REVOLUTION IN PETROGRAD: GUARDING THE TELEPHONE OFFICE

THE WOMEN'S "BATTALION OF DEATH" PARADED AT THE WINTER PALACE

Which they defended for the Provisional Government against the Bolshevists

TROTSKY ADDRESSING A CROWD IN PETROGRAD DURING A POPULAiR

DEMONSTRATION

THE SMOLNY INSTITUTE, PETROGRAD, '- HEADQUARTERS OF THE BOLSHEVISTS.

Guarded_ by Red Guards and Militia-Police


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Exploiting the Revolution

Even the Cossacks, who in 1905 had ruthlessly put down an incipient Revolution, were on the side of the working men. Who, indeed, could remain callous to their grievances?

September 21, 1917

By Our Petrograd Correspondent. We publish this morning the second of a series of articles from our Petrograd Correspondent, who has just reached this Country from Russia, bringing the latest news of the recent crisis.
It was a cry for “more bread” that started the Revolution. The Petrograd working men had grown tired of going dinnerless while their wives and children waited the whole day in the bitter cold, forming long, interminable queues at the provision shops. High war wages could not still hunger; the gramophones, pianos, and other unwonted luxuries that graced their homes, the expensive hats and clothes that bedecked their womenfolk, could not blind them to the fact that food was being withheld from them through culpable inefficiency on the part of the Government.
Everybody knew that there was food in abundance in the country. The newspapers did not attempt to conceal the fact. Three successive harvests had left enormous residues of grain, which formerly provided the staple of Russia’s export trade. it is true that the peasants had consumed more bread since the Edict on Temperance, but in the past this additional loaf had in reality been consumed by them in the form of vodka.
The angry working men found ready sympathizers among the troops in Petrograd. Many of the soldiers enrolled in the reserve regiments and battalions quartered in the metropolis had issued from the working class. Moreover, their rations had been reduced. Even the Cossacks, who in 1905 had ruthlessly put down an incipient Revolution, were on the side of the working men. Who, indeed, could remain callous to their grievances? Yet, however well founded the resentment of the poorer classes may have been - and it must be remembered that the severities of the Petrograd winter, coupled with greatly increased prices and scarcity of fuel, aggravated an unnecessary situation - there is good reason to believe that outside influences, the German propaganda, coupled with revolutionary ferment, had much to do with the sudden outbreak of bread riots in the early days of March.
It may be noted that the disappearance of the old regime has not led to any improvement in the food crisis; on the contrary, it has become more acute. In this food question, as in all other State problems, the Russian Revolution did not differ from other national cataclysms.

FEEDING HUGE ARMIES.
In common fairness it should be stated that the food problem imposed upon the bureaucracy was enormously enlarged during the half-year preceding the Revolution. Loyally responding to her duty as our Ally, Russia had called out huge numbers of men. The figure, if it could be stated here, would astonish us, accustomed though we have become to think in millions. All this host, distributed among the towns and cities of the Empire, had to be fed, clothed, housed, and warned. The collection, transport, and distribution of food, already so complicated by the inrush of over ten millions of refugees from the western border, taxed the central and local administrations to breaking point.
That the bureaucracy would fail was to be expected; that it managed to hold out so long is marvellous - especially when we remember that the Okhrana was there, constantly interfering with any sound, statesmanlike effort to deal with the crisis in the only way that could assure success - with the help of the people, in the closest touch and harmony with the farmers. Had the bureaucracy enjoyed freedom of action; had such capable, experienced statesmen as Krivoshein, holding a great record in rural legislation, enjoying the confidence of the Zemstvos (County Councils), been placed in full control, Russia might have weathered all the other ills of Okhranadom.
But Krivoshein had lost Imperial favour. Like other efficient administrators, he had left office, to make room for adventurers of the type of Khvostoff, Stuermer, or Protopopoff. Half-measures vere the order of the day. The menial task of collecting foodstuffs was entrusted to local government bodies. The war had necessitated some concessions. Zemstvos and municipal councils were permitted to form unions (soyuzy) to help the Government in all kinds of war work. The Okhrana saw therein a deadly peril for the autocracy. Every impediment was raised, funds were doled out meagrely, public cooperation was tolerated on the condition that things should return to their former state immediately the war was over. Instead of frank cooperation between the Government and the people, which would have mitigated the evils of war and strengthened the country, the war intensified the curse of disunion where it might have proved a blessing in disguise.
When the bread riots began in Petrograd the Government resorted to the usual bureaucratic expedient: it announced the formation of a special committee, promising to take immediate measures. But nobody had the slightest faith in this discredited method of solving a difficulty. The soldiers and the Cossacks being largely unreliable, Protopopoff, foreseeing a crisis, had organized the police into machine-gun companies, to be posted on public edifices in case of an emergency. The narrative of events that occurred during the great days of the Revolution is too well known to require recapitulation. Soldiers sacked the arsenal, and distributed arms to the working men. There was sporadic fighting between the disorganized troops; armed mobs were firing in all directions; the amateur police gunners played their weapons indiscriminately and mostly without effect. There was a colossal expenditure of ammunition and very little loss of life, not more than 200 people killed. And amid the din and confusion the old regime disappeared almost without a struggle.
BIRTH OF THE NEW ORDER.
The popular desire to be rid of the Okhrana had been satisfied. The Okhrana had ceased to exist. Together with the army of spies and the gendarmerie, the ordinary police had also disappeared. Protopopoff had made them impossible when he converted them into amateur gunners. All the sober-minded elements looked for guidance to the Duma, which had made itself the spokesman of the nation in demanding reforms. President Rodzianko hoped till the last that the Tsar would give way; he waited too long. The revolutionary outbreak gave almost immediate predominance to demagogues of extremist views.
Amid the turmoil and confusion one regiment, the Preobrajensky Guards, rallied to the support of the Duma. This encouraged Rodzianko to form a Provisional Government. For this purpose a committee representing all parties in the Duma was elected. But already a rival organization known as the Council (Soviet) of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates had arisen. The Socialist leaders Tchkheidze and Tsereteli, one a Georgian serf who had become a lawyer, the other a Georgian noble, and Kerensky, then an inconspicuous lawyer, were outwardly in control of the Soviet; behind them loomed an anonymous array of extremists.
None of these men were either workmen or soldiers. (When a peasants’ Soviet was afterwards formed, the directing spirits were also found to be non- peasants.) The Soviet did not object to the formation of a Provisional Government by the Duma. M Tchkheidze preferred, indeed, that the non-Socialists should assume all the responsibility, while the Soviet wielded all the Power. M Kerensky alone entered the Ministry. Such were the circumstances in which the Lvoff-Guchkoff-Milinkoff-Kerensky Coalition came into existence, and such they have remained throughout the numerous Ministerial combinations that have followed.
Meanwhile, the Tsar had been forced to abdicate in favour of his brother, and Kerensky had compelled the Grand Duke Michael to waive his rights. The autocracy, discredited by the Okhrana and by the Rasputin scandal, left few to regret it. The Provisional Government, dominated by the Soviet, tried to accomplish a hopeless task. Mob rule asserted itself in every direction. The workmen wanted enormous pay and little work; the troops in the rear were enjoying themselves, plundering, idling, talking politics, undesirous above all of going to the front; the peasants, surfeited with money saved during their enforced sobriety, were looking forward to a general division of landed property, and looting when so inclined. The Soviet maintained and consolidated its power by constant appeal to the instincts of the masses. Programmes of universal spoliation issued from its representatives in a steady stream.
DISORGANIZING THE WAR
From the Soviet also came the notorious Prikaz No. 1 (order of the day) to the troops enjoining upon them as free men to render no respect or obedience to their officers. This prikaz converted the Russian Army into an undisciplined mob. It was intended to do so. What cared the dreamers in the Soviet or the bolshevik agents of Germany who controlled Russian affairs for obligations of national honour or the interests of the State? They were too intent upon applying Socialistic theories in practice or in making a good thing out of the Revolution. They began by sending a wireless message appealing to their German brothers to lay down their arms; they then incited the Russian soldiers to fraternize with the enemy.
These schemes failing to attain their object, they next invented the theory of “no annexation, no indemnity,” hoping thereby to impress upon the Army the belief that there was nothing to fight about, and, lastly, they discovered a panacea for all ills in a great international Socialist Conference. When the police had been removed, the local demagogues assumed control. All forms of authority - the Zemstvos, the Law Courts, the governors, &c. - were superseded by committees, owning nominal allegiance to the Soviet, but refractory to the Provisional Government.
These innumerable committees were composed of workmen, peasants, petty lawyers, partly sincere enthusiasts, partly rogues. They drew self-appointed salaries from the local Treasury or levied contributions from the propertied class, which was studiously excluded from any share in this mock administration.
The Soviet in Petrograd appropriated over 700,000 roubles a month for salaries to its members. Practically no revenue entered the coffers of the State; such revenue as could be collected was absorbed by the local Soviet or committee. The committees were not satisfied with plunder; they hampered rural labour, forbidding the peasants to work except for prohibitive wages. Having done their utmost to terrorize the landowner, they made it impossible for the stoutest-hearted farmer to continue his loyal task of producing bread. It has come to pass that, the Exchequer being empty, Russia is printing 50,000,000 roubles of paper money daily to pay her way and that the printing press is not able to keep up with the demand for notes, owing to a constant depreciation in their value.
The committee system has been most disastrous in its effect upon industries. Workmen are too busy with politics to attend to their duties. Locomotives and rolling stock are not repaired. The complete paralysis of transport, the stoppage of all industries, owing to the shortage of fuel and raw materials, is a question of months or weeks, perhaps days. The output of munitions has declined by 80 per cent. All these facts and figures were brought out at the Moscow Conference. They do not constitute a State secret. In the Army the committee system has been attended by a sweeping decline in fighting value.
The food problem, upon which the autocracy came to grief, has been equally mismanaged under the Revolutionary regime. It has involved a colossal expenditure of something like 700,000,000 roubles in the organization of local food committees, mostly composed of people who had not the remotest. connexion with the business, but were merely revolutionaries. This organization has entirely failed in its purpose. It has not induced the peasant to sell his grain, nor has it assured a fair and just distribution of foodstuffs. FaIling into the hands of theorists or self-seekers, the Russian Revolution went far beyond the desires of the nation, and under their inexperienced or culpable guidance has assumed forms that are alien to the character or the development of the Russian people.



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Reaction after Revolution

Whoever dared to criticize was banned as a counter-revolutionary, a supporter of Tsarism, an apostle of reaction

September 24, 1917

(By Our Petrograd Correspondent.)
Under the Soviet or committee system Russia has suffered a hundredfold more in six months than she had suffered in a century under the Okhrana. Unbridled licence prevailed. The soldier could default, could insult, or slay his officer with impunity; the theorist could propound and apply any wild scheme, subversive or frankly traitorous; anybody could rob or murder, almost unheeded and unhampered. The revolutionary flag covered every crime, if crime it could be called, since the sanction of law had been superseded. Everybody was equal, everybody was free to say and do what he pleased - in theory; in practice, everybody had to think and to speak only as the theorist and his ally, the demagogue, should direct.
Tseretelli might utter high-flown sentiments before the Soviet, Terestchenko breathe soothing optimism into the ears of Allied diplomatists, Kerensky incite the soldiers to do their duty - these pleasant and delusive occupations had no organic connexion with the stern facts of the Revolution. Under the new regime Russians had to be revolutionaries, had to howl with the wolves, or sing with the bards of Revolution, or had to keep silent, they were not free to speak the language of sober sense of patriotism. Any attempt to utter a warning was immediately stifled. Whoever dared to criticize was banned as a counter-revolutionary, a supporter of Tsarism, an apostle of reaction.
The personnel and the methods of the Okhrana, including funds from the Treasury, in addition to largesse from Berlin, were at the disposal of the Soviet and its supporters. (Practically all the agents of the Okhrana joined the Bolshevik Party.) A rash expression overheard by an informer might entail imprisonment, insult, violence, or death. Naturally the Press suffered directly by censorship restrictions, indirectly by sheer violence. A swarm of bolshevik and other Socialist organs came into the field. They were subsidized out of the secret funds, and, in the case of the bolshevik sheets, from Berlin. But that did not satisfy their insatiable appetites. They calmly “expropriated” the non-Socialist editorial and printing offices and “commandeered” their paper. Leading organs of public opinion like the Russkoe Slovo in Moscow and the Retch and Novoe Vremya in Petrograd had to print Socialist newspapers in order to save themselves from extinction. They had to sacrifice circulation and advertisements. There was no remedy, no redress.
EXTREMIST PROPAGANDA.
Unprepared for political independence, incapable of resisting the demagogic tide, the non-Socialist parties and the bulk of the intelligentsia drifted helplessly. Many entered the Socialist-Revolutionary stream, vainly hoping thereby to check the swifter bolshevik current. Bolshevism attracted the primitive, untutored minds of the multitude. Lenin spoke a language that the simplest mujik could understand. Utterly befogged by the learned arguments and foreign words so abundantly declaimed by “Social Revolutionaries” and “Social Democrats,” quite unable to reconcile their pacifist tendencies with outward readiness to carry on the war, the ignorant masses, and especially the demoralized soldiery, listened delightedly to Lenin and his horde of pro-German agitators.
“Take the land; it is yours by right. Do not fight. All men are brothers; there should be universal brotherhood, no war.” This was the sort of Socialism that the mujik who was yesterday a serf could digest with ease and comfort. He was then prepared to swallow a cruder dose: “If the owner resists, take the land by force. There is no such thing as property - there should be no owners.” He did not mind the trap concealed in this utterance. Once he got the land he would take care that nobody else should take it from him.
Then came the final and least digestible bolus: “The Germans are your friends. They are fighting because England will not make peace. England is prolonging the war because she is making a good thing out of it. You are England’s tools.” Under various guises and disguises this has been the substance of the bolshevik propaganda. It has had an immense effect upon Russia’s ignorant millions. If the country at large was not plunged into the bolshevik vortex, but rather tended to go wide of its fatal swirl, we must seek the explanation elsewhere - in the strengthening, sobering influences of a healthy reaction, the elements of which had been lying dormant amid Russia’s population.
THE COSSACKS.
That the Revolution was being exploited by alien influences, prejudicial to the interests of the State, irreconcilable with the character of the people. soon became evident to all sober-minded Russians. The rapid disorganization of trade and industry, the wild squandering of State funds, the plundering and destruction of private property, the loss of public confidence and credit, brought national bankruptcy within the immediate perspective. Anarchy in the rear, disaster at the front, were certain to involve Russia in a disloyal, dishonourable surrender.
Almost from the outset of the crisis the Cossacks held aloof from the Soviet, and began to unite together and to organize resistance to its destructive, disintegrating activity. Within a few weeks of its rise they held their first Congress in Petrograd, at which General Korniloff, himself a Siberian Cossack, born of a Buriat mother, was present as Commander-in-Chief of the troops. During the Congress all the Cossack regiments in the capital were paraded by him and then visited the Allied Embassies and Legations, presenting addresses expressive of their loyalty to the common cause and of their determination to uphold the Provisional Government. From this stanch attitude they have not swerved.
Numbering several millions, grouped in 12 armies, wide flung along the southern borders of the Empire, between the Don and the Pacific Ocean, the Cossacks, whether of Russian or semi-Asiatic descent, had long been accustomed to freedom and had been inured to discipline and hardship. They held broad lands from the State in return for military service. Serving with the Colours, fighting the frontier tribes, or protecting the border, or working in their villages, they were all obliged to appear, horsed and armed, when danger threatened the State. They had large vested interests at stake; what is more, they had an inbred tradition of duty and patriotism.
Therein they differed from the ordinary peasant, and it was this difference that rendered the Cossack so quickly alive to the dangers that threatened himself and his country and enabled him to focus and develop the instinct of self-preservation among his weaker, less advanced countrymen. He could be ruthless when occasion called for it, but he did not want to be a mere policeman. The old regime had used and abused his loyalty too often on such distasteful missions. The Cossack had no love for them. He was very pleased to gain fuller freedom under the Revolution. He was willing to help Prince Lvoff, M. Kerensky, or any other responsible person in the conduct of State affairs. He was not a counter-revolutionary, but just a plain, honest yeoman, a soldier-farmer.
We must appreciate these elementary truths about the Cossack, casting aside the absurd picture of him in the guise of a bloodthirsty ogre which has been handed down to us since the days of the Napoleonic invasion, for unless we know the Cossack as he is we shall fail to understand the real significance of the events that are happening and preparing in Russia at the moment.


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The struggle with Bolshevism

The Bolsheviks and their allies, Russian and German, have been the smallest but the most active and influential force in Russian politics; they have always worked in dark and devious ways

September 29, 1917

(By Our Petrograd Correspondent.)
The Bolshevik, or Maximalist wing of the Social-Democratic Party, was able to control the Soviet and the Committees in. the early days of the Revolution ; its hold upon them has tightened, and it is now stronger than ever. Yct it represents neither the best nor even the most numerous section of the people. Like the Okhrana, or secret police system, under the old regime, its influence is based upon the ignorance of the masses and upon methods of terrorism.
We have seen the Okhrana working in alliance with the Bolsheviks, under the autocracy; we see the Bolsheviks acting in combination with the same dark forces under the Provisional Government. Each side pursued and is still pursuing, its own particular designs: the one towards extreme revolution, the other towards extreme reaction. And, as usual, extremes meet.
In the present instance their union implies a particular danger for the country, because their long-standing experience in terroristic and destructive activity gives them a formidable advantage over all the political parties that remain in the field of practical polities, namely, the Menshevik, or Minimalist wing of the Social-Democrats, led by M. Tchkheidze, the Socialist-Revolutionary party, represented by M. Kerensky, and the Constitutional-Democrats, directed by M. Mliliukoff.
The Bolsheviks and their allies, Russian and German, have been the smallest but the most active and influential force in Russian politics; they have always worked in dark and devious ways - through Rasputin, Azeff, and a host of spies, informers, and agents provocateurs before the Revolution, through Lenin and a well-trained and organized army of agitators and demagogues since the Revolution.

COALITION DISRUPTED.

Not satisfied with undermining the authority of. the Provisional Government among the people and destroying discipline among the troops-forming committees that usurped the functions of local government, sweeping away the Zemstvos. and municipalities, and introducing committees in the Army that usurped the command and reduced the hapless officers to the role of mere dummies - they have systematically, and hitherto successfully, combated the very principle of a coalition between Socialist and non-Socialist parties. M. Miliukoff, M. Cutchkoff, Prince Lvoff, and other Constitutionalists were slowly but surely forced to abandon their posts.
Under the Bolshevik pressure successive coalitions became more and more openly dominated by the Socialist element. Constitutionalists and moderate Socialists sought to work together. The former hoped thereby to save the country from anarchy; the latter realized that revolutionary excesses would lead to reaction and compromise Socialism. But neither of them could develop the strength or the organization or the unscrupulous activity of the Bolsheviks. M. Kerensky, himself a revolutionary politician of no mean order, tried conclusions with the Bolsheviks, sometimes with their own weapons; but what could one man do against the constant insidious activity of the Bolshevik organization? He was handicapped by his own antecedents, by the fact that many of the Bolshevik chieftains had been, and nominally remained, his political associates.
A POSSIBLE REMEDY.
Perhaps the advent of a Bolshevik Government is a necessary evil; it may be an indispensable ordeal through which Russia must pass before the bulk of the people realize the fact that the Bolsheviks are the real counter-revolutionaries who are doing their best utterly to ruin the country, and are working hand-in-glove with the enemies of Russia and the secret agents of the old regime. But we know enough about the Bolsheviks to realize that methods of peaceful suasion will never rid the country of theil evil sway.
There is only one remedy against them. M. Kerensky indicated it when he asked General Korniloff to send a cavalry division to Petrograd “to subdue the Maximalists.” The proverbial “whiff of grape-shot” is the only medicine, and until it is administered in the proper dose the present situation will continue. When the Cossacks crushed the revolt of July 16 and 17 it was seen how little real strength the Bolsheviks had behind them. The idle, undisciplined troops who support them have no inclination to fight either in Petrograd or at the front. The Bolsheviks had simply terrorized the Provisional Government because the latter had neither the men nor the courage to meet them in the open. General Polovtsoff, then Commander-in-Chief, had arranged to disarm the Bolshevik workmen. He could count.upon a few loyal battalions and the secret support of the majority of the workmen, who were heartily tired of the Bolshevik terrorism.
Through the Soviet, dominated by the Bolsheviks, the Provisional Government was frightened into issuing counter-orders. The Soviet decided that the working men, being free citizens, had a right to be armed. When the Provisional Government issued warrants for the arrest of Bolshevik leaders, General Polovtsoff on proceeding in person to take them into custody, was confronted by M. Kerensky, who forbade him to molest them - they were “his political opponents,” and so had to be treated with leniency.
Since General Korniloff revealed the truth about the Bolshevik activity in the Armies, both at the front and in the rear, these amiable fictions have become discredited. M. Kerensky cannot save his “appearance of power” except by again conciliating the Bolsheviks, and if this is no longer feasible he must fight them. But who is to back him? Where are the effective Socialist forces in Russia except among the Bolsheviks? And who among the non-Socialists will support M. Kerensky, after the part he has, perhaps unwillingly, played in the overthrow of General Korniloff? The Cossacks have not yet said their last word. They have refused to go to the Moscow “Democratic” Conference. Their absence has a very deep and significant bearing upon the situation.