Fall of Giants (The Century Trilogy)

by Ken Follett

  "This is good, but can you change things?" Walter said.

  "We have a strong chance of winning the election for the Constituent Assembly."

  "When will it be held?"

  "It has been much delayed--"

  "Why?"

  Grigori sighed. "First the provisional government called together a council of representatives which, after two months, finally agreed on the composition of a sixty-member second council to draft the electoral law--"

  "Why? Why such an elaborate process?"

  Grigori looked irate. "They say they want the election to be absolutely unchallengeable--but the real reason is that the conservative parties are dragging their feet, knowing they stand to lose."

  He was only a sergeant, Walter thought, but his analysis seemed quite sophisticated. "So when will the election be held?"

  "September."

  "And why do you think the Bolsheviks will win?"

  "We are still the only group firmly committed to peace. And everyone knows that--thanks to all the newspapers and pamphlets we've produced."

  "Why did you say you were doing 'dangerously' well?"

  "It makes us the government's prime target. There's a warrant out for Lenin's arrest. He's had to go into hiding. But he's still running the party."

  Walter believed that, too. If Lenin could keep control of his party from exile in Zurich, he could certainly do so from a hideaway in Russia.

  Walter had made the delivery and gathered the information he needed. He had accomplished his mission. A sense of relief came over him. Now all he had to do was get home.

  With his foot he pushed the sack containing the ten thousand rubles across the floor to Grigori.

  He finished his tea and stood up. "Enjoy your onions," he said, and he walked to the door.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man in the blue tunic fold his copy of Pravda and get to his feet.

  Walter bought a ticket to Luga and boarded the train. He entered a third-class compartment. He pushed through a group of soldiers smoking and drinking vodka, a family of Jews with all their possessions in string-tied bundles, and some peasants with empty crates who had presumably sold their chickens. At the far end of the carriage he paused and looked back.

  The blue tunic entered the carriage.

  Walter watched for a second as the man pushed through the passengers, carelessly elbowing people out of his way. Only a policeman would do that.

  Walter jumped off the train and hurriedly left the station. Recalling his tour of exploration that afternoon, he headed at a fast walk for the canal. It was the season of short summer nights, so the evening was light. He hoped he might have shaken his tail, but when he glanced over his shoulder he saw the blue tunic following him. He had presumably been following Peshkov, and had decided to investigate Grigori's onion-selling peasant friend.

  The man broke into a jogging run.

  If caught, Walter would be shot as a spy. He had no choice about what he had to do next.

  He was in a low-rent neighborhood. All of Petrograd looked poor, but this district had the cheap hotels and dingy bars that clustered near railway stations all over the world. Walter started to run, and the blue tunic quickened his pace to keep up.

  Walter came to a canalside brickyard. It had a high wall and a gate with iron bars, but next door was a derelict warehouse on an unfenced site. Walter turned off the street, raced across the warehouse site to the waterside, then scrambled over the wall into the brickyard.

  There had to be a watchman somewhere, but Walter saw no one. He looked for a place of concealment. It was a pity the light was still so clear. The yard had its own quay with a small timber pier. All around him were stacks of bricks the height of a man, but he needed to see without being seen. He moved to a stack that was partly dismantled--some having been sold, presumably--and swiftly rearranged a few so that he could hide behind them and look through a gap. He eased the Mosin-Nagant revolver out of his belt and cocked the hammer.

  A few moments later, he saw the blue tunic come over the wall.

  The man was of medium height and thin, with a small mustache. He looked scared: he had realized he was no longer merely following a suspect. He was engaged in a manhunt, and he did not know whether he was the hunter or the quarry.

  He drew a gun.

  Walter pointed his own gun through the gap in the bricks and aimed at the blue tunic, but he was not close enough to be sure of hitting his target.

  The man stood still for a moment, looking all around, clearly undecided about what to do next. Then he turned and walked hesitantly toward the water.

  Walter followed him. He had turned the tables.

  The man dodged from stack to stack, scanning the area. Walter did the same, ducking behind bricks whenever the man stopped, getting nearer all the time. Walter did not want a prolonged gunfight, which might attract the attention of other policemen. He needed to down his enemy with one or two shots and get away fast.

  By the time the man reached the canal end of the site, they were only ten yards apart. The man looked up and down the canal, as if Walter might have rowed away in a boat.

  Walter stepped out of cover and drew a bead on the middle of the man's back.

  The man turned away from the water and looked straight at Walter.

  Then he screamed.

  It was a high-pitched, girlish scream of shock and terror. Walter knew, in that instant, that he would remember the scream all his life.

  He squeezed the trigger, the revolver banged, and the scream was cut off instantly.

  Only one shot was needed. The secret policeman crumpled to the ground, lifeless.

  Walter bent over the body. The eyes stared upward sightlessly. There was no heartbeat, no breath.

  Walter dragged the body to the edge of the canal. He put bricks in the pockets of the man's trousers and tunic, to weight the corpse. Then he slid it over the low parapet and let it fall into the water.

  It sank below the surface, and Walter turned away.

  { IV }

  Grigori was in a session of the Petrograd soviet when the counterrevolution began.

  He was worried, but not surprised. As the Bolsheviks gained popularity, the backlash had become more ruthless. The party was doing well in local elections, winning control of one provincial soviet after another, and had gained 33 percent of the votes for the Petrograd city council. In response the government--now led by Kerensky--arrested Trotsky and again deferred the long-delayed national elections for the Constituent Assembly. The Bolsheviks had said all along that the provisional government would never hold a national election, and this further postponement only added to Bolshevik credibility.

  Then the army made its move.

  General Kornilov was a shaven-headed Cossack who had the heart of a lion and the brains of a sheep, according to a famous remark by General Alexeev. On September 9 Kornilov ordered his troops to march on Petrograd.

  The soviet responded quickly. The delegates immediately resolved to set up the Committee for Struggle Against the Counterrevolution.

  A committee was nothing, Grigori thought impatiently. He got to his feet, holding down anger and fear. As the delegate for the First Machine Gun Regiment, he was listened to respectfully, especially on military matters. "There is no point in a committee if its members are just going to make speeches," he said passionately. "If the reports we have just heard are true, some of Kornilov's troops are not far from the city limits of Petrograd. They can be halted only by force." He always wore his sergeant's uniform, and carried his rifle and a pistol. "The committee will be pointless unless it mobilizes the workers and soldiers of Petrograd against the mutiny of the army."

  Grigori knew that only the Bolshevik party could mobilize the people. And all the other deputies knew it, too, regardless of what party they belonged to. In the end it was agreed that the committee would have three Mensheviks, three Socialist Revolutionaries, and three Bolsheviks including Grigori; but everyone knew the Bolsheviks
were the only ones who counted.

  As soon as that was decided, the Committee for Struggle left the debating hall. Grigori had been a politician for six months, and he had learned how to work the system. Now he ignored the formal composition of the committee and invited a dozen useful people to join them, including Konstantin from the Putilov works and Isaak from the First Machine Guns.

  The soviet had moved from the Tauride Palace to the Smolny Institute, a former girls' school, and the committee reconvened in a classroom, surrounded by framed embroidery and girlish watercolors.

  The chairman said: "Do we have a motion for debate?"

  This was rubbish, but Grigori had been a deputy long enough to know how to get around it. He moved immediately to take control of the meeting and get the committee focused on action instead of words.

  "Yes, comrade Chairman, if I may," he said. "I propose there are five things we need to do." A numbered list was always a good idea: people felt they had to listen until you got to the end. "First: Mobilize the Petrograd soldiers against the mutiny of General Kornilov. How can we achieve this? I suggest that Corporal Isaak Ivanovich should draw up a list of the principal barracks with the names of reliable revolutionary leaders in each. Having identified our allies, we should send a letter instructing them to put themselves under the orders of this committee and get ready to repel the mutineers. If Isaak begins now he can bring list and letter back to this committee for approval in a few minutes' time."

  Grigori paused briefly to allow people to nod, then, taking that for approval, he went on.

  "Thank you. Carry on, comrade Isaak. Second, we must send a message to Kronstadt." The naval base at Kronstadt, an island twenty miles offshore, was notorious for its brutal treatment of sailors, especially young trainees. Six months ago the sailors had turned on their tormentors, and had tortured and murdered many of their officers. The place was now a radical stronghold. "The sailors must arm themselves, deploy to Petrograd, and put themselves under our orders." Grigori pointed to a Bolshevik deputy whom he knew to be close to the sailors. "Comrade Gleb, will you undertake that task, with the committee's approval?"

  Gleb nodded. "If I may, I will draft a letter for our chairman to sign, then take it to Kronstadt myself."

  "Please do."

  The committee members were now looking a bit bewildered. Things were moving faster than usual. Only the Bolsheviks were unsurprised.

  "Third, we must organize factory workers into defensive units and arm them. We can get the guns from army arsenals and from armaments factories. Most workers will need some training in firearms and military discipline. I suggest this task be carried out jointly by the trade unions and the Red Guards." The Red Guards were revolutionary soldiers and workers who carried firearms. Not all were Bolsheviks, but they usually obeyed orders from the Bolshevik committees. "I propose that comrade Konstantin, the deputy from the Putilov works, take charge of this. He will know the leading union in each major factory."

  Grigori knew that he was turning the population of Petrograd into a revolutionary army, and so did the other Bolsheviks on the committee, but would the rest of them figure that out? At the end of this process, assuming the counterrevolution was defeated, it was going to be very difficult for the moderates to disarm the force they had created and restore the authority of the provisional government. If they thought that far ahead they might try to moderate or reverse what Grigori was proposing. But at the moment they were focused on preventing a military takeover. As usual, only the Bolsheviks had a strategy.

  Konstantin said: "Yes, indeed, I'll make a list." He would favor Bolshevik union leaders, of course, but they were nowadays the most effective anyway.

  Grigori said: "Fourth, the Railwaymen's Union must do all it can to hamper the advance of Kornilov's army." The Bolsheviks had worked hard to gain control of this union, and now had at least one supporter in every locomotive shed. Bolshevik trade unionists always volunteered for duty as treasurer, secretary, or chairman. "Although some troops are on the way here by road, the bulk of the men and their supplies will have to come by rail. The union can make sure they get held up and sent on long diversions. Comrade Viktor, may the committee rely on you to do this?"

  Viktor, a railwaymen's deputy, nodded agreement. "I will set up an ad hoc committee within the union to organize the disruption of the mutineers' advance."

  "Finally, we should encourage other cities to set up committees like this one," Grigori said. "The revolution must be defended everywhere. Perhaps other members of this committee could suggest which towns we should communicate with?"

  This was a deliberate distraction, but they fell for it. Glad to have something to do, the committee members called out the names of towns that should organize Committees for Struggle. That ensured they did not pick over Grigori's more important proposals, but let them go unchallenged; and they never thought about the long-term consequences of arming the citizens.

  Isaak and Gleb drafted their letters and got them signed by the chairman without further discussion. Konstantin made his list of factory leaders and started sending messages to them. Viktor left to organize the railwaymen.

  The committee began to argue about the wording of a letter to neighboring towns. Grigori slipped away. He had what he wanted. The defense of Petrograd, and of the revolution, was well under way. And the Bolsheviks were in charge of it.

  What he needed now was reliable information about the whereabouts of the counterrevolutionary army. Were there really troops approaching the southern suburbs of Petrograd? If so they might have to be dealt with faster than the Committee for Struggle could act.

  He walked from the Smolny Institute across the bridge the short distance to his barracks. There he found the troops already preparing to fight Kornilov's mutineers. He took an armored car, a driver, and three reliable revolutionary soldiers, and drove across the city to the south.

  In the darkening autumn afternoon they zigzagged through the southern suburbs, looking for the invading army. After a couple of fruitless hours Grigori decided there was a good chance the reports of Kornilov's progress had been exaggerated. In any event he was likely to come across nothing more than an advance party. All the same, it was important to check them, and he persisted with his search.

  They eventually found an infantry brigade making camp at a school.

  He considered returning to barracks and bringing the First Machine Guns here to attack. But he thought there might be a better way. It was risky, but it would save a lot of bloodshed if it worked.

  He was going to try to win by talking.

  They drove past an apathetic sentry into the playground and Grigori got out of the car. As a precaution, he unfolded the spike bayonet at the end of his rifle and fixed it in the attack position. Then he slung the rifle over his shoulder. Feeling vulnerable, he forced himself to look relaxed.

  Several soldiers approached him. A colonel said: "What are you doing here, Sergeant?"

  Grigori ignored him and addressed a corporal. "I need to speak to the leader of your soldiers' committee, comrade," he said.

  The colonel said: "There are no soldiers' committees in this brigade, comrade. Get back in your car and clear off."

  But the corporal spoke up with nervous defiance. "I was the leader of my platoon committee, Sergeant--before the committees were banned, of course."

  The colonel's face darkened with anger.

  This was the revolution in miniature, Grigori realized. Who would prevail--the colonel or the corporal?

  More soldiers drew near to listen.

  "Then tell me," Grigori said to the corporal, "why are you attacking the revolution?"

  "No, no," said the corporal. "We're here to defend it."

  "Someone has been lying to you." Grigori turned and raised his voice to address the bystanders. "The prime minister, Comrade Kerensky, has sacked General Kornilov, but Kornilov won't go, and that's why he has sent you to attack Petrograd."

  There was a murmur of disapproval.
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  The colonel looked awkward: he knew Grigori was right. "Enough of these lies!" he blustered. "Get out of here now, Sergeant, or I'll shoot you down."

  Grigori said: "Don't touch your weapon, Colonel. Your men have a right to the truth." He looked at the growing crowd. "Don't they?"

  "Yes!" said several of them.

  "I don't like everything Kerensky has done," said Grigori. "He has brought back the death penalty and flogging. But he is our revolutionary leader. Whereas your General Kornilov wants to destroy the revolution."

  "Lies!" the colonel said angrily. "Don't you men understand? This sergeant is a Bolshevik. Everyone knows they are in the pay of Germany!"

  The corporal said: "How do we know who to believe? You say one thing, Sergeant, but the colonel says another."

  "Then don't believe either of us," Grigori said. "Go and find out for yourselves." He raised his voice to make sure everyone could hear him. "You don't have to hide in this school. Go to the nearest factory and ask any worker. Speak to soldiers you see in the streets. You'll soon learn the truth."

  The corporal nodded. "Good idea."

  "You'll do no such thing," said the colonel furiously. "I'm ordering you all to stay within the grounds."

  That was a big mistake, Grigori thought. He said: "Your colonel doesn't want you to inquire for yourselves. Doesn't that show you that he must be telling you lies?"

  The colonel put his hand on his pistol and said: "That's mutinous talk, Sergeant."

  The men stared at the colonel and at Grigori. This was the moment of crisis, and death was as near to Grigori as it had ever been.

  Suddenly Grigori realized that he was at a disadvantage. He had been so caught up in the argument that he had failed to plan what to do when it ended. He had his rifle over his shoulder, but the safety lock was engaged. It would take several seconds to swing it off his shoulder, turn the awkward knob that unlocked the safety catch, and lift the rifle into firing position. The colonel could draw and shoot his pistol a lot faster. Grigori felt a wave of fear, and had to suppress an urge to turn and run.