by H Schmidt
The United States could not let this happen. A month after the czar had abdicated and in the same month that Lenin had entered Russia, the United States had made official what was long the case, that it would come into the war on the side of the Allies. It had declared war on Germany, and would commit its troops, as well as its material support to the war. But there was more at stake.
Many prominent manufacturers and exporters had advanced credits and dollars to the Russians in the course of selling war materials to Russia. Pulling out of the war meant a loss of money owed, a shrinking of the arms market and the disappointment of many important political allies of Wilson and congressmen. It was the job of the American Embassy and the many agents loose in Russia to keep Russia in the war. The greatest obstacle to that was the man who was now being triumphantly driven through the streets in an armored car, a spotlight projected on the vehicle as it moved to Kshesinskaya Palace, where the Bolsheviks had their headquarters.
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Alexander Feodorovich Kerensky was a lawyer. A very good one, he told himself. His long years of outspoken opposition to the czar, just this side of the law, had rewarded him with the leadership of the Provisional Government. Now he could remake the country to be a democracy as great as any in the world. Russia would achieve a greatness beyond anything the czars had achieved. Anna Tsereteli had informed him of Lenin’s reception. He was not surprised. He would find time to deal with Lenin and his radicals soon.
But now, he must go about putting the country back together again. He must somehow weed out the generals who had been so incompetent and so loyal to the czar. He had been heartened by the United States president’s support of the revolution, and knew he could count on his country. Already, he had been visited by the ambassador, who assured him of the willingness of Americans to continue to provide military equipment, supplies, and weapons at attractive terms. There was, he thought, the suggestion placed on the table, that his country might be willing to provide troops to restore order and to train the Russian Army. Russia does not need, he thought, another invasion of foreigners like those the czars encouraged from Germany.
I think Anna Tsereteli is right to be concerned about the generals, he thought. It is the generals with their titles and privileges who look for the chance to return the czar to power. It is the same generals who have humiliated Russia with their incompetence and put us where we are today.
From where he stood, he could see the Neva. The mist had risen from the river now shining in the sun. Petrograd was indeed a magnificent city; surely the most beautiful in the world. In a few moments, his advisors would be arriving. It would be a busy day. He jotted a note to himself to ask Mikhail privately for a list of officers he could trust, and a list of those who needed to be removed. If I am to be able to stand up to Clemenceau and George after the war, he thought, we must do our part in the war. We must have a strong army.
As he opened the great oak doors which separated his office from the high-ceilinged waiting room, he saw Anna Tsereteli at her desk. He must talk to her about that. Anna was the daughter of Count Tsereteli, a Georgian who spoke in support of Kerensky as the Provisional Government leader shortly after the riots in February. Noble by birth, Tsereteli had been taken by the writings of Lenin, Marx, Trotsky, and the many other intellectuals who had formed a vision of government in which the bourgeoisie and nobles would no longer run Russia. Although he had also befriended another Georgian, the Bolshevik Stalin, Tsereteli’s support had deserved something in return. That something was the hiring of his striking young daughter who sat engrossed in writing at the desk nearest his office.
Kerensky thought about what had happened. He had quickly found that his interest in Anna went beyond her work. She was there earlier in the morning and left later than anyone at night. Had he imagined the manner in which it had happened?
They had been working on a new proposal to be presented to Ispolkom, the executive committee of the Petrograd Workers’ Soviet. Anna was a skilled typist and volunteered to stay after the other workers had left, to complete the document. The second page was rewritten by him in his office, and Anna was retyping it. He had not been aware that he had been staring at Anna, but he realized he must have been. Throughout the evening, as he would look toward her, she would turn to look at him. At first, while the other workers were still there, the glances were barely perceptible. Now, when only he and Maria remained, she looked into his eyes. She could not have spoken words which meant more to him.
The only sounds in the office were the sounds of the typewriter keys. He had tried to go back to his work, but Anna’s eyes; he could not forget her eyes. Leaving the door open, he watched her as she typed. She seemed to have forgotten his presence, deep at work, rapidly typing the last changes. Had she let her chestnut hair down, or had it been down throughout the day? He could not recall. He remembered looking at her. Her face, the skin very white, the eyes quite large and almost black. He created the image of her walking away from him; her supple body seems to sway as she walked.
No longer able to simply watch her, he moved from behind his desk. He remembered she had continued to type as if she was not aware of his presence. Reaching her desk, he stood over her left shoulder, for a moment frozen, fighting for control of his emotions. Then, grasping for some pretense, he leaned toward her and reached his hand past her shoulder, extending one of his delicate fingers. “Let us change this line, Comrade Tsereteli.” He remembered his voice had become hoarse as he spoke. He had moved his hand to the paper; Anna had turned toward him, her breasts brushing his hand. He could still smell her hair as she lifted her eyes up to his, silently looking at him. He could feel the soft touch of her warm hand on his. Her hand did not move.
For a week after the first night they had been together, they had found numerous opportunities to be alone. It became so obvious that Pavel Trepov, one of his oldest, most trusted friends, had told him that it was common knowledge that Anna Tsereteli had become his mistress, and he should get rid of her before he lost his effectiveness as a leader of the Provisional Government. It would not be long, Trepov had reminded him, before there would be an election to determine the leader of the new government, an election which will make his name known to all the leaders of the world. He was throwing it all away.
Finding a way to free himself had not been difficult. Comrade Tsereteli had done it for him. In a tear-filled meeting in her apartment near the university, she explained that she could no longer be his mistress for it would harm his chances to lead the revolution. She could no longer be his lover. He recalled the feeling. He felt cheated, then angry, then accepting. She told him that she could no longer risk his place as the new leader of Russia. He understood.
This morning he stood in the doorway of his office, looking out. Anna had her back to him. Did the young girl seduce him for a reason beyond her attraction to him? As he watched her, he wondered how it had all happened. Had each step seemed controlled by her? I have grown too suspicious, he thought. Why should a young girl’s head not be turned in such a moment? He worried about the count. Pavel had said this morning that the Japanese may have intentions toward Vladivostok. Perhaps Count Tsereteli could be of some assistance to the Russian government there.
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The wind from the Gulf of Finland made the cold bitter when the clouds moved in front of the sun. Billy had been told that St. Petersburg was a beautiful city. He had not known how beautiful until today. Gone was the snow that seemed to cover everything. The Neva, frozen until the end of March, was now open and sailboats skimmed the water. From where he stood on the Palace Bridge, he could see the Winter Palace, the great Peter and Paul Fortress. Behind him the university. He knew the people of the great nation were suffering in the throes of revolution, but with spring came hope. He saw America, a young country in the minds of Europeans and all Russians, as most suited to guide a country undertaking democracy for the first time. In his mind, only America had the energy and resources to assist Russia. He had hop
ed that Ambassador Francis would have seen the opportunity as he had, but he found the gracious older man content to serve as a conduit between the United States State Department and the Russians, and little else.
As he stood watching the tall young American, Fedor Riezler reached into his pocket and pulled the telegram. It had arrived several weeks ago, shortly after the American. Somehow, it had been lost, and he had first seen it yesterday.
“Lieutenant William Housman. Graduated with honors from West Point, 1915. Service in Mexico with General Pershing March 1916-July 1916 where narrowly avoided court-martial. Joined Russian Information Center, US Army, September 1916. Avid student of Russian history. Understands N. Lenin. Fluent in Russian, French, English. Assume there to support enemies of Revolution. Dangerous.
Victor.”
Fedor knew America. He had visited his relatives in New York. Victor had visited him there. He thought of the tall, young man from Kiev who had become a Russian language instructor for the United States Army. He had guessed rightly then that the young man would be useful. It would be necessary to watch Lieutenant Housman. He thought of the last word in the telegram. How could a young man from America be dangerous?
“Comrade Riezler, I find your concerns about the young American a bit bizarre.”
Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev was a young man of supreme confidence and arrogance. A man whom Lenin had adopted as a twenty-year-old in Switzerland, who was among those who were scattered by the Okhrana in the 1905 revolution, had received his badge of honor by serving a short prison term three years later. He had been aboard the train that brought Lenin back to Russia.
“Comrade, I believe this young man can cause serious problems if he can convince the United States to treat Lenin as a serious threat to the new government. There is already the suspicion about that Lenin was compromised by the Germans.”
Zinoviev looked at Riezler with the dismissive half smile that so infuriated the young man. The man who considered himself the closest to Lenin of all those around their leader felt in a playful mood today. He had left a meeting with members of the Duma and Ispolkom, in which the latter, of which he was a member, had browbeaten the frightened leaders of the new Russian government into disbanding all local governments and police forces and replacing them with elected soviets and militias. They were such dupes, he had thought. Such cowards.
“Alright, Comrade, I will attend to it.” Zinoviev spoke, allowing his voice to dismiss the anxious messenger. He turned his back and began reading a proclamation prepared by Ispolkom. It amused him how the executive committee was allowed to run the country, while the world recognized the Provisional Government. It will not be long before such deceit is no longer necessary. For now, we will watch them sail through a minefield from which they cannot return. Having dismissed Riezler, he thought about what he said. Perhaps he was right. Such details often are the reason why great enterprises succeed or fail. Perhaps Feliks can help.
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The sun was shining upon Alexander Feodorovich Kerensky, he thought. The greatness of Russia depends on the army now. How long can Germany last with America in the war? With Germany no longer of consequence, all of the Austrian Empire will come under Russia’s control. We can contest with the British and the French for the lands and warm waters to our south. As minister of war, it was he who would determine the fate of Russia, for he would make the Russian generals fight. While Lenin and Zinoviev plant the seeds of despair, I shall raise the spirits of the Russian people. I shall make them understand. He watched the green countryside of Galicia pass the window as he neared the front.
The uniform he wore he had selected with care. It was not the uniform befitting the minister of war in the czar’s army, but the green and brown of the ordinary soldier. As the train neared the front, he could see the huge stockpiles of supplies provided by the Allies. Unlike the early years of the war, there would be enough artillery pieces, shells, machine guns, and rifles. As the train neared the military depot, Kerensky could see the Russian soldiers in long rows, the Russian officers on horseback before them, waiting for him to arrive. As the train came to a stop, and the new minister of war began to disembark, the great army snapped to attention and the band broke into the national anthem. He could not hide his excitement as he bounded toward General Kornilov, who waited, unsmiling. His mind raced ahead to glory. I will give my people a country more glorious than they ever could have imagined. This is the beginning.
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Billy read the Petrograd Times with great care. The paper was dated two days earlier, July 1, 1917. He remembered the crowds at the Petrograd Station when the new minister of war, Alexander Kerensky, had departed for the front in early June. He had spoken to the crowd, assuring them of victory by the Russian Army over the Austrians and Germans. In early June, Billy had remembered the mood in Petrograd had changed from the early days of April when he first arrived. Although there was still hunger, there was hope.
Now, a month later, the despair and anger had returned. Using their new artillery with great effect, the Russian forces began with an offensive that drove the Austrians back. Then the Austrians stiffened and the offensive stopped. As the Austrians counter attacked, the retreat began. When the soldiers saw the Germans were taking the field, the withdrawal became a rout and officers lost all control over the men. Looting, desertions, the killing of officers. By the first days of July, the Russian Army was finished.
Billy was alone in the American Embassy. Only the guard detail and the duty officer remained. Reginald Merriweather, the descendant of a long line of diplomats, had stuck his head into Billy’s tiny cubicle before leaving to spend time with his mistress.
“There are better ways to spend your time, old boy. At Harvard, we learned that work offers a special reward. More work.” He looked at the piles of Russian newspapers on Billy’s desk. “That’s what we have interpreters for, Lieutenant.”
The boy from Colorado didn’t dislike many people. He disliked Merriweather. He was a pretentious fop who tried to use the energies of others for his own benefit and used his name like a weapon. He remembered the first time he had met the long-faced, smiling young man. Merriweather had walked up to him when he arrived, that small smile on his face. He put out his hand, grasping Billy’s and squeezing it hard.
“Hello, Lieutenant, allow me to introduce myself. Iam Reginald Merriweather, Commercial Attaché.” His gray eyes fixed on Billy. The posture reminded Billy of a bull buffalo letting the new bull know who had a right to the cows in the herd. Billy remembered his competitive response of squeezing the commercial attaché’s hand until he heard a pop and watched the smile change to a poorly disguised grimace.
“Just call me Billy. It is a pleasure meeting you.”
He had remembered looking into the eyes of the young easterner, seeing the change from a bull that thought he had all the cows to himself to one who had to consider the possibility of looking for another herd.
It was the Bolsheviks that Billy watched closely, in what they and their leader Lenin had to say, and trying to pinpoint as precisely as he could who they were saying it to. Many in the embassy paid little attention to the words spoken by the Bolsheviks, considering them bellicose, full of bluff and bravado. He might have thought the same until he looked at the skill with which they wrote and with which they distributed their propaganda. Hundreds of thousands of pieces were being produced daily. No other group came close to such an effort. There was Pravda, the newspaper for the people in the cities; there was Soldatskaia Pravda, for the soldiers, the Golos Pravda, for the sailors, and even the Okopnaia Pravda for soldiers at the front. Then last week, something had changed. Today, on almost every corner, there were young men and women handing out Bolshevik newspapers, pamphlets, and flyers, many with Lenin staring sternly at the reader. In early June, the Bolsheviks had been silent on the Russian offensive, praising the brave soldiers yet careful not to praise the war. Now, the papers screamed at the government for supporting the war and fed t
he paranoia of the workers and soldiers. Something was happening. Should he warn the ambassador? Was there reason for alarm? Could he make a convincing case that the Bolsheviks were up to something? Could he explain what that was? Ambassador Francis was an honorable man who found it hard to accept the necessity of informants, payments for information, the promotion of American interests. The ambassador saw his duty only as making the position of the Americans clear, that it recognized the legitimacy of the revolution replacing the czar and the right of the people to form their own government. The United States, after all, became a nation that way. What the ambassador could or would not see was the character of Lenin and his followers, or what they were after. Nor could he grasp fully the violence and duplicity that accompanied the political struggle in Russia, that the methods of securing political power or political advantage resembled the struggle that had occurred in American cities in the middle of the nineteenth century, not the politics of modern day Washington DC. Even in those rough and tumble years of city politics, Americans carried on with some sense of honor. To the Bolsheviks, such things as honor were to be discarded as relics of a totally corrupt past. It was their arrogance, Billy thought. That was what he hated. He could think of only one man he could talk to.
Richard Carson was a man of many interests. An American citizen, he had lived in Russia for over fifteen years, through two revolutions. He was married to the daughter of a Russian count, and traveled in the circle of those who ruled Russia before the great revolution and sought to continue to do so. Billy had met him during a reception for the new war minister for the Provisional Government, Alexander Kerensky. Although it was early in the evening, Billy had found that there was little expected of the junior member of the Consular Affairs Office, and he was preparing to return to his office to read the cable traffic. He was surprised when Carson had sought him out. The man was of medium height, broad shouldered, with a surprising ruddy complexion for a member of the inner circle in Petrograd. His eyes were a hard gray, set behind narrow lids that reminded Billy of the cowboys in eastern Colorado, their eyes in a permanent squint from years of fighting the sun. He reminded Billy of someone. Big Jim. He reminded him of the large man who had given him to his father and mother.
