Fall of Giants

by Follett, Ken

  “Yes,” said Maklakov with satisfaction. “And they have instructed all soldiers to return to barracks and obey orders.”

  “What?” Grigori was shocked. “But that would destroy the revolution. The tsar’s officers would regain control!”

  “The members of the Duma do not believe there is a revolution.”

  “The members of the Duma are idiots,” Grigori said angrily.

  Maklakov put his nose in the air and walked away.

  Konstantin shared Grigori’s anger. “This is a counterrevolution!” he said.

  “And it must be stopped,” said Grigori.

  They hurried back to the left wing. In the big hall, a chairman was attempting to control a debate. Grigori leaped onto the platform. “I have an emergency announcement!” he shouted.

  “Everyone has,” said the chairman wearily. “But what the hell, go ahead.”

  “The Duma is ordering soldiers to return to barracks—and to accept the authority of their officers!”

  A shout of protest went up from the delegates.

  “Comrades!” Grigori shouted, trying to quiet them. “We are not going back to the old ways!”

  They roared their agreement.

  “The people of the city must have bread. Our women must feel safe on the streets. The factories must reopen and the mills must roll—but not in the same old way.”

  They were listening to him now, unsure where he was going.

  “We soldiers must stop beating up the bourgeoisie, stop harassing women on the street, and stop looting wine shops. We must return to our barracks, sober up, and resume our duties, but”—he paused dramatically—“under our own conditions!”

  There was a rumble of assent.

  “What should those conditions be?”

  Someone shouted: “Elected committees to issue orders, instead of officers!”

  Another said: “No more ‘Your Excellency’ and ‘Most High Radiance’—they should be called Colonel and General.”

  “No saluting!” cried another.

  Grigori did not know what to do. Everyone had his own suggestion. He could not hear them all, let alone remember them.

  The chairman came to his rescue. “I propose that all those with suggestions should form a group with Comrade Sokolov.” Grigori knew that Nikolai Sokolov was a left-wing lawyer. That’s good, he thought, we need someone to draft our proposal in correct legal terms. The chairman went on: “When you have agreed what you want, bring your proposal to the soviet for approval.”

  “Right.” Grigori jumped off the platform. Sokolov was sitting at a small table to one side of the hall. Grigori and Konstantin approached him, along with a dozen or more deputies.

  “Very well,” said Sokolov. “Who is this addressed to?”

  Grigori was baffled again. He was about so say To the world. But a soldier said: “To the Petrograd Garrison.”

  Another said: “And all the soldiers of the guard, army, and artillery.”

  “And the fleet,” said someone else.

  “Very good,” said Sokolov, writing. “For immediate and precise execution, I presume?”

  “Yes.”

  “And to the workers of Petrograd for information?”

  Grigori became impatient. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Now, who proposed elected committees?”

  “That was me,” said a soldier with a gray mustache. He sat on the edge of the table directly in front of Sokolov. As if giving dictation, he said: “All troops should set up committees of their elected representatives.”

  Sokolov, still writing, said: “In all companies, battalions, regiments . . . ”

  Someone added: “Depots, batteries, squadrons, warships . . . ”

  The gray mustache said: “Those who have not yet elected deputies must do so.”

  “Right,” said Grigori impatiently. “Now. Weapons of all kinds, including armored cars, are under the control of the battalion and company committees, not the officers.”

  Several of the soldiers voiced their agreement.

  “Very good,” said Sokolov.

  Grigori went on: “A military unit is subordinate to the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies and its committees.”

  For the first time, Sokolov looked up. “That would mean the soviet controls the army.”

  “Yes,” said Grigori. “The orders of the military commission of the Duma are to be followed only when they do not contradict the decisions of the soviet.”

  Sokolov continued to look at Grigori. “This makes the Duma as powerless as it always was. Before, it was subject to the whim of the tsar. Now, every decision will require the approval of the soviet.”

  “Exactly,” said Grigori.

  “So the soviet is supreme.”

  “Write it down,” said Grigori.

  Sokolov wrote it down.

  Someone said: “Officers are forbidden to be rude to other ranks.”

  “All right,” said Sokolov.

  “And must not address them as tyi as if we were animals or children.”

  Grigori thought these clauses were trivial. “The document needs a title,” he said.

  Sokolov said: “What do you suggest?”

  “How have you headed previous orders by the soviet?”

  “There are no previous orders,” said Sokolov. “This is the first.”

  “That’s it, then,” said Grigori. “Call it ‘Order Number One.’ ”

  { V }

  It gave Grigori profound satisfaction to have passed his first piece of legislation as an elected representative. Over the next two days there were several more, and he became deeply absorbed in the minute-by-minute work of a revolutionary government. But he thought all the time about Katerina and Vladimir, and on Thursday evening he at last got a chance to slip away and check on them.

  His heart was full of foreboding as he walked to the southwest suburbs. Katerina had promised to stay away from trouble, but the women of Petrograd believed this was their revolution as much as the men’s. After all, it had started on International Women’s Day. This was nothing new. Grigori’s mother had died in the failed revolution of 1905. If Katerina had decided to go into the city center with Vladimir on her hip to see what was going on, she would not have been the only mother to do so. And many innocent people had died—shot by the police, trampled in crowds, run over by drunk soldiers in commandeered cars, or hit by stray bullets. As he entered the old house, he dreaded being met by one of the tenants, with a solemn face and tears in her eyes, saying Something terrible has happened.

  He went up the stairs, tapped on her door, and walked in. Katerina leaped from her chair and threw herself into his arms. “You’re alive!” she said. She kissed him eagerly. “I’ve been so worried! I don’t know what we would do without you.”

  “I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner,” Grigori said. “But I’m a delegate to the soviet.”

  “A delegate!” Katerina beamed with pride. “My husband!” She hugged him.

  Grigori had actually impressed her. He had never done that before. “A delegate is only a representative of the people who elected him,” he said modestly.

  “But they always choose the cleverest and most reliable.”

  “Well, they try to.”

  The room was dimly lit by an oil lamp. Grigori put a parcel on the table. With his new status he had no trouble getting food from the barracks kitchen. “There are some matches and a blanket in there too,” he said.

  “Thank you!”

  “I hope you’ve been staying indoors as much as you can. It’s still dangerous on the streets. Some of us are making a revolution, but others are just going wild.”

  “I’ve hardly been out. I’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

  “How’s our little boy?” Vladimir was asleep in the corner.

  “He misses his daddy.”

  She meant Grigori. It was not Grigori’s wish that Vladimir should call him Daddy, but he had accepted Katerina’s fancy. It was not likely that any o
f them would ever see Lev again—there had been no word from him for almost three years—so the child would never know the truth, and perhaps that was better.

  Katerina said: “I’m sorry he’s asleep. He loves to see you.”

  “I’ll talk to him in the morning.”

  “You can stay the night? How wonderful!”

  Grigori sat down, and Katerina knelt in front of him and pulled off his boots. “You look tired,” she said.

  “I am.”

  “Let’s go to bed. It’s late.”

  She began to unbutton his tunic, and he sat back and let her. “General Khabalov is hiding out in the Admiralty,” he said. “We were afraid he might recapture the railway stations, but he didn’t even try.”

  “Why not?”

  Grigori shrugged. “Cowardice. The tsar ordered Ivanov to march on Petrograd and set up a military dictatorship, but Ivanov’s men became mutinous and the expedition was canceled.”

  Katerina frowned. “Has the old ruling class just given up?”

  “It seems that way. Strange, isn’t it? But clearly there isn’t going to be a counterrevolution.”

  They got into bed, Grigori in his underwear, Katerina with her dress still on. She had never stripped naked in front of him. Perhaps she felt she had to hold something back. It was a peculiarity of hers that he accepted, not without regret. He took her in his arms and kissed her. When he entered her she said: “I love you,” and he felt he was the luckiest man in the world.

  Afterward she said sleepily: “What will happen next?”

  “There’s going to be a constituent assembly, elected by what they called the four-tail suffrage: universal, direct, secret, and equal. Meanwhile the Duma is forming a provisional government.”

  “Who will be its leader?”

  “Lvov.”

  Katerina sat upright. “A prince! Why?”

  “They want the confidence of all classes.”

  “To hell with all classes!” Indignation made her even more beautiful, bringing color to her face and a sparkle to her eyes. “The workers and soldiers have made the revolution—why do we need the confidence of anyone else?”

  This question had bothered Grigori, too, but the answer had convinced him. “We need businessmen to reopen factories, wholesalers to recommence supplying the city, shopkeepers to open their doors again.”

  “And what about the tsar?”

  “The Duma is demanding his abdication. They have sent two delegates to Pskov to tell him so.”

  Katerina was wide-eyed. “Abdication? The tsar? But that would be the end.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it possible?”

  “I don’t know,” said Grigori. “We’ll find out tomorrow.”

  { VI }

  In the Catherine Hall of the Tauride Palace on Friday, the debate was desultory. Two or three thousand men and a few women packed the room, and the air was full of tobacco smoke and the smell of unwashed soldiers. They were waiting to hear what the tsar would do.

  The debate was frequently interrupted for announcements. Often they were less than urgent—a soldier would stand up to say that his battalion had formed a committee and arrested the colonel. Sometimes they were not even announcements, but speeches calling for the defense of the revolution.

  But Grigori knew something was different when a gray-haired sergeant jumped onto the platform, pink-faced and breathless, with a sheet of paper in his hand, and called for silence.

  Slowly and loudly he said: “The tsar has signed a document . . . ”

  The cheering began after those few words.

  The sergeant raised his voice: “ . . . abdicating the crown . . . ”

  The cheer rose to a roar. Grigori was electrified. Had it really happened? Had the dream come true?

  The sergeant held up his hand for quiet. He had not yet finished.

  “ . . . and because of the poor health of his twelve-year-old son, Alexei, he has named as his successor the grand duke Mikhail, the tsar’s younger brother.”

  The cheers turned to howls of protest. “No!” Grigori shouted, and his voice was lost among thousands.

  When after several minutes they began to quieten, a greater roar was heard from outside. The crowd in the courtyard must have heard the same news, and were receiving it with the same indignation.

  Grigori said to Konstantin: “The provisional government must not accept this.”

  “Agreed,” said Konstantin. “Let’s go and tell them so.”

  They left the soviet and crossed the palace. The ministers of the newly formed government were meeting in the room where the old temporary committee had met—indeed, they were to a worrying degree the same men. They were already discussing the tsar’s statement.

  Pavel Miliukov was on his feet. The monocled moderate was arguing that the monarchy had to be preserved as a symbol of legitimacy. “Horseshit,” Grigori muttered. The monarchy symbolized incompetence, cruelty, and defeat, but not legitimacy. Fortunately, others felt the same way. Kerensky, who was now minister of justice, proposed that Grand Duke Mikhail should be told to refuse the crown, and to Grigori’s relief the majority agreed.

  Kerensky and Prince Lvov were mandated to go to see Mikhail immediately. Miliukov glared through his monocle and said: “And I should go with them, to represent the minority view!”

  Grigori assumed this foolish suggestion would be trodden upon, but the other ministers weakly assented. At that point Grigori stood up. Without forethought he said: “And I shall accompany the ministers as an observer from the Petrograd soviet.”

  “Very well, very well,” said Kerensky wearily.

  They left the palace by a side door and got into two waiting Renault limousines. The former president of the Duma, the hugely fat Mikhail Rodzianko, also came. Grigori could not quite believe this was happening to him. He was part of a delegation going to order a crown prince to refuse to become tsar. Less than a week ago he had meekly got down from a table because Lieutenant Kirillov had ordered him to. The world was changing so fast it was hard to keep up.

  Grigori had never been inside the home of a wealthy aristocrat, and it was like entering a dream world. The large house was stuffed with possessions. Everywhere he looked there were gorgeous vases, elaborate clocks, silver candelabra, and jeweled ornaments. If he had grabbed a golden bowl and run out of the front door, he could have sold it for enough money to buy himself a house—except that right now no one was buying golden bowls, they just wanted bread.

  Prince Georgy Lvov, a silver-haired man with a huge bushy beard, clearly was not impressed by the decor, nor intimidated by the solemnity of his errand, but everyone else seemed nervous. They waited in the drawing room, frowned upon by ancestral portraits, shuffling their feet on the thick rugs.

  At last Grand Duke Mikhail appeared. He was a prematurely balding man of thirty-eight with a little mustache. To Grigori’s surprise he appeared to be more nervous than the delegation. He seemed shy and bewildered, despite a haughty tilt to his head. He eventually summoned enough courage to say: “What do you have to tell me?”

  Lvov replied: “We have come to ask you not to accept the crown.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Mikhail, and seemed not to know what to do next.

  Kerensky retained his presence of mind. He spoke clearly and firmly. “The people of Petrograd have reacted with outrage to the decision of His Majesty the tsar,” he said. “Already a huge contingent of soldiers is marching on the Tauride Palace. There will be a violent uprising followed by a civil war unless we announce immediately that you have refused to take over as tsar.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” said Mikhail mildly.

  The grand duke was not very bright, Grigori realized. Why am I surprised? he thought. If these people were intelligent they would not be on the point of losing the throne of Russia.

  The monocled Miliukov said: “Your Royal Highness, I represent the minority view in the provisional government. In our opinion, the monarchy is the only symbol of author
ity accepted by the people.”

  Mikhail looked even more bewildered. The last thing he needed was a choice, Grigori thought; that only made matters worse. The grand duke said: “Would you mind if I had a word alone with Rodzianko? No, don’t all leave—we will just retire to a side room.”

  When the dithering tsar-designate and the fat president had left, the others talked in low voices. No one spoke to Grigori. He was the only working-class man in the room, and he sensed they were a bit frightened of him, suspecting—rightly—that the pockets of his sergeant’s uniform were stuffed with guns and ammunition.

  Rodzianko reappeared. “He asked me whether we could guarantee his personal safety if he became tsar,” he said. Grigori was disgusted but not surprised that the grand duke was concerned about himself rather than his country. “I told him we could not,” Rodzianko finished.

  Kerensky said: “And . . . ?”

  “He will rejoin us in a moment.”

  There was a pause that seemed endless, then Mikhail came back. They all fell silent. For a long moment, no one said anything.

  At last Mikhail said: “I have decided to decline the crown.”

  Grigori’s heart seemed to stop. Eight days, he thought. Eight days ago the women of Vyborg marched across the Liteiny Bridge. Today the rule of the Romanovs has ended.

  He recalled the words of his mother on the day she died: “I will not rest until Russia is a republic.” Rest now, Mother, he thought.

  Kerensky was shaking the grand duke’s hand and saying something pompous, but Grigori was not listening.

  We have done it, he thought. We made a revolution.

  We have deposed the tsar.

  { VII }

  In Berlin, Otto von Ulrich opened a magnum of the 1892 Perrier-Jouët champagne.