Russka (148 page)

‘Kerensky went off to get military support from outside the city,’ Popov told her, ‘but had little luck. That just left the ministers of the Provisional Government sitting in the Winter Palace with a guard of some Cossacks and, if you please, the Women’s Death Battalion. There were forty war invalids too, God bless them!’

‘Then you stormed the Winter Palace?’

‘More or less. Actually, some of the women, I suppose, knew how to shoot, so our people wouldn’t go near the place. Then we got five thousand sailors. But when they saw there was shooting, they went away too!’

‘I heard the Winter Palace was bombarded.’

‘Correct. The heroic cruiser
Aurora
fired upon the palace. They hadn’t any live shells unfortunately, so they fired a single blank. Then the Peter and Paul Fortress had a go. But they missed.’

‘That’s impossible. The fortress is directly opposite the Palace.’

‘I was there. They missed.’

‘And then?’

‘Oh, in the end they gave up and our people went in and looted the place.’ He chuckled. ‘Though in the future, I’m sure we shall tell the story rather differently.’

Mrs Suvorin looked at Popov thoughtfully. She had seen little of him in the last year, but they still felt an attraction for each other. She could understand why, in his moment of triumph, he should have sent a message that he would call upon her that night.

Several thoughts went through her mind. What would this change mean politically? Some people, she knew, were outraged. The civil service, the banks, and a number of unions had resisted the usurpation of the Duma by going on strike. It was still possible that armed forces would be used against the Bolsheviks. Yet other people were taking things very calmly. The Petrograd stock exchange had not reacted at all: prices were firm. As a businessman had remarked to her: ‘These Bolsheviks are just a party within the workers’ soviets: and it’s the soviets, not Kerensky, who’ve had the real power for months. I doubt it will make much difference.’

True, the first act of the new group had been to declare that all estates were now to be distributed to the peasants but that had been coming anyway, and she knew very well that the peasants had already occupied the estate at Russka. She had reconciled herself to that.

What about the men involved? What were they like? She had seen the list of ministers. Lenin she felt she knew about; also Trotsky. Them she feared. Yet Lunachazsky, the Minister of Culture, she had met and found to be a cultivated and sympathetic man. Other names meant less. And one, the Chairman for Nationalities, named Stalin, meant nothing at all.

Which brought her back to Popov. Even now, after a decade, she did not really know him. Sometimes, like that time in 1913, she had broken through and found a man of warmth; yet at other times the thick shell of the revolutionary had descended. She felt he would kill without caring. And, perhaps worse, he would lie without hesitation.

Somehow, she felt instinctively now, he represented them. If she could gauge him, she might have an insight into these men who were his colleagues.

And it was with this in her mind that she now asked him the question that had been troubling her more than any other.

‘What, then, are you going to do about the Constituent Assembly?’

All the parties, including the Bolsheviks, had been calling for it.
Before being overthrown, the Kerensky Provisional Government had set the dates for elections in November. Now, with this coup, what would become of those?

He looked at her in surprise.

‘The elections are scheduled.’

‘Will they take place?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Nothing is certain. How do I know that your Lenin isn’t a dictator.’

‘You have my word he isn’t.’ Popov gazed at her earnestly. ‘I assure you the Constituent Assembly will be called. It’s part of our programme. Not only that, all the decisions of this government – the distribution of the land, everything – are only provisional, and subject to ratification by the Assembly.’

His eyes looked straight into hers. She supposed she must believe him.

‘Do you promise me that?’

‘I do.’

On 5 January, 1918, the Constituent Assembly met in Petrograd. Since the elections had taken place well after the Bolshevik coup, it would be hard to deny that the results reflected the people’s will under present conditions. Of the 707 members, the largest group – 370 – belonged to the peasants’ party, the Socialist Revolutionaries. Of the lesser parties, the Bolsheviks had 170 members. Other parties included the Mensheviks, and there were over a hundred members with marginal or no party affiliations. The ruling Bolsheviks, therefore, were in a definite minority, with only 24 per cent of the vote.

The Constituent Assembly met for one day. Lenin watched the proceedings from a balcony. The Assembly refused to agree that the Bolshevik Government was the supreme power or to bow to the decisions of the soviets. That same night, Lenin, with a show of military force, disbanded it.

Thus, after centuries of tsarist rule, and after its February and October revolutions, Russia enjoyed its one and only day of democracy. ‘It’s a pity,’ one of the sailors who disbanded it
remarked, ‘but,’ using the tsarist term of affection which many soldiers then applied to Lenin, ‘the Little Father doesn’t like it.’

The following day, Mrs Suvorin sent a note to Yevgeny Popov.

You lied. You must have known.
It was all planned.
Do not come to see me again.

The fate of Alexander Bobrov was decided in an icy Moscow street. It was foolish of him to have lost concentration – and all the more so since it was the very eve of his departure.

For it was clear that, for the two Bobrovs, it was time to leave. ‘It seems,’ Alexander said wryly, ‘that we shall not be required in the modern age.’

And the new age had, indeed, begun. Officially it started on 31 January. For on that day, by government decree, Russia moved to the western, Gregorian calendar, and ceased to be thirteen days behind the rest of the world. Whatever the date, however, the Russia that Alexander knew was dissolving in the strangest way, before his eyes.

She was neither at war nor at peace. An armistice had been signed with Germany, but the peace terms, negotiated by Trotsky, had yet to be agreed. The assumption of some idealistic revolutionaries, that if they offered to go home, the Germans would do so too, had been swiftly disproved. The general revolution in Europe that some, including Lenin, had hoped for, showed no sign yet of taking place. Meanwhile, in this uncomfortable half world, the old Russian empire was showing every sign of breaking up. In the north, Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia had already declared independence. In the west, Poland was sure to be lost. In the south, formal authority in the Ukraine had broken down, but while the Bolsheviks were trying to get control, the Ukranian nationalists had already proclaimed a new Ukrainian state.

At home everything that seemed familiar was being broken up. The land belonged to the people; the programme for nationalizing
industry had begun; and the Orthodox Church had been told that all its property was confiscated and all its legal rights taken away. In effect, it was outlawed. ‘In six months,’ Lenin had declared, ‘we will build a Socialist state.’ It seemed he might succeed.

For if the Bolsheviks were still a minority, they were a determined one. The opposition forces were in disarray; cleverly, Lenin had drawn some of the extremists of the peasants’ party – the terrorists – into his government so that they would not oppose him; Red Guards and other units were everywhere; Bolshevik cells were growing in the factories; and, most significant for the Bobrovs, a new organization, headed by a ruthless fellow named Dzerzhinski, had begun to operate in the last two months: the Cheka.

The Extraordinary Commission to Combat Counterrevolution, Sabotage and Speculation was a very effective body. It was remarkable what it could come up with. It seemed that a number of political opponents of the Bolsheviks had been guilty of sedition, including many of the liberal Cadets. They were declared to be enemies of the people. Nicolai Bobrov had just learned that he was one of them.

Alexander Bobrov was walking quite slowly, because he was lost in thought. He was wearing an old coat, a worker’s cap and a pair of heavy boots. The coat collar was turned up against the cold, and his face was hardly visible. He had taken to dressing like a worker a month ago. His father was in hiding.

Their escape had been arranged by Vladimir Suvorin. Mrs Suvorin was to cross into Finland and go thence in stages to Paris where Vladimir’s son was awaiting her. The two Bobrovs, dressed as workers, were to accompany her. In the confusion which still existed everywhere, the journey itself should not be unduly difficult. ‘You just need to keep out of trouble until you leave,’ Vladimir had said.

The industrialist’s own position was curious. Though the Bolsheviks wanted to nationalize all industry, they were still uncertain what to do with men like Suvorin. If he cooperated, with his wide knowledge and his many contacts he might be useful. ‘They know that industry and finance still have to run,’ Vladimir had explained to Alexander. ‘I’ve a friend in the Culture Minister, Lunarcharsky, too. All the same,’ he added, ‘I fear it may not be many months before I follow you.’ Nadezhda, despite much
scolding, had insisted she stay with her father, and Alexander had just come, an hour before, from bidding her farewell.

Since their time together in Russka while he recovered from his war wounds, they had grown very close. Twice he had proposed. But in the upheaval taking place all around them, she had simply begged: ‘Not now.’ Alexander had no doubt that she and Vladimir would be in Europe too, within the year. And then, he thought, will be the time. It was funny: they would both be nothing then – just a pair of emigrés. But he didn’t mind. ‘Take care of yourself, my Alyosha,’ she had said, and had given him a long kiss.

And it was just these thoughts, as he went along the steet, that made him foolishly forget.

‘Got a cig?’ The soldier was standing in front of him, looking up. ‘Cigarette?’

Alexander gazed down at him, hardly focussing. There were six or seven other soldiers, Red Guards, watching him. The one who had approached him was a disreputable little fellow. When he was serving, Alexander would have made him clean himself up.

‘You want a cigarette, do you?’ he said irritably. ‘Well, I don’t smoke.’ And he started to walk on.

What the devil was the matter with the fellow? The soldier had suddenly caught his coat. His hopeful look had turned into a snarl. He was calling to the other guards, who were coming towards them, one of them unhoisting his rifle.

And then he realized what he had done.

He had spoken naturally, just as he would have done a year ago. He had forgotten to disguise his voice which had the faint but unmistakable burr of the aristocratic intonation. He had addressed him with a certain haughty disdain; and, worst of all, he had used the familiar ‘thou’ which officers always used when addressing their men.

He was discovered.

‘Here’s an officer. What’s your name?’

‘Ivanov. I’m not an officer.’

‘You were though, weren’t you? I think we’ve got ourselves an enemy here, boys. Fine suit of clothes you’ve get there, my lord. Nice coat. Think you’re a
muzhik
, do you?’

And suddenly Alexander doubled up with pain as a rifle butt was swung and hit him in the stomach. He went down.

‘What shall we do with him, lads?’

‘Take him to a tribunal.’

‘Search him first, maybe.’

‘I think you’d like to have a nice talk with the Cheka. That’s what I reckon,’ the first said with a laugh. ‘Up you get, baron. Come along, Excellency. What a fine officer you are, sir, to be sure.’

He staggered up. Thank God he had no papers on him.

‘My name’s Ivanov,’ he said weakly.

Then one of the soldiers cried out: ‘Here’s the man we need. He’s on the Committee. Let’s ask him.’

And Alexander looked up to see Yevgeny Popov, who gazed at him with mild surprise, while the soldiers told him what they’d found. ‘Says his name’s Ivanov,’ the first one added. Then Popov smiled.

For a few, long seconds he said nothing. His green eyes rested upon Alexander, yet it seemed he was thinking of something else. At last he spoke.

‘This man, comrades, is a good Bolshevik. He’s one of us.’

The soldier who had discovered Alexander gazed in amazement.

‘But he talks like a noble,’ he protested. ‘I swear he was an officer.’

Popov smiled. ‘Have you heard Vladimir Ilich speak?’ he asked. It was a subject of some amusement that Lenin pronounced his diatribes against the capitalist classes in an accent that was markedly upper-middle class. ‘Besides, comrade, there are officers who served in the imperial army who are loyal Bolsheviks now.’ It was true that, even in the higher command, there were men who had thought it their patriotic duty to obey the new government as thoroughly as they had the old. ‘We just shoot them if they don’t,’ Popov added pleasantly.

The men looked at him doubtfully. ‘Are you sure, comrade?’

Popov shrugged. ‘Ask him,’ he said. And he smiled again at Alexander.

Afterwards, Alexander often wondered how he got through the next few minutes. Probably because his life was at stake. He had not prepared himself, and there was no time to think.

‘My name is Alexander Pavlovich Ivanov,’ he began slowly. It was not a long story. He was terrified that if he made it long, he might forget what he had said. He told them that he had been
wounded in action, that on his return he had become disgusted with the old régime and that, immediately after the October coup, he had offered his services to the Bolsheviks. ‘I’ve got no money,’ he said. ‘And unfortunately I’m still sick.’ Then he offered to show them his wounds.

‘Long live the revolution,’ Popov said quietly.

‘Long live the revolution,’ Alexander repeated.

The soldiers turned to Popov.

‘You heard him,’ he said. ‘I vouch for him.’

‘Oh, well, if you’re one of us,’ the first soldier said. And he clapped Alexander on the back. ‘Pity you’ve got no cigarettes,’ he added. Then the soldiers left.