, pushed hard to galvanize the pent-up frustrations of the masses. For too long, they had been downtrodden and oppressed, and now it was their turn to rise, he argued. He encouraged them to see wealth as an unforgivable sin, capitalism as a self-serving evil. The collective good was what mattered most, and true virtue was the result of honest labor and shared prosperity. With the Bolsheviks running things, workers and peasants would finally have land and an equal say in matters ranging from economics to justice. The Marxist talk was intoxicating and dangerous.
In the ensuing months, virtual anarchy took hold of the country. The chaos stemmed from a variety of causes, including the hugely unpopular war with Germany and a continuing shortage of almost every basic need. Hunger gnawed at the majority of citizens. A lack of fuel and electricity stalled large swaths of the country’s transportation network. Disease spread, too, as a dearth of medical supplies, personnel, and services overwhelmed an already crippled health care system. Severe unemployment gripped several pockets of Russia, as factories and once-prosperous retailers and restaurants stood idle. Angst was all that was plentiful. “Moscow and the other Bolshevik cities at this time were more drab than usual. Shops were closed, the streetcars rare or non-existent…public buildings were un-heated and poorly illuminated, people died in offices and on the streets.”1
The misery was indiscriminate. According to statements made by Eugeniya’s grandson, Boris Aleksandrovich Smirnov, members of the once prominent vodka dynasty lived in a state of constant anxiety. “It was a very sad and sorry time,” he recalled decades later in legal proceedings. “Everything had shut down and you couldn’t buy anything. All the stores were boarded up. The well-to-do people would exchange antiques, antique furniture, just to get hold of a bag of flour.” His mother, Tatiana Petrovna Smirnova, was pregnant with Boris in Moscow during the revolution. About a week after Lenin’s takeover, she went into labor. She could not find a carriage or tram or car to help her. “In order to give birth, she had to walk across Moscow on foot to…go to the hospital. There was no transport. There was nothing left.”2
Lenin knew his grip on the country was fragile and that he needed to maintain order, consolidate power, and instill obedience. To that end, he created the Cheka in December 1917, formally known as the All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Struggle against Counter-Revolution and Sabotage. It was the government’s secret police force, entrusted with snuffing out opposition groups by any means necessary. Its often-bloodthirsty mercenaries executed, tortured, or imprisoned anyone suspected of lacking complete faith in the new power. The Cheka took on the task of ridding Russia of its Romanovs, shooting to death the tsar, his captive wife and children, and some servants in a cellar in July 1918. To ensure that no evidence of this massacre survived, they took the bodies of their victims to an abandoned mine. After showering them with sulfuric acid, they dropped what remained down a mineshaft before burying the mutilated remains nearby.[40]
Although high-ranking officials from the Imperial Palace were among the first to suffer under the new order, ordinary citizens often fared no better. The Cheka, along with members of the Red Army, raided private homes, rummaging through drawers, desks, and closets, confiscating valuables and whatever else they found to their liking, including liquor reserves. Indeed, the looting of wine cellars, known as wine pogroms, was a particularly daunting problem for Lenin and his anti-alcohol comrades. Angry mobs would crash into warehouses that stored alcohol reserves, sparking drunken orgies that could last for days. Cellars in the Winter Palace were raided along with some 570 other storage facilities in Petrograd alone, despite the enduring prohibition. “Soldiers and civilians alike rocked Petrograd with a series of riots sparked by struggles over control of liquor supplies.”3 This unrestrained lunacy lasted for weeks until the Bolsheviks issued an order proclaiming that anyone participating in the wine pogroms would be killed on the spot. “People were shot as if they were wild wolves,” remarked Maxim Gorkiy in one of a series of articles he published about events between 1917 and 1918.4
It was not just those who were caught in acts of wrongdoing who suffered. The Bolsheviks seized suspected infidels on a whim, sometimes rousing them from their beds. No investigations, evidence, or formal trials were needed or expected. Eugeniya’s grandson, Boris, believed his father had vanished in this fashion. He never knew much about him, except that his name was Aleksander. Shortly after his birth, recounted Boris, his father “disappeared, he was arrested. Nobody knows what became of him…it was presumed he was shot. A lot of people got shot around that time.”5 The same destiny awaited Vasiliy Bostanzhoglo, the wealthy merchant and former lover of Smirnov’s youngest daughter, Aleksandra. He was also the father of her son, Vadim, Smirnov’s grandson. He was reportedly shot in his factory during a routine raid by the Cheka, which was hunting for valuables believed to be hidden there.6
Daily life became a series of unexpected, often unexplained confrontations, especially for the formerly privileged. “The war on private wealth was a bloody purgatory on the way to a heaven on earth.”7 A great many homes owned by Smirnovs, like so many others, were subdivided. People from all walks of life moved in, taking up residence alongside aristocrats. In the home of Smirnov’s youngest son, Aleksey, for instance, as many as fifteen people from one family could live alongside him and his family, shattering the comfortable life he and other members of the upper crust once cultivated.
The nationalization initiative, which saw thousands of private enterprises either abandoned by distraught owners or taken over by force by government bureaucrats, came on the heels of this chaos. The Smirnov vodka business was no exception. It was unceremoniously torn from the family—no Smirnov would ever play a role in its future management or operation. The 1918 order read: “All the stores of grape wine, cognac, flavored vodka and related to them, rum, liquor, fruit drinks etc�
�. are announced to be property of the Moscow Soviet of Peasant and Working Deputies…. All the warehouses where these products are kept, all the equipment related to the industry, i.e., glass, boxes, covering material, dressing and fuel; also cash money in the wine shops and warehouses belong to the company and to [private persons]…now belong to the Moscow Soviet of Peasant and Working Deputies.”8
Instead of vodka, which was still outlawed, the factory began producing and selling vinegar made from sour, overaged wine, and berry drinks. Just fifteen workers, who petitioned to nationalize this department for fear of becoming an orphaned enterprise, were left to run this business. The former liquor empire also began producing an herbal, alcohol-based liquid sold as a remedy for digestive problems, though it was also drinkable. Grape wines, because of their weak alcohol content, continued to be produced at one of Smirnov’s facilities. Comrade Mikhailov, a longtime Smirnov loyalist, oversaw the operation with the help of roughly three dozen employees. The Smirnov name, along with its Imperial distinctions, remained a fixture on all these products until the early 1920s. It was then that Lenin banned use of pre-revolutionary brands and awards, such as the state coats of arms and the status of having been purveyor to the tsar.
Smirnov’s warehouses, still stuffed with bottles of flavored vodkas and other liqueurs, presented an unusual problem. Laws prohibited moving the inventory without special permission from local authorities. It also could not be sold. It is unknown exactly what happened to these remnants. Most likely, they were destroyed, confiscated by corrupt officials, or sealed off from the public. Whatever transpired, the closure seemed to have ended forever Smirnov’s reign as Russia’s vodka king.
It was a story repeated again and again. During this time at least 37,000 private enterprises were nationalized by the Bolsheviks, which became known as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The drive left Russians from all classes without homes, without jobs, and, sometimes, without their lives. Sergey Chetverikov, a leading Russian scientist, recalled an eerie vision he had one day while brushing snow from a railroad track in early 1918. His work was part of the Bolshevik’s forced labor initiative. In the distance, he made out the figure of Arseniy Ivanovich Morozov, a leading member of one of Moscow’s most prominent industrial families. He seemed to be wandering through the snow aimlessly, having just been evicted from his own spacious mansion and factory. Chetverikov saw that Morozov was clutching a family icon, the one thing he had managed to salvage before his banishment. “The fate of the leading lights of merchant Moscow at the hands of the Bolsheviks was truly wretched,” wrote James L. West in his book, Merchant Moscow. “As arrests of prominent capitalists mounted in 1918 and nationalization decrees cascaded down from the Bolshevik regime, the once-proud captains of Russian industry were torn from the charmed lives they had known and thrust toward almost unimaginable extremes of human experience as prisoners, fugitives, refugees, and émigrés.”9
For her part, Eugeniya was helpless to stop the government’s heavy-handed takeover. Businesses that did not adjust or acquiesce to the new realities often ceased to exist. Besides, Eugeniya seems to have gambled that the Bolshevik’s tenure in office would be short-lived. Like many in her class, she viewed Lenin and his cohorts as a temporary fix, a stepping stone to some other regime that would eventually return Russia to glory. She did not foresee her own poverty or that of her family. How else could she have justified leaving her children and her homeland behind shortly after the revolution? Eugeniya left Russia to join her new husband, Italian Marquis de la Valle Ricci, who was then stationed in Japan. “She took a little money but, of course, it was more or less worthless money,” recalled her grandson, Boris. “They had a great deal of money in the Credit Lyonnais Bank in Moscow. When they went to a branch of the Credit Lyonnais bank in Japan, and then subsequently in France, they were told that all had been lost because of the revolution.”10
The wrenching realities were disheartening. For some, they were also electrifying. In the months that passed, the disenfranchised, the displaced, and the disillusioned mobilized themselves into what became the White Army. They formed in locales throughout the empire, including the region near Pyatigorsk, the resort area to which Vladimir and Valentina had fled. These were the Russians who did not necessarily favor a return to the past, but they wanted something more democratic and humane than what the Bolsheviks were delivering. And they were willing to fight for it.
Lenin made good on his promise to end the war with Germany, but the treaty he signed had been costly, requiring Russia to sacrifice huge chunks of its territory, including the entire nation of Poland. He also empowered and equalized his people, or so they thought. These moves did little to quiet the rumblings of the opposition. Lenin and Trotskiy, who were amassing a new Red Army with thousands of trained officers culled from the tsar’s own military, understood this discontent. Civil war, it was clear, was upon them.
PYATIGORSK (“FIVE MOUNTAINS”) was a refuge. The quaint, chic city in the southern part of Russia was located in a lush green valley surrounded by a protective chain of mountains. The mineral waters flowing through this region in the Caucuses had restored the health and psyche of Russians for more than a century. Now, it offered its newest inhabitants a similar restoration, but this time it was the healing of souls tormented by the violent outbursts that raged in the Russia’s cities. Vladimir and Valentina enjoyed the tranquil countryside in the dacha they now shared. Their new neighbors, some of whom included the ex-minister of finance Vladimir Kokovtsov and prima ballerina Mathilde Kshesinskaya, did as well. Still, they all must have known that the serenity they had discovered would be fleeting.
The Bolsheviks seized power in Pyatigorsk and its environs in the spring of 1918. They did not immediately impose their harsh reprisals, so life went along relatively peacefully. Valentina entertained former nobles as well as the newly appointed local leadership, providing her and Vladimir with some much-needed income. More importantly, it ingratiated Valentina with officials who not only enjoyed her performances but also appreciated her enormous charms. Valentina, Vladimir’s third wife wrote, “was beyond suspicion since she gave concerts for the Red Army [meaning Bolsheviks].”11
Still, news of unrest and chaos elsewhere reached the residents living in and around Pyatigorsk. Each reported incident of brutality pierced the calm, protective shell that shrouded the community. Vladimir and Valentina, who resided in Yessentuki, a town nine miles west of Pyatigorsk, had lost everything they had not taken with them. Their home, furnishings, clothes, and keepsakes all disappeared, disbursed into the hands of ravenous strangers. Vladimir’s prized thoroughbred, Pylyuga, described by a well-known Russian writer as “an adorable gray-steel he-horse,” was bludgeoned to death by a raucous, club-swinging crowd. It was part of a senseless slaughter of animals throughout the country, explained away as acts of revenge against their greedy, capitalist owners.
This recklessness caught up to Pyatigorsk in September 1918 when the government implemented an order aimed at suppressing the rising insurgency throughout the country. It was direct and unequivocal, calling for anyone to be shot “during an attempt of counterrevolution or assassination directed at leaders of the proletariat.” Moreover, hostages were to be rounded up for everything from belonging to the ruling elite to praying against the Bolsheviks. The party’s newspaper, Izvestiya, (“The News”) reported that anyone in the Red Army who did not follow the order would be punished. “The national commissariat of Domestic Affairs must be informed immediately about any cases of indecisiveness concerning this issue…. There must be no hesitations at all, no indecisiveness at all in the mass terror implementation.”12
Vladimir would have represented a particularly enticing target—not just because of his former wealth. It was the source of his wealth that was most damning. Lenin and his party blamed liquor for the ruination of the Russian people. Vladimir, therefore, would have been deemed the worst kind of capitalist. He was a vodka maker, which by definition made him p
art of a class of exploiters.
Arrests and arbitrary searches began shortly thereafter. A number of notable people were jailed, including former generals, the tsar’s ex-minister of communications, and a prince. Vladimir and Valentina held their breaths, as members of the Red Army appeared at their doorstep. According to recorded remembrances of Vladimir by his third wife, they had hidden what they had left of value in a garden—mostly some silver and jewelry. The only item they could not hide well was a treasured religious icon known as a Mandylion, a large and heavy heirloom Vladimir had managed to save that had belonged to his father. It was held in a large wooden frame decorated with gold, diamonds, and other gems.
The Bolsheviks tore into the contents of the dacha, turning over drawers in cabinets, desks, and dressers. They searched every corner of the house, eventually finding the Mandylion. In a panic, Vladimir pleaded with the men to leave his cherished icon alone.
“The commissar in charge of the search laughed and said, “We don’t need this garbage,” after which he ordered his subordinates to take off the golden riza [cloth covering] and he threw the icon on the floor with such force that the wood broke in half. “There, have your heirloom,” he said. “As for the gold and precious stones, we’ll find a use for them.”13
The King of Vodka Page 29