by Semion Lyandres
© Semion Lyadres 2013
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Petr Vasil’Evich Gerasimov
Petr Vasil’evich Gerasimov (1877-1919) was a leading Kadet deputy in the third and fourth Dumas from Kostroma province. He came from a family of prominent entrepreneurs (and hereditary honorary citizens), and was groomed from an early age to take over the family business. His parents sent him to a commercial school, which he duly completed, but in the upper grades he developed a strong interest in social and political questions. Following graduation in 1898, Gerasimov passed his external examinations at the Kostroma classical gymnasium and went on to study law at Moscow University. After two years, he was expelled for participating in student protests but was later able to complete his training at Yaroslavl’s Demidov Juridical Lyceum. In 1903, he returned to his native Kostroma to practice law and to become a leading liberal activist, publisher, and publicist. In October 1907, he was elected to the (third) Duma, where his good writing and organizational skills were quickly put to use. He served as secretary of the Kadet faction and authored or co-authored a number of important pieces of legislation on local courts, peasants’ bankruptcy protection, and on the property and family status of married women. One of his signature legislative initiatives in the next (fourth) Duma was the new and much more liberal law on the press (zakon o pechati), which he both helped to write and lobbied for its passage.
Like most of his Duma colleagues, Gerasimov greeted the news of the outbreak of the First World War with patriotic enthusiasm, which he promptly translated into action. He would spend most of the next two and a half years at the front, organizing medical and food supply detachments under the auspices of the All-Russian Zemstvo Union, and other wartime voluntary organizations.
The February uprising caught him in the capital. By early morning on February 27 he was already in the Duma, witnessing firsthand what was transpiring in the office of the Duma President, Rodzianko’s last-minute appeal to Nicholas II to grant political concessions, and some of the most important developments that led to the formation of the first revolutionary authority. That afternoon Gerasimov participated in the pivotal private meeting of the Duma deputies and, as soon as the Duma Committee was formed, readily placed himself at its service. On February 28, he was appointed the Duma Committee commissar in charge of the Petrograd city police and administration. Over the course of the next several days, he and his fellow commissars helped maintain order and discipline by touring the barracks of the rebellious units in Petrograd, Tsarskoe Selo, and the Kronstadt Naval Base. His other important assignment was to greet and deploy the revolutionary troops arriving in the capital from the nearby garrisons.
Gerasimov described his actions and impressions during the February Days in his interview with the Polievktov Commission; and he did so in an unassuming and dignified manner, without exaggerating his own role or diminishing that of his former Socialist allies now turned political rivals. Perhaps one of the more striking aspects of Gerasimov’s testimony is his admission of his authorship of the minutes of the private meeting of February 27. Considered until now anonymous, the circumstances and timing of their compilation have often been called into question. Gerasimov’s testimony should lay all doubts to rest and provide a more complete and accurate context of when and how this single most important source on the formation of the Duma Committee was created.
During the spring and summer months of 1917, he continued to play a leading role in the Kadet party and the Duma Committee. In early March, he replaced Miliukov as the Kadet representative on the still-functioning Duma Council of Elders. In May, he was elected to the Kadet Central Committee, and in August was nominated for the party’s list of candidates to stand for elections to the Constituent Assembly. At the same time, Gerasimov kept up with his work in the Duma Committee. He chaired the important Liaison Department with the Troops, Population, and the Provinces. One of the most significant tasks of this department was to publish and distribute massive amounts of pro-war patriotic literature to the armed forces and across the country. As always, Gerasimov approached this duty with his usual energy, skill, and dedication. Yet by the end of July, after realizing that all the efforts to restore order and fighting morale in the army were failing to achieve tangible results, his patience ran out. He soon found himself among the strong supporters of a temporary military dictatorship.
Gerasimov was profoundly anti-Bolshevik. Following the October takeover, he joined the leadership of the Petrograd branch of the anti-Bolshevik All-Russian National Center and until his arrest in the summer of 1919 remained very active in the anti-Bolshevik underground. He lived under false names and was responsible for coordinating contacts between various anti-Bolshevik organizations in and around Petrograd with General N. N. Iudenich’s forces in the northwest. After his arrest and initial interrogations, Gerasimov (under the alias “Grekov”) was transferred to Moscow and executed by a Cheka firing squad, along with sixty-six other members of the so-called Tactical Center, on September 23, 1919.
The interview – his only known testimony – is reproduced on the basis of a master copy compiled by Rusudana Polievktova-Nikoladze and three draft transcripts: the first transcript is in an unidentified hand, with comments and stylistic edits by Tamara Nikoladze; the second is in Rusudana Polievktova-Nikoladze’s hand, with abbreviated words and sentences; the final draft transcript was written by Tamara Nikoladze.
*****
Petr Vasil’evich Gerasimov, Deputy of the Third and Fourth State Duma, member of the Party of People’s Freedom, member of the Agitation Commission of the Temporary Committee. May 9, [1917]
My contact with the Tauride Palace during the days of the coup manifested itself in that I was at the disposal of the Temporary Committee and of the Provisional Government. From the beginning of the revolution I was asked by the Temporary Committee to meet the incoming troops; I performed the responsibilities of the city police chief around the clock on the first two days. In that capacity, on the nights of February 28 and March 1, I imposed order. Later I was in charge of the liaison department to the troops, the distribution of literature, the publishing department, and the liaison department to the provinces.
I am a deputy of the third and fourth Duma from Kostroma province, and have resided in Petrograd since the time I became a deputy ten years ago. With the outbreak of the war, I went to the front and stayed there the whole time until just before the revolution, when I returned to Petrograd. I participated in the work of the Progressive Bloc. Over Christmas [1916], I was finally convinced that the reports about the mood of the opposition in the army were quite objective, and that the army had actually been revolutionized. Even common soldiers clearly understood where the danger was. The officer corps (officers, commanders of divisions, and so on) – who before that had been mostly fervent nationalists – opened their eyes. I was able to organize several open meetings in different units. The conversations showed me that everyone had a similar mindset.
The mood of the army today is completely different from what it was three months ago, before the revolution, During the three years of war before the revolution, even though there was a war-weariness and one could not detect a will to fight, there was also a feeling that people had gotten used to it. The trenches had been dug carefully and diligently, and they were getting warmer and more comfortable; the food was getting better, and so on. Today, soldiers have absolutely no desire to fight. They could not care less about annexations and contributions. They are being guided by one desire only – to be discharged as soon as possible. It is very difficult to understand such a complete change in the mood of the army and the shift in popular psychology that occurred after the revolution.
I arrived in Petersburg [sic!] a few days before the opening of the Duma. I could not adjust to local life right away, or immerse myself in the local mood, which was so different from the psychological mindset of a person at the front. I have many recollections about what was going on in the streets during four days, February the 23rd to the 27th.
On the 23rd, the disorders erupted. From the very first days, it was clear that, thanks to the conduct of the troops (Cossacks and dragoons), the mood was drastically different from all previous occurrences of this kind, and that the events had taken on a very different character. Two episodes can serve as an illustration of the conduct of the troops: at the corner of Fontanka Embankment and Nevskii Prospeckt, the dragoons were dispersing a crowd. An officer menacingly commanded, “Crush them!” However, the smiling soldiers used their horses’ heads to push not the workers in the street, but the public walking on the sidewalk. Right then, an exchange took place between the officer and a civilian lady. The officer yelled at the public, “Keep moving!” The lady shouted back, “It is easy for you to say keep moving – you’re on a horse!” and a laugh erupted all around her. In this instance, the appearance of the soldiers did not cause panic at all. The [Duma] deputy Stepanov [1] and I were on Nevskii. As we approached Znamenskii Square, we learned from the crowd that a clash between the Cossacks and precinct policemen had just occurred there. The Cossacks used force to disperse the policemen. All this was quite unlike anything that had happened in similar situations bfore.
On the 27th, I spent my day on the streets. On the evening of the 26th, we in the Duma knew about the disorders in the 4th Company of the Pavlovskii Regiment and about the murder of Eksten, [2] the company commander. On the 27th, at eight in the morning, I was already in the Duma. There, I happened to be present at a telephone conversation between Maklakov and Pokrovskii. [3] The latter did not know anything about what was happening among the troops, and got very concerned. At 12:00, again in my presence, a very interesting conversation took place between Rodzianko and the war minister Beliaev. Judging by Rodzianko’s reply, it was clear that Beliaev was asking the Duma for help. Rodzianko raised his voice and very sharply replied: “You are destroying the country by yourselves; we cannot help you.” [4] With this answer, Rodzianko in part predetermined the outcome of the four-hour-long meeting of the State Duma. The Council of Elders [senioren convent] was in an ongoing session from 11:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon. [5] So, with the exception of the conversation with Beliaev, we were cut off from the outside world. Our only sources of information about what was happening on the streets were reports to Shingarev from the medical-sanitary station of the City Duma. But these were sporadic reports, and 50 percent of them turned out to be incorrect.
Around 11:00, I went out into the streets: soldiers were still shooting at random. I walked to Kirochnaia Street. There, the Volynskii and Preobrazhenskii Regiments were approaching the Arsenal. [6] This took place between 11:00 and 12:00. They were attempting to get into formation. From somewhere appeared a young, mounted officer. He assumed command over the soldiers. It was the same officer who was described in Lukash’s brochure and was later killed near the Moskovskii [Regiment’s] barracks. [7]
When I came back to the Duma, the atmosphere was dominated by a mood of impatience. The deputies demanded immediate convocation of the meeting, but the representatives of the factions were not so eager and were waiting until events played themselves out. Around 3:00, a small crowd of about 50-6- people came to the Duma: 40 workers, 30 soldiers, and 2-3 students. Those in the Duma got nervous. Rodzianko, worrying about a clash between the newcomers and the Duma guard, wanted to send the guards away. The commander of the guard, Chikolini, objected, saying that it was his duty not to let anyone into the Duma. This further increased the already widespread anxiety. Kerenskii, Chkheidze, and five or six more deputies were the first ones to go out and greet the people. Krenskii delivered a very successful, well-constructed speech, and prevented the possibility of a clash between the crowd and the guards by asking the latter to become the first honorary guard o the Duma. Chkheidze spoke after Kerenskii. Someone unknown opened the small middle gate [kalitka]. When I went out to the crowd, the big gates were already open.
At 4:00, the meeting of the State Duma in the semicircular hall began. [8] It was interrupted when a frightened Chikolini suddenly burst in and exclaimed in horror that he was about to be killed. Rodzianko sent him to his office. The meeting ended with the decision to form the Temporary Committee and transfer all power to it. All factions agreed, and the Temporary Committee was formed. I was immediately assigned to the Committee, and this assignment was cleared with the factions. From that moment on, I have been considered on assignment to the Temporary Committee. Rodzianko did not invite stenographers, so there are no minutes of that historic meeting. For my own purposes, I sketched the whole meeting into my notebook, but so far I have not had time to transcribe it. [9]
On the night of the 27th, Krenskii and Nekrasov were asked by the Temporary Committee to organize a military commission to maintain connections with the troops. On the morning of the 28th, the leadership of that commission was transferred to Engel’gardt.
The first person from the outside whom I met in the Duma was Charnolusskii. [10] On the evening of the 27th, he sneaked into the Duma with others who had been released from prison, among whom, by the way, were Gvozdev and Khrustalev-Nosar’. [11] On the night of the 27th, the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies was formed. Their first document was issued on March 1st. In the beginning, they were situated in the vestibule, and later also occupied rooms. Only late in the evening and during the night of the 27th did the crowd find its way to the rooms of the Tauride Palace. However, from the moment when Charnolusskii showed up in the Duma, soldiers also appeared – at first as guards, and later as part of ever-growing crowds. On the evening of the 27th, Nikolai Dmitrievich Sokolov, who later organized the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies, also arrived. On the second or the third day, Khrustalev-Nosar’ disappeared somewhere from the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. In the beginning, the membership of the Soviet appeared to be random and scanty.
On the morning of the 28th, a general came to the Duma and reported that the Hotel Astoria, where he resided, had been ransacked by a mob. I was sent to the rescue at once. Somewhere in the vicinity, a police machine-gun could be heard. The mob, which consisted of some riff-raff made up of soldiers and sailors, was shooting at the windows of the Astoria, thinking that the machine-gun was firing from the roof. I went into the hotel. The lower level was completely ransacked. I was approached by second lieutenant Orel [12] and a sailor, who whispered to me, “Appoint sailors to be the guard.” He was thinking that sailors are better disciplined than infantry soldiers. I did as he said, and set a guard from among the sailors. Later, I ordered that about twenty officers from the Allied armies, who happened to be staying at the Astoria, be taken to the Duma. I also transferred women and children to nearby buildings. After that, we went to search the hotel. On the lower level, we found a murdered general [13] and a wounded woman. In the attics and basements, we didn’t find anything, and thereby proved to the crowd that there were no machine-guns in the Astoria. I appointed second lieutenant Orel to be the commandant of the Astoria (he was later killed), and after giving several speeches to the crowd, I returned to the Duma. As I was approaching the Duma, I saw military cadets heading toward it.
At the Duma, in the Military Commission, I met an officer of the General Staff, Prince Tumanov, who had set up the Commission’s headquarters. Two more officers of the General Staff were working with him – Tuga-Baranovskii and Iakubovich. In my subsequent work, I dealt with these three young and very energetic officers more than with anyone else. On the 28th, various military units from the immediate environs of Petrograd started to arrive. In the beginning, their intentions in coming to Petrograd were unknown, but soon it became clear that they were coming to support the Temporary Committee. I received instructions to meet the arriving troops. This kept me very busy. In addition to greeting them, I had to feed them and find accommodation. But there was nothing to feed them with, and nowhere to quarter them. We had to put them in cheap hotels near the train stations. The problem of food was especially acute. The mood of the arriving troops was panicky; they were expecting traps everywhere. They did not know where to go, and I had to take care of them. I was sending all arrivals to the Baltic Railway Station under the command of Captain Kossovich, [14] whom I had put in charge.
The following example of this panicky mood made an especially bad impression on me. I was talking to one of the arriving units, who came with the intention of defending the revolution against all sorts of perils. Just then, a gunshot was heard nearby that was answered by several others. As a result of this small, accidental shooting, all the units immediately ran away, leaving their artillery behind. What would have happened if an actual armored train had arrived and the revolutionary troops had had to engage it in battle?
Some units were not yet committed. A battery of the Artillery Guard, after long arguments with me, pretended that it was going to the BAltic Railway Station, but actually went to Beliaev in the Admiralty. But they soon left there and went to Kossovich, who arrested their commander. One of the arriving infantry regiments exhibited similar behavior. On another occasion, the Cossacks interrupted me repeatedly with hostile comments; some of the lower ranks directly harassed us, but soldiers took them away. I had to make trips particularly often to the Baltic and Tsarkoe Selo Railway Stations to meet and greet arriving troops. On the night of the 1st [March], I was again called to the Baltic Station for this purpose. While there, I was informed that the treasury was being robbed. It was necessary to send soldiers in automobiles to defend it. Therefore, I drove to the Technological Institute to pick up trucks. There, Svatikov [15] told me in confidence that things were not going well in the Izmailovskii Regiment. Two armed companies of this regiment were taken by their officers to the Manege, and they disarmed the rest. The regimental officer-in-charge ordered the officers to lock their personal weapons in the armory.
The officers were inviting disarmed soldiers into the Manege to talk, but the soldiers hesitated, uncertain what to do. I advised them not to go, but instead to invite the officers to their barracks for discussion. Later, it turned out that, in fact, the two companies of the Izmailovskii Regiment went to the Admiralty and placed themselves under Khabalov’s command. During that time, the Duma deputies were popular, and crowds in the streets would immediately start listening when they realized that a deputy was speaking. That is why, everywhere that there was ransacking, shooting, or where a police station was burning, the crowd would immediately listen to me and disperse. This is how I cleared Zagorodnyi Avenue when the crowds were awaiting the arrival of the famous armored train.
My most significant and vivid memory during the first days of the revolution come from the tense and emotional night when the final text of the declaration was worked out and the Provisional Government was formed. [16] The situation was overwhelming. Kerenskii had just received permission from the Soviet – but not the authority – to join the government. The mood brightened. Suddenly, the door flew open and a very pale but excited Skobelev walked into the room.
“So?...” Miliukov asked him. Skobelev quietly walked up and kissed him. It was the same unforgettable and uplifting mood during the night, when Guchkov and Shul’gin were sent to Pskov. (Guchkov showed up in the Duma on the 27th; Rodzianko wrote his second telegram to the tsar together with Guchkov.) [17]
The outbreak of World War I prompted general outcry directed at Tsar Nicholas II and the Romanov family. While the nation was initially caught up in a wave of nationalism, increasing numbers of defeats and poor conditions soon made the opposite true. The Tsar attempted to remedy the situation by taking personal control of the army in 1915. This proved disastrous, as the Tsar was now held personally responsible for Russia's continuing defeats and losses. In addition, the Tsarina Alexandra, left to rule in while the Tsar was commanding at the front, was German born, leading to suspicion of collusion, only exacerbated by rumors relating to her relationship with the controversial mystic Rasputin. Rasputin's influence led to disastrous ministerial appointments and corruption, resulting in a worsening of conditions within Russia. This led to general dissatisfaction with the Romanov family, and was a major factor contributing to the retaliation of the Russian Communists against the royal family.[3]
After the entry of the Ottoman Empire on the side of the Central Powers in October 1914, Russia was deprived of a major trade route through the Dardanelles, which further contributed to the economic crisis, in which Russia became incapable of providing munitions to their army in the years leading to 1917. However, the problems were primarily administrative, and not industrial, as Germany was producing great amounts of munitions whilst constantly fighting on two major battlefronts.[4]
The conditions during the war resulted in devastating loss of morale within the Russian army, as well as the general population. This was particularly apparent in the cities, owing to a lack of food in response to the disruption of agriculture. Food scarcity had become a considerable problem in Russia, but the cause of this did not lie in any failure of the harvests, which had not been significantly altered during wartime. The indirect reason was that the government, in order to finance the war, had been printing millions of ruble notes, and by 1917 inflation had made prices increase up to four times what they had been in 1914. Farmers were consequently faced with a higher cost of living, but little increase in income. As a result, they tended to hoard their grain and to revert to subsistence farming. Thus the cities were constantly short of food. At the same time, rising prices led to demands for higher wages in the factories, and in January and February 1916 revolutionary propaganda, in part aided by German funds, led to widespread strikes. This resulted in a growing criticism of the government, including an increased participation of workers in revolutionary parties.
Liberal parties too had an increased platform to voice their complaints, as the initial fervor of the war had resulted in the Tsarist government creating a variety of political organizations. In July 1915, a Central War Industries Committee was established under the chairmanship of a prominent Octobrist, Alexander Guchkov (1862-1936), including ten workers' representatives. The Petrograd Mensheviks agreed to join despite the objections of their leaders abroad. All this activity gave renewed encouragement to political ambitions, and, in September 1915, a combination of Octobrists and Kadets in the Duma demanded the forming of a responsible government. The Tsar rejected these proposals.[5]
All these factors had given rise to a sharp loss of confidence in the regime, even within the ruling class, growing throughout the war. Early in 1916, Guchkov discussed with senior army officers and members of the Central War Industries Committee about a possible coup to force the abdication of the Tsar. In December, a small group of nobles assassinated Rasputin, and in January 1917 the Tsar's uncle, Grand Duke Nicholas, was asked indirectly by Prince Lvov whether he would be prepared to take over the throne from his nephew, Tsar Nicholas II. None of these incidents were in themselves the immediate cause of the February Revolution, but they do help to explain why the monarchy survived only a few days after it had broken out.
-- Russian Revolution, by Wikipedia
About March the 2nd, quite accidentally, we succeeded in seizing the papers of Aleksandra Fedorovna. [18] In the street, a technology student arrested a suspicious couple – both of them carrying a suitcase – a gentleman in civilian clothes and a young lady. The student sent them to the Duma, to me, and I turned them over to an officer for questioning. Soon, the officer reported that the gentleman turned out to be a courier for the tsarina, and the young lady was his acquaintance. On the orders of the empress, they were on their way to the sovereign in Pskov. In one of the suitcases there were envelopes addressed to the sovereign, but the courier had not dared to open them. I immediately informed Rodzianko. He ordered that the suitcases be sent to him, and we turned the gentleman over to Papadzhanov’s investigative commission. [19] The documents unquestionably pointed to a certain duplicity in the intentions of the empress. The young lady was soon released. She explained that the gentleman had visited her place in the afternoon, and that from there they left for Pskov. The Duma deputy Vershinin [20] could tell you more details about this interesting episode.
I specialized in maintaining liaison with the troops, and in dealing with the consequences of Order Number One. For two days, I was acting city police chief, and was therefore on call in the city police building [gradonachal’stvo], where every 10-15 minutes telephone reports came in with information about lootings, the burning of houses, and so on. All these reports were remarkably inaccurate. Eighty percent turned out to be false. There were very few soldiers at the disposal of the city police office, and there was no one to send when help was asked for. I had to give up this duty. Apparently, these false reports were generated either as pranks or as the work of remnants of the old authorities trying to scare us with impending anarchy. The same was happening at the State Duma. It was contacted through the Military Commission – where the reports that were similarly unfavorable to the revolution were consistently coming in – that a train had come with a punitive expeditionary force; that the troops had already disembarked and were moving toward the Duma; that there was already a battle raging on Zagorodnyi Avenue; and so on. The city thrived on fantastic rumors.
There was unrest in the barracks. The officers were very nervous, and their nervousness played a big role in disorders and developing events. Soldiers insisted on their newly received civic freedoms; whereas officers, nervous and not yet fully acclimated to the revolution, viewed this insistence as rebellion. Afraid of being slaughtered for some little thing, they were constantly telephoning the Duma and calling deputies for help. At that time, the deputies had enormous influence, and with their authority, immediately tamed the most aggressive soldiers. The deputies were able to calm the sharpest conflicts between soldiers and officers without much difficulty. But this picture soon began to change dramatically: as our soldiers came under the influence of radical parties, our hold over them was quickly evaporating. In the barracks, the reason for that was becoming clear. I happened to visit the 4th Company of the Pavlovskii Regiment, where the effects of propaganda were becoming quite obvious.
While there, I was continuously followed around by a gentleman who objected to my speeches and demanded proof that I was a Duma deputy, etc. The Moskovskii Regiment very quickly escaped the influence of the Duma. It was open to all, with lithographed police leaflets of a reactionary nature and other similar literature. Already during March the 2nd and 3rd quickly penetrating, extreme maximalist propaganda was gaining ground in Oranienbaum Machine-Gun Regiment, in the 180th Reserve, and in the Finland Regiment stationed on Vasil’evskii Island.
After the agreement between the Provisional Government and the Soviet of Workers’ Deputies had been reached, the barracks were visited by one representative from the Soviet and one from the Duma. Captain V[r]zhosek [21] did us a great favor. There was a lot of work to do. Everywhere we went, we had to conduct discussions for three to four hours, and it always turned out to be very constructive, even in such regiments as the Finland Regiment, which very quickly slid toward the Left. By the way, their officer corps was very poor and spoiled many things. The wave spread further, into the suburbs and difference provinces (Novgorod) as well as to the northern front. We even had to send delegates there. As for myself, I did not have time to travel outside Petersburg, and went only to Porokhovye [22] and to Tsarskoe Selo.
From among the Duma deputies, the following can say interesting things about their impressions from the front: Stepanov, Taskin, Lebedev (Don Region), Demidov Igor’, [23] Karaulov (this one is a very effusive person, with mood swings).
The absence of the officer corps, who were hiding, was very dangerous. The relationships with soldiers were becoming very tense. The mood and atmosphere in the barracks intensified. This gave a push to the creation of the Propaganda Commission [agitatsionnaia komissiia], which from the very first moment had to work a lot and intensively. The Commission quickly grew and expanded, and its character gradually changed because of its activities. Newspapers and literature were needed for all those who visited us. Newspapers of all political shades were donated to us. But we had to create the literature. We got into the business of publishing. About 7,000,000 pieces of literature have been sent to the front and to the provinces, establishing ties with the country. The report about our publishing activity was printed in Izvestiia Vremennogo Komiteta Gosudarstvennoi Dumy. [24] Rodzianko, Shul’gin, Nekrasov, Vershinin (ecretary), Krenskii, and Chkheidze visited the provinces on behalf of our commission.
Besides myself, others were attached to the Temporary Committee, including Guchkov (from February 27) and G.E. L’vov, the Muscovite (from March 1). The following were also attached to the Committee, and stayed continuously in the Duma: Volkov, Vinogradov, and Lashkevich (from Kharkov), [25] through whom the Committee received all its reports. In addition to Duma deputies, a number of officials of the Duma Chancellery worked with the Committee: Iakov Vasil’evich Glinka [26] (who knows many interesting things about the revolution), Batov, and others. Ivan Ivanovich Pushchin [27] – who was the city’s commandant during March the 3rd and 4th – was a specialist on Petersburg’s “moods.” Pepeliaev is a specialist on Kronstadt. Mansyrev, [28] and especially Bublikov, [29] have interesting information about the revolution. The last was receiving all telegrams which tracked the movement of trains. He made it impossible for troops to arrive to suppress the revolution. He was our “rescue committee.”
My recollections about the arrest of ministers. Shcheglovitov was brought to the Duma on the 27th. Everyone in the [Tauride] Palace immediately ran to stare at him, but I did not go, and saw him only when he was taken to the Ministerial Pavilion. He was pale, but walked with dignity. Maklakov [30] was brought in, head bandaged, with some people who had been beaten. Beliaev was pitiful. Sukhomlinov was not brought to the room of the investigative commission (next to Rodzianko’s office), but into Bobrinskii’s office. [31] He looked awful. His eyes were filled with horror; he did not quite grasp what was happening around him. He was put in a chair, and at that very moment, Papadzhanov flew into the room and jumped on him, hysterically screaming, “epaulets, epaulets!” Several soldiers and others from the public ran in, following him. Papadzhanov cut the epaulets off of Sukhomlinov’s coat and immediately went back out to the troops. “You see, the epaulets,” he shouted. It turned out that soldiers in Catherine Hall, once they learned that Sukhomlinov had been brought in, were on the way to skewer him on their bayonets. They were stopped only after they had been promised that his epaulets would be cut off. Sukhomlinov himself cut the epaulets off of his overcoat, after asking permission to do so. He also took off his Cross of St. George and put it in his pocket. I did not see what happened next, but I was told that Sukhomlinov was taken from Bobrinskii’s office to the Ministerial Pavilion with Kerenskii (who told the soldiers that they could get to Sukhomlinov only over his dead body) in front and the guards walking behind.
Krenskii and Papdzhanov questioned the ministers who were brought in, whereas Volkov was in charge of sending them to the Peter and Paul Fortress.
________________
Notes:
1. Vasilii Aleksandrovich Stepanov (1872-1920) was a mining engineer and a prominent Kadet deputy in the last Duma from Perm province. During the February Days he was the Duma Committee’s commissar for liaison with the troops of the Petrograd, Tsarskoe Selo, and Kronstadt garrisons; on March 13 he was appointed commissar to the ministry of trade and industry and assistant to the minister. He died on his way to France from the Crimea while on a mission for General Wrangel, on August 29, 1920.
2. Aleksandr Nikolaevich Eksten (1873-1917) was a colonel in the Russian imperial army, and since January 1917 served as commander of the Pavlovskii Guards Regiment’s reserve battalion. He was murdered by a group of armed demonstrators as he stepped out of the 4th Company barracks into Koniushennyi Square around 7:00 in the evening on February 26, minutes after promising his soldiers that their patrolling of the streets would be halted. Earlier that day, soldiers from the 4th Company of the Pavlovskii Regiment fired on a police force near the City Duma on Nevskii Avenue, killing one policemen and wounding another in an attempt to prevent further shooting at the demonstrators by their comrades from the Pavlovskii training detachment. This incident was the first act of open revolt by a military unit and a prelude to the larger events, which came less than 24 hours later. Both sides of the rapidly worsening conflict took notice of the event; some saw it as grave and alarming, others as hopeful and encouraging. For the most reliable scholarly account of the Pavlovskii revolt, see V. Iu. Cherniaev, “Vosstanie Pavlovskogo poka 26 fevralia 1917 g.,” Rabochii klass Rossii, ego soiuzniki I politicheskie protivniki v 1917 godu, (Leningrad: Nauka, 1989), 152-77.
3. This important conversation between the last (since November 20, 1916) tsarist minister of foreign affairs, Nikolai Nikolaevich Pokrovskii (1865-1930) and Vasilii Alekseevich Maklakov (1869-1957) – in Shul’gin’s words, “the smartest and most moderate of the [Duma] Kadets” – took place at about 10:30 on the morning of February 27. Maklakov telephoned the minister to inquire about the government’s failure to fulfill its promise made the previous day. According to Maklakov, he and several of his moderate and conservative Duma colleagues (N.V. Savich, I. I. Dmitriukov, P.N. Balashev) met with the liberal ministers Pokrovskii and A.A. Rittikh, at the ministers’ invitation, to find a mutually agreeable solution to the current political crisis and avert a full-scale revolution. The deputies proposed the Duma be suspended for a very short cooling-off period. This was to be announced concurrently with the collective resignation of the cabinet and the naming of a new premier “who can enjoy the confidence of the country.” Maklakov specifically mentioned the name of General Alekseev. Both sides appeared to agree to the terms. Thus, when he was woken up the next morning (February 27) to speak with N.V. Nekrasov, Maklakov was unsurprised to hear of the tsarist prorogation decree, but was surprised that the rest of the plan had not been followed – the cabinet had not resigned and the new premier had not been named. Bewildered, Maklakov went to the Duma nad telephoned Pokrovskii at his residence. The minister had just woken up and knew nothing about the soldiers’ revolt. He told Maklakov that at least one part of their agreement (the prorogation) had been fulfilled while the rest would be addressed on March 1, after the tsar’s anticipated return to Tsarskoe Selo. Outraged, Maklakov ended the conversation. See N.N. Pokrovskii, Vospominaniia (1922], no pagination, S.E. Kryzhanovskii Collection, box 3, Bakhmeteff Archive, Columbia University; Maklakov, “Review of [Bernard] Pares’ book [The Fall of the Russian Monarchy: A Study of the Evidence],” Coll. Maklakov, box 16-8, p. 14. HIA; Maklakov, “Kanun revoliutsii,” Novyi zhurnal 14 (1946): 303.
4. This conversation indeed took place around 12:00 noon on the 27th. War minister Beliaev telephoned the Duma and proposed to Rodzianko that in the interest of the nation the Duma and the government should act together to restore order. Rodzianko was indignant at the proposition and demonstratively refused any cooperation with the government after it had prorogued the Duma.
5. Gerasimov refers to several consecutive (but separate, if overlapping) meetings of the Council of Elders (approximately from 11:00 to 12:00), as part of the private meeting of the Duma deputies (from approximately 2:30 to 4:00), and with the Duma Presidium (from approximately 4:30 to 5:00 on the same afternoon).
6. The Arsenal stood across from the Circuit Court on Liteinyi Avenue, adjacent to the Main Artillery Administration building. The insurgents captured the Arsenal and seized close to 40,000 rifles, 30,000 revolvers, and countless ammunition.
7. The reference is to I. Lukash’s brochure Preobrazhentsy (Petrograd: Izdanie “osvobozhdennaia Rossiia,” no. 4, 1917), 10, published in Petrograd in April of 1917. Ivan Sozontovich Lukash (1892-1940) was a prolific Petrograd writer, poet, and journalist. He later emigrated and lived in Latvia, Estonia, and France. The officer in question was “a very young ensign” who joined the initial group of 700 insurgents from the Volynskii and Preobrazhenskii Regiments and led them to the barracks of the Moskovskii Regiment, located on the Vyborg Side. As the rebels approached and prepared to storm the barracks, the loyal troops inside opened machine-gun and rifle fire, killing the ensign on the spot and forcing the rest of the insurgents to retreat.
8. The reference is to the private meeting of the Duma deputies that had actually started one and a half to two hours earlier, close to 2:30 in the afternoon. The first part of the meeting ended just before 4:00. After a short break, the deputies reconvened for less than an hour to elect the Temporary Committee of the Duma.
9. Gerasimov’s admission of his authorship of the minutes (also known as protocol) of the private meeting is of paramount importance. Considered until now anonymous, they represent the single most important source, used by generations of historians, documenting the creation of the first Duma-based revolutionary authority. It appears that sometime in May or in the early summer of 1917, Gerasimov provided his transcript to Ia.V. Glinka who, at Rodzianko’s request, was compiling the official chronicle of the Duma Committee. V.M. Vershinin, who served as the Duma Committee’s secretary at the time, took a draft of Glinka’s document, including the minutes, with him when he emigrated and subsequently published a shorter version of the minutes, anonymously and without any attribution, in a Russian newspaper in Prague (“Iz zametok o pervykh dniakh revoliutsii,” Volia Rossii, March 15, 1921, 4). For additional information on the complicated history of this document, see S. Lyandres, “Protokol’naia zapis’ ‘chastnogo’ soveshchianiia chlenov Gosudarstvennoi dumy 27 fevralia 1917 g. kak istochnik po istorii paralmentarizma v Rossii,” in V.I. Startsev, ed., Istoriia parlamentarizma v Rossii (k go-letiu I Gosudarstvennoi dimy). Sbornik nauchnykh statei (St. Petersburg, 1996),II:28, 30, 106-7; Lyandres, “On the Problem of Indecisiveness’ among the Duma Leaders during the February Revolution: The Imperial Degree of Prorogation and Decision to Convene the Private Meeting of February 27, 1917,” The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review 24, 1-2 (1997): 123; A.B. Nikolaev, Revoliutsiia I vlast: IV Gosudarstvennaia duma, 27 fevralia – 3 marta 1917 goda (St. Petersburg:R GPU, 2005),” 73-84.
10. Vladimir Ivanovich Charnolusskii (1865-1941) was a well-known Popular Socialist and educator. He was among the first to bring a group of insurgent soldiers to the Tauride Palace on the morning of February 27 and on his arrival joined with the Kerenskii group (the future MC) to organize insurgent soldiers. He continued to work with the MC throughout the February Days. Under the Provisional Government, he was one of the founders and leaders of the State Committee for Education; he later worked in the People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment and various Soviet educational institutions.
11. Georgii Stepanovich Khrustalev-Nosar’ (real name: Petr Alekseevich Khrustalev) (1877-1918) was a lawyer by training and a veteran labor and political activist. In October 1905 he was elected chairman of the first St. Petersburg Soviet and subsequently joined the Social Democrats. He was arrested at the end of 1905, tried, and exiled to Siberia, but in 1907 was able to escape to Europe. An ardent patriot, he returned to Russia after the outbreak of the First World War but was again arrested and imprisoned. He was released by the insurgents only on February 27, 1917, together with K.A. Gvozdev and other members of the workers’ group of the WIC. Following his release from the Kresty prison and accompanied by a group of insurgent soldiers, Khrustalev came to the Duma between 3 and 4 in the afternoon on February 27 and proceeded to organize the Petrograd Soviet. His leading role in creating arguably the most important revolutionary institution was later deliberately minimized by his political rivals, mostly from the Petrograd Socialist establishment. His last appearance in the Soviet was recorded on March 3. Later that year he resurfaced in his native Pereiaslav (not far from Kiev) as a vocal critic of his former socialist colleagues, especially the Bolsheviks. He supported Hetman P.P. Skoropadskii and for a short while organized his own tiny autonomous “Khrustalev republic” in 1918. Following the Bolshevik takeover, he was arrested and shot as a counterrevolutionary and profiteer.
12. Aleksandr Fedorovich Orel (1879-1917) was a first lieutenant in the Chechen Cavalry Regiment. He was discharged from the military for health reasons in March 1908 but was recalled to service in January 1916 and assigned as staff officer to his old regiment. On the morning of February 28, 1917, he came to the Duma to offer his services as “officer-citizen.” He received a detachment of revolutionary troops (sailors and military cadets) with an assignment to capture Hotel Astoria, which was used by the military authorities to quarter officers on leave, their families, and the Allied military personnel. He was killed near the hotel around 2:00 that afternoon either by the officers who defended the hotel against the looters or by the drunken mob that broke into its famous wine cellars. Shortly after the incident, the insurgents captured the Astoria and at 2:45, Engel’gardt appointed Colonel V.A. Iurkevich as the hotel’s new commandant.
13. Reportedly, the same general fired on the insurgents’ representatives from one of the windows as they approached the Astoria and demanded that the Russian officers living in the hotel surrender. According to some reports, the general’s body was thrown into the Moika River. Stinton Jones, Russia in Revolution, Being the Experiences of an Englishman in Petrograd during the Upheaval (London, 1917), 164.
14. Kossovich (sometimes referred to as Kosovich) was apparently a lieutenant colonel in the so-called Special Brigade. He came to the MC on February 28 and before noon was assigned to Gerasimov and his Kadet colleague Stepanov to meet the troops arriving in Petrograd from the direction of Oranienbaum. On March 1, he was appointed commander of the troops in the districts surrounding the Baltic and Warsaw Railway Stations.
15. Sergei Grigor’evich Svatikov (1880-1942) was a well-known Socialist activist (at one time a Social Democrat) and an expert on the history of the Russian revolutionary movement. During February 27-8, 1917, he was the commissar of the Duma Committee and the Petrograd Soviet for the Technological Institute and the surrounding area, where many military schools and regimental barracks, including Izmailovskii, were located. On March 1, he was appointed deputy to the first public city police and administration chief (Iurevich).
16. Gerasimov refers to the night of March 1-2, when the basic agreement on the formation of the Provisional Government was reached between representatives of the Duma Committee (principally Miliukov) and the Soviet Executive Committee (represented by Sokolov, Steklov, Sukhanov, and Chkheidze). Then on the morning of March 2, the negotiations broke off but were soon reconvened to finalize the text of the Provisional Government’s declaration by early afternoon. It was published the next day. Kerenskii secured the Soviet’s permission to join the cabinet retroactively, after he had already committed himself to the justice portfolio. For the circumstances of Krenskii’s dramatic appeal to his Socialist colleagues on the afternoon of March 2, see the interview with M.I. Skobelev in this volume.
17. Rodzianko write his so-called second telegram to the tsar between 11:00 and 12:00 noon on February 27 (the first telegram had been sent the previous evening but had received no reply) and sent it to General Headquarters at 12:40 p.m. Guchkov helped Rodzianko to compose the telegram, in which the Duma President reported about the soldiers’ revolt, deplored the prorogation decree, and asked that the Duma be reconvened and a new cabinet named that could be trusted by the population as a whole (Krasnyi arkhiv 21, 2 (1927):6-7; Febral’skaia revoliutsiia, 1917. Sbronik dokumentov I materialov (Moscow: R GGU, 1996), 110-11).
18. That is, the spouse of Nicholas II and the last Empress of Russia.
19. The reference is probably to the so-called Higher Investigative Commission (HIC), organized in the early evening of February 27 in room 34 of the Tauride Palace by a group of intelligentsia volunteers led by A.F. Krenskii, in order to receive and register the detained high-ranking officials of the old regime who were being brought into the Duma by the insurgents. Later that day, the Duma Committee appointed the Kadet deputy Mikhail Ivanovich Papadzhanov (1869-1930) as the HIC’s first chairman (February 27-March 3). The detainees were kept in rooms 35, 35a, and 36. However, the most notorious and highest-ranking officials were transferred to the so-called Ministerial Pavilion, the spacious chambers meant to accommodate ministers and other state officials during their appearances before the Duma. The Pavilion was not used by the Duma deputies or staff, and was considered outside of the Duma’s jurisdiction. The HIC was dissolved on March 30, its records were incorporated, and the remaining detainees were transferred to the Provisional Government’s Extraordinary Investigative Commission under the Social Democratic lawyer N.K. Murav’ev. During its short existence, the HIC processed some 600 detainees.
20. Vasilii Mikhailovich Vershinin (1874-1946) was a leading Labor Group deputy to the last Duma from Tomsk province. During the first days of the February Days he was effectively in charge of keeping the Duma Committee records and distributing assignments. On March 7, he was appointed commissar of the Duma Committee to accompany the former tsar on his way from General Headquarters to Tsarskoe Selo. Vernshinin emigrated after October 1917, and lived in Berlin and Prague.
21. This may have been Sergei Karlovich Vrzhosek (1867-1957), a graduate of the Military-Juridical Academy in Petersburg and a prominent defense lawyer. He was also a well-known Petersburg Social Democrat and later a member of the Labor Group. During the First World War he was mobilized with an officer’s rank. On February 27, 1917 he came to the Tauride Palace and joined the MC. He subsequently helped organize and then chaired the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Officers’ Deputies.
22. Porkhovye District, located approximately 3 km (2 miles) outside the city limits northeast of Bol’shaia Okhta District, was the home of two large Okhta gunpowder plants (Okhtenskie prokhovye zavody). Both factories were taken over by their workers on February 28, 1917, who also organized and controlled the local soviet.
23. Sergie Afana’evich Taskin (1876-1952) was Kadet Duma deputy from the Baikal region. During the February Revolution he performed various tasks assigned to him by the Duma Committee and its MC. Iurii Mikhailovich Lebedev (1874-?) was a Kadet deputy to the last Duma from the Don Region. On March 2, 1917, he was commandeered by the Duma Committee to Luga to ensure the resumption of regular railroad operation; on April 21 he was sent as the Duma Committee commissar to the 6th Army on the Romanian front. Igor’ Platonovich Demidov (1873-1946) was another Kadet deputy to the fourth Duma from Tambov province. In the fall of 1914, he organized one of the first frontline sanitary detachments that operated on the southwestern front; during the February Days he performed many different tasks assigned to him by the Duma Committee, including visits to Tsarskoe Selo and to units of the Petrograd garrison and the Kronstadt naval base, primarily to restore the authority of the officer corps. On March 15, 1917, he was appointed commissar of the Duma Committee and of the Provisional Government to the southwestern front, which he toured until April 21.
24. This report was published in the first issue of the official publication of the Duma Committee, Izvestiia Vremennogo Komiteta Gosudarstvennoi dumy (IVKGD), on April 17, 1917 (p. 3). Only 13 issues of IVKGD were published, all between April 27 and August 28, 1917.
25. Nikolai Konstantinovich Volkov (1875-1950) was a Kadet deputy to the fourth Duma from Baikal Region. On February 28, 1917 he was sent by the Duma Committee as a commissar to the ministry of agriculture and then, together with M.I. Skobelev, to the Peter and Paul Fortress. He served as assistant minister of agriculture under A.I. Shingarev in the first Provisional Government. He later emigrated and lived in Paris. Vladimir Aleksandrovich Vinogradov (1874-after 1923) was a Kadet deputy to the fourth Duma from Astrakhan’ province. On February 28, 1917, he was sent as commissar by the Duma Committee to the ministry of finance, and after March 3 served as assistant minister of transport (under Nekrasov). Valerian Valeriianovich Lashkevich (1876-after 1920) was yet another Kadet deputy to the fourth Duma from Khar’kov province; during the February Days he participated in the work of the MC. At the end of March he was sent by the Duma Committee and the Provisional Government as commissar to the Donetsk Coal Mining Basin.
26. Iakov Vasil’evich Glinka (1870-1950) was a longtime aide and confidant of the Duma President Rodzianko and a senior staffer in the Duma Chancellery throughout its existence (1906-17). On March 2, 1917 Rodzianko appointed him manager of affairs of the Duma Committee Chancellery. On Rodzianko’s recommendation, he was also appointed senator by the Provisional Government on April 29, 1917. In March 1917, Rodzianko asked Glinka to compile a detailed chronicle known as the “Protocol of Events,” documenting the activities of the Duma Committee from its inception on February 27 through March 4, 1917 (an incomplete version of the Protocol was published in Fevral’skaia revoliutsiia 1917 goda: sbornik dokumentov I materialov (Moscow: R GGU, 1996), 109-45). His work on the Protocol, which is considered one of the most valuable sources on the Duma Committee, was well known to his Duma colleagues at the time. Glinka also kept an informative diary about his service in the Duma and later wrote memoirs on his participation in the February Revolution. Both documents were unknown until Petersburg historian B.M. Witenberg discovered and published them, just recently (Ia.V. Glinka, Odinnadstat’let v Gosudarstvennoi dume, 1906-1917: dnevnik I vospominaniia [Moscow: NLO, 2001]).
27. Ivan Ivanovich Batov (1875-) was a senior staffer (since 1911) in the Duma Chancellery; on March 3, 1917 he became senior staffer of the Duma Committee chancellery; on June 14 he was appointed assistant manager of affairs (de factor manager of affairs) of the Duma Committee. Lavrentii Ivanovich Pushchin (1875-1929) was a Progressive Nationalist deputy to the fourth Duma from Orlov province and a member of the Progressive Bloc’s Bureau (since November 1915). During the February Days he was deputy commandant and (since March 4) commandant of the Tauride Palace and the surrounding district; during March 7-18 he was temporary commissar of Petrograd and of the Tauride Palace.
28. Prince Serafim Petrovich Mansyrev (1866-1928) was a Kadet and then a Progressist (since August 1915) deputy to the fourth Duma from Riga. He came to the Duma on the first day of the February Days, participated in the private meeting of the deputies, and helped establish Duma-based revolutionary authority. On March 1 he was appointed commissar of the Duma Committee to the units of the Petrograd garrison; on March 19 he was sent by the Duma Committee to the Western front, and on 6 April to the Romanian front. After the Bolshevik takeover, he lived in Latvia and Estonia.
29. Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Bublikov (1875-1941) was a prominent railway engineer and a Progressist deputy to the fourth Duma from Perm Province. From 1914 to 1917, he was the Duma Committee’s commissar to the ministry of transportation.
30. Nikolai Alekseevich Maklakov (1871-1918) was a notoriously conservative minister of internal affairs from February 1913 to July 1915, and a younger brother of the prominent Kadet Duma deputy Vasilii Maklakov.
31. Count Vladimir Alekseevich Bobrinskii (1867-1927) was a leading Progressive Nationalist deputy to the last Duma from Tula province and a member of the Bureau of the Progressive Bloc. He also served as assistant Duma President (beginning on November 5, 1916) but resigned this position shortly before the February Days for medical reasons and left Petrograd. He returned only after March 20, 1917, but because the Duma had been prorogued and his replacement was not chosen, Gerasimov continued to refer to room no. 4 (next to the Duma President’s) as Bobrinskii’s office.