The Last Tsar (14 page)

Again the shadow of the secret police behind the event?

——

From the diary of Konstantin Romanov, the poet K.R.:

“5 February.… Thunderstruck, for the first minute I could not think at all, only as I came around did I understand what I had been deprived of and begin to cry. I had to prepare my wife—she loved Sergei very much. Both she and I felt that I should go to Moscow to see my poor friend’s body, to see poor Ella, who has no family around her….

“9 February.… The sovereign and both empresses are inconsolable that they cannot pay their final respects to the deceased. It is too dangerous for them to leave Tsarskoe. All the grand dukes have been informed in writing that not only can they not go to Moscow, but they are forbidden to attend the funeral at Kazan and St. Isaac’s cathedrals [in St. Petersburg].”

Meanwhile in Moscow a majestic tragedy was being played out.

Ella spent all the days before the burial in ceaseless prayer. On her husband’s tombstone she wrote: “Father, release them: they know not what they do.”

She understood the words of the Gospels heart and soul, and on the eve of the funeral she demanded to be taken to the prison where Kalyaev was being held. Brought into his cell, she asked, “Why did you kill my husband?”

“I killed Sergei Alexandrovich because he was a weapon of tyranny. I was taking revenge for the people.”

“Do not listen to your pride. Repent … and I will beg the sovereign to give you your life. I will ask him for you. I myself have already forgiven you.”

On the eve of revolution she had found a way out: forgiveness! Forgive through the impossible pain and blood—and thereby stop it then, at the beginning, this bloody wheel. By her example, poor Ella appealed to society, calling upon the people to live in Christian faith.

“No!” replied Kalyaev. “I do not repent. I must die for my deed and I will.… My death will be more useful to my cause than Sergei Alexandrovich’s death.”

Kalyaev was sentenced to death. “I am pleased with your sentence,” he told the judges. “I hope you will carry it out just as openly and publicly as I carried out the sentence of the Socialist Revolutionaries’ party. Learn to look the advancing revolution right in the eye.”

Kalyaev met death fearlessly.

Nicholas had lost Moscow.

The camarilla knew what came next in their intrigue: Nicholas
must soon be deprived of his chief adviser. The empress-mother was leaving for Denmark, where her father was mortally ill. Now one last figure remained by the tsar, Uncle Vladimir Alexandrovich. But the third blow was known. The Department of Police had been informed that the son of Vladimir Alexandrovich, Kirill, had broken up the marriage of the tsaritsa’s brother Ernie (that “fine couple”). Victoria Melita had divorced her husband, and now Kirill had decided to marry her and create an open family scandal. This would provoke harsh countermeasures; he would be punished, which meant that his father, Vladimir Alexandrovich, would have to step down as commander of the Petersburg garrison.

From a letter of Nicholas to his mother in Denmark:

“This week there was a drama in the family over Kirill’s unfortunate marriage. You certainly remember my conversations with him, as well as the consequences he would necessarily suffer: exclusion from the service, being forbidden to enter Russia, deprivation of all crown monies, and loss of the title of grand duke. Last week I learned that he has married.… I had a very unpleasant talk with his poor father, and no matter how he defended his son, I insisted. We left it that he would ask to leave the service. In the end, I agreed.

“At the same time I have been overtaken by doubt. Is it good to punish someone publicly several times in a row?… After long thought, which gave me a headache, I decided … to telegraph that I am returning Kirill his lost title.… Ugh! What tiresome, unpleasant days these have been. Now it is as if a mountain has fallen from my shoulders.”

If we suppose that the camarilla did intend to replace Nicholas with a strong tsar, then who would that have been? After all, by law, in the event of abdication, the minor Alexei would ascend to the throne. But Alexei was mortally ill; Alexei could be avoided. The next legal pretender was Michael. But he had no more the nature of a tsar than his brother.

The intriguers knew they could avoid Michael as well, for Michael was romantically involved and thinking about marrying, moreover marrying a certain Mrs. Wulfert, who was anything but of royal blood. Naturally, the Department of Police was informed of the affair. According to the law on succession, by marrying he would forfeit his title of grand duke.

“My dear mama!… Misha wrote that he is asking my permission
to marry. That he can wait no longer. Naturally, I shall never consent to this marriage. I feel with all my being that our dear papa would have acted in the same way. I feel it is quite impossible to change the law in this one case during such a dangerous period. Help me, dear Mama, to restrain him. May the Lord protect you.”

For whom, then, was all this plotting?

Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich—Nikolasha, Nicholas the Long—who was so similar in build to his cousin the deceased emperor.

The young Romanovs called him the “terrible uncle.” Those who saw him in military parades could never forget him, so imposing was his presence.

Hussars on jet black horses wearing black helmets topped by a horsehair comb gallop toward the small mounted figure—toward the tsar, who is reviewing the parade. And amid this terrible avalanche is Nicholas the giant, who has merged with his horse.… Just a few steps from the emperor, the commander’s magnificent leonine roar: “Halt!” And in an instant the inexorable avalanche halts. There is only the heavy breathing of people and horses.

Yes, he had the look of a tsar. He was known for his right-wing views. Nicholas Nikolaevich was being led to their goal: he was replacing all the uncles. He, not the retired Vladimir, was now in command of the Petersburg garrison. Alix, who was linked by friendship to the wife of Nicholas Nikolaevich, was also favorably disposed toward him.

Did Nicholas Nikolaevich himself know? Or, as sometimes happens, did “he know but not know”? Just as his ancestor Alexander I “knew but did not know” that they wanted to kill his father Emperor Paul and put Alexander himself on the throne? In any event, Nicholas Nikolaevich served the tsar honestly during all these days of upheaval. It all went right past him.

This is a seductive version of Bloody Sunday, but dreadfully romantic. Russians love a good plot—camarillas, Masons, whatever—where in fact there is usually just plain sloppiness. Someone mistrusted someone else; someone failed to warn someone else. So someone decided to take out more insurance, called up the troops, and removed the tsar from Petersburg. Great and terrible events in Russia are usually due to someone’s stupidity or laziness.

From the very start, the wave raised by Bloody Sunday was more like a tsunami.

From the diary of K.R.:

“February 6, 1905.… I simply cannot believe how quickly we are moving toward unknown, exotic calamities. There is mischief everywhere, all are confused.… The government has yet to feel a strong hand. Not that there is one.”

All the elements would be there: barricades out of overturned trams, a general strike, mutiny in the army. In the Crimea an insurrectionist cruiser would approach the shores, and at their estates the horrified grand dukes would wait for the firing to begin. The red rooster of arson—the “light show”—would rampage through the landowners’ estates.

In Petersburg, in the noisy crowd at the World of Art exhibit, arms crossed haughtily, stood the famous terrorist Boris Savinkov. Openly. No one dared turn him in.

Vera Leonidovna:

“Absolutely everyone went on strike. It was like a holiday. At the Mariinsky Theater the ballet struck, and even the brother of his [Nicholas’s] mistress Mathilde, Iosif Kschessinski, struck.… I knew him well. By the way, after the revolution this participation in the strike became his indulgence, his safe conduct. Kschessinski even became an honored artist of the Russian Republic, this brother of the tsar’s mistress. The last time I saw him was on the eve of the war. He starved to death in blockaded Leningrad. A habitué of good restaurants, a gourmand who feasted on silver platters—he starved to death!”

By the fall of 1905, the tsar’s family, cut off by the general strike, was living in Peterhof, and their sole means of communication with Petersburg was by steamer. “Even if you have to swim to get here,” the tsar joked sadly. The issue of Nicholas’s fall seemed decided.

Returning from abroad, Witte, who reached the tsar by steamship, listened to Benckendorff, the sympathetic marshal of the
court, about how difficult it was going to be for the tsar’s family, with the five children, to find a safe haven among their royal relatives in Europe. Still, Nicholas sailed the ship of state out of this storm.

In the summer of 1905, as the revolution gathered steam, the tsar, who outwardly clung to the rightists, had made an unexpected move. In June American President Theodore Roosevelt offered his services to help Russia and Japan reach an accord. To America the tsar sent the liberal Witte. At first the rightists were jubilant—Witte’s mission appeared hopeless. The Japanese had won too much; it was inconceivable that he would conclude a peace on honorable terms. But he did. And on the best possible terms, given the circumstances. Witte returned to Russia triumphant. Nicholas rewarded him with the title of count.

Two choices remained to the tsar: proclaim Nicholas Nikolaevich military dictator (and himself gradually withdraw, as, evidently, the camarilla intended) or decide in favor of what his father had instructed him to fight—reforms and a constitution.

The latter is what the returned Witte proposed to him: “Russia has outgrown its existing governmental forms. “There is still a chance—you must give the people their constitution, otherwise they will wrest one away.”

Nicholas possessed sufficient flexibility. He agreed to a constitution.

And hesitated. Behind Witte’s back, Nicholas continued to importune Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich to become dictator. Witte was angry; he saw in this a pathetic spinelessness. Nicholas did not want to understand: the world had fallen apart. Like the prodigal son, Nicholas was ready to part with everything his forefathers had created. The great autocratic empire was to end with him.

Once again he wanted others to beg him to do what he himself had long since decided on.

It fell to Nicholas Nikolaevich to do the begging. Even if he knew about the intrigue, he could not have profited from its results. The army was at the front in Manchuria (everything was as it would be in 1917, when the army was fighting on the fronts of the world war). There was no one to crush a revolution. Agreeing to become dictator was tantamount to finishing off the dynasty.

On the day Nicholas signed the constitution, he had a terrible headache. He thought of the Japanese who had once sliced his brow. The minister of the court, Count Fredericks, told Witte when he arrived that the tsar had again asked Nicholas Nikolaevich to become
dictator, whereupon Nikolasha had pulled out a gun and said: “Either I shoot myself right now, or you sign.”

Now Nicholas had the right: he signed.

“17 October [!].… Nikolasha and Stana had breakfast. We sat and talked, waiting for Witte to arrive. I signed the Manifesto at 5 o’clock. Since that day my head has been very heavy and my thoughts confused. Lord, save Russia, and bring her peace.”

On the returning steamer, Nicholas Nikolaevich embraced Witte triumphantly: “Today, October 17th, is an important date. Exactly seventeen years ago, also on the 17th at Borki, God saved the dynasty. I think that now the dynasty is being saved from a no lesser danger.”

He was right. The 17th was an important date for their family.

October 17: the train wreck at Borki, when by a miracle Nicholas survived.

January 17: Nicholas appeared for the first time, so disastrously, before the Russian public.

October 17, 1905: The end of the autocracy. That day Nicholas signed a manifesto granting the first Russian constitution.

December 17: The death of Rasputin.

And 1917: The end of Nicholas’s empire.

In the early morning hours of July 17: His own death and that of his family.

All this time Nicholas remained calm and silent, as always. In his letters to his mother, though …

“Peterhof. 19 October, 1905.… It feels as though I have not written you for a year, so many difficult and unprecedented events have we experienced. You of course remember those days we spent together at Tsarskoe in January.… But they are nothing compared with now. The railway strikes that began around Moscow overtook all of Russia immediately thereafter. Petersburg and Moscow have been left cut off from the inner provinces.… The only contact with the city is by sea—which is quite convenient at this time of year! After the railways the strike spread to factories and plants, and then even to municipal institutions.… Imagine the shame! We have just had news of strikes, of policemen, Cossacks, and soldiers slain, of riots, disorders, and upheavals.… The gentlemen ministers have been arguing like wet hens … instead of acting decisively. There have been ‘meetings’—a fashionable new word—where armed insurrection was openly debated and approved, which I learned about immediately.… The use of arms was prescribed in the event of troops being attacked. Quiet, ominous days set in. It was like the feeling you sometimes get in the summer before a powerful
storm.
Everyone’s
nerves were stretched beyond the limit. Of course, this situation could not last very long. During those terrible days I saw Witte constantly. Our conversations began in the morning and ended in the evening in full darkness. It seemed we could choose one of two paths: either appoint an energetic military man and do everything in our power to suppress the sedition. Or else present the population with civil rights, freedom of speech, press, assembly, and unions, and so on.… That would also entail an obligation to pass all kinds of legislation through the State Duma.… This is for all intents and purposes a constitution. Witte insisted heatedly on this path. And everyone I turned to answered me exactly as Witte had. The Manifesto was written by him and Alexei Obolensky. We discussed it for two days, and eventually I said a prayer and signed it.… Dear Mama, you cannot imagine how much I have suffered. My only comfort is that such is God’s will, and that this difficult decision will lead my dear Russia out of this unbearable, chaotic state in which it finds itself for nearly a year.”