Red Mutiny (14 page)

By not pursuing the reforms of his grandfather, Nicholas accelerated the inevitable fall of an outdated form of government. As he mimicked his father's policies, the plight of peasants and workers worsened, as did their frustration, evidenced in sporadic countryside revolts and factory strikes. Revolutionaries increased in number. And some
zemstvos
nobles, who traditionally supported the tsar and had earlier wanted only some limited say in local affairs, now aligned themselves with liberal intellectuals such as Pyotr Struve and Pavel Milyukov. These men led the charge to replace the autocracy with a parliamentary democracy, forming the Union of Liberation and publishing their aims in illegal journals such as
Osvobozhdeniye,
which was launched in 1902.

Then Nicholas went to war with Japan, revealing how corrosive his reign had become. With each defeat in battle, his position weakened, while the voices of opposition grew louder. The state faced bankruptcy, literally and figuratively. Vyacheslav von Plehve, his reactionary interior minister, was torn apart by an assassin's bomb in July 1904, an act received warmly by almost everyone but the tsar himself.
Shaken by this death, Nicholas began a series of maneuvers that promised reform. Then he backpedaled on each, causing his opposition to press even harder for change.

For example, the tsar's selection of Prince P. D. Svyatopolk-Mirsky to fill Plehve's former post came as a welcome signal that Nicholas was moving in a new direction. A forty-seven-year-old bureaucrat known for his progressive views, Mirsky publicly called for giving the people a voice in government. With his tacit approval, 103
zemstvos
leaders met in Moscow in November 1904 and approved an agenda of reform that included the granting of civil liberties and the election of a representative body whose leaders would participate in the State Council. This agenda was then presented to Mirsky for Nicholas's consideration. Liberals declared the assembly a historic occasion, one celebrated across the country with public banquets modeled on the ones that followed the 1848 Revolution in France. Physicians, teachers, lawyers, engineers, and the intelligentsia toasted one another, believing that universal suffrage and a constitution were just around the corner. On December 12, Nicholas's response put a stop to the festivities. He issued an edict (
ukaz
) declaring that he would grant a few concessions, including looser censorship rules and an end to the persecution of
zemstvos.
He made no mention, however, of a representative parliamentary body or a constitution. At best, the
ukaz
was a halfhearted gesture of appeasement. Afterward Mirsky lamented to a friend, "Everything has failed. Let us build jails."

A month later, a priest named Father Gapon led tens of thousands to the Winter Palace on a snowy Sunday morning to petition Nicholas to improve the conditions of the workers whom he represented. His "Most Humble and Loyal Address to the Tsar" also contained a list of political reforms inspired in part by the
zemstvos
and the liberals. His appeal was met with fixed bayonets and cavalry charges. Over one hundred died in the violence, including women and children, and many more were injured. That day, Gapon declared, "There is no God any longer. There is no tsar." Maxim Gorky, who participated in the events and was the Russian correspondent for the New York
Journal
at the time, cabled his publisher, "The Russian Revolution has begun."

In the following days, with the spread of strikes and a firestorm of condemnation directed at Nicholas for failing to sit down with Gapon
and thus avoid disaster, it looked as if the tsar would have to honor some of the demands. Yet he maintained his course, albeit sadly. As he revealed to Mirsky, who resigned shortly after Bloody Sunday, "I adhere to autocracy not for my own pleasure. I act in this spirit only because I am convinced that this is necessary for Russia, but if it were for myself I would get rid of it all happily."

Nicholas replaced his interior minister with the moderate Aleksander Bulygin but appointed Dmitry Trepov as his deputy, a hard-liner characterized by one noble as "a sergeant major by training and a pogrommaker by conviction." Nicholas vacillated in a similar manner when he delivered two edicts on February 18,1904. The first castigated those challenging his autocracy, calling them arrogant traitors, and beckoned his people to be true to their faith in God and rally around the throne. The second ordered his council of ministers to "consider the ideas and suggestions presented to us by private persons and institutions concerning improvements in the state organization." Noting the contradictions between these two edicts, Nicholas's ministers convinced him to issue a third the same day, this one announcing a commission to look into the creation of a consultative state assembly to help draft legislation. In essence, Nicholas was stalling, hoping that the discontent would run out of steam.

Over the next three months, reform petitions poured into St. Petersburg from army regiments, professional unions, factories, towns, and village assemblies. Liberal and
zemstvos
leaders were divided on how far to push the tsar. Some wanted to stop at the creation of the consultative assembly; others fought for nothing short of democracy. Both groups, however, gained in number and organizational strength. Meanwhile, socialist parties capitalized on Bloody Sunday and the call for a constituent assembly that had led to the march on the Winter Palace—neither of which they had much to do with in the first place. Although they argued about whether to push for an armed uprising, they did make significant strides in spreading propaganda and organizing workers. Sensing the tsar's weakness, border provinces such as Poland, Latvia, and Finland also launched direct challenges against their despised Russian ruler.

With the annihilation of Rozhestvensky's fleet at Tsushima in May, the forces of opposition gathered even more momentum. From every quarter, they lashed out at the current regime. "The war has been lost
irretrievably," Lenin declared in the socialist journal
Proletary.
"The collapse of the entire political system of tsarism grows clearer both to Europe and to the whole Russian people. Everything is up in arms against the autocracy." Pavel Milyukov, now leader of the liberal group, the Union of Unions, took his most militant stance yet, appealing directly to the people of Russia: "We talked while there was even a shadow of hope that the authorities would listen. Now this hope has vanished. We say use all means to eliminate immediately the plundering gang that has seized power. In its place put a constituent assembly elected by the people."

Russian newspapers, from left to right, agreed the war must end and Nicholas needed to turn his attention to substantive changes at home. The liberal
Russkiye Vedomosti
quoted the Carthaginian general Hannibal after his great defeat: "Peace at all costs, even if the conditions are very severe." The popular
Slovo
announced, "For 200 years we have walked along bypaths with our eyes covered, and now we stand on the edge of an abyss. We ourselves see whither we are being led, and we have the right to say, enough." The editor of
Novoye Vremya
recommended the convocation of a national assembly: "There is no time to waste. The intelligence and sentiment of the whole of Russia are required to stem the rapidly rising waves."

Internationally, the verdict was the same. The Russian ambassador to Paris cabled Nicholas, "I don't even have the strength to describe the damaging impression that our fleet's destruction produced here." Kaiser Wilhelm, who had helped spur Nicholas to war with Japan in his letters and telegrams, now advocated peace, writing his cousin that the Tsushima defeat "ends the chances for a decided turn of the scales in your favor." On May 26, U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt, fearing the consequences of revolution in Russia, sent a note to St. Petersburg and Tokyo, offering his assistance in negotiating peace: "The time has come when in the interest of all mankind we must endeavor to see if it is not possible to bring to an end the terrible and lamentable conflict now being waged."

The day before Roosevelt's letter arrived, Nicholas convened a war council to decide if Russia should pursue peace talks with Japan, if for no other reason than to see what the enemy's demands would be. His ministers and generals argued on both sides, deciding nothing. Then on June 6, Prince Sergei Trubetskoy, representing the
zemstvos
assembly, came to Peterhof to present Nicholas with a statement. It was the first time the tsar had met with his opposition. Trubetskoy, a stately figure from one of Russia's oldest and most prominent families, spoke with deep, calm conviction about the disturbing effect of the military defeats and the need for a representative assembly. "It is essential that all your subjects, equally and without distinction, feel that they are citizens of Russia." At his speech's conclusion, tears welled in the eyes of those gathered in the chamber.

Nicholas was similarly moved: "I grieved and still grieve at the disasters this war has inflicted upon Russia, and at those yet to come, and at all our internal disorder. Cast aside your doubts. My will—the will of your tsar—to assemble representatives of the people is unchangeable. Let there be, as in days of old, unity between the tsar and all of Russia and personal communion between the
zemstvos
and myself as the foundation of an order built upon traditional Russian principles. I hope that you will cooperate in this work."

Despite his words that day and the many entreaties of peace, Nicholas was uncommitted to ending the war; nor had he changed his mind about allowing any representative body to have a decisive say in the state's affairs. He retreated to his daily Peterhof routine, fearless of, or at least oblivious to, the chance that his opposition could gather enough strength to remove him from the throne. In their hearts, he was convinced, the people loved him. If some had been misled, then they would be crushed, by all the powers of his state. The U.S. consul in St. Petersburg, Ethebert Watts, agreed that Nicholas could weather the storm surging around him, except in one situation. He cabled Washington, "I personally do not believe any strike or political uprising can succeed so long as the military remains loyal to the Government, but so soon as that falters or turns in favor of the people, then we may look for the downfall of the present dynasty."

On June 14, as Nicholas savored a beautiful day at Peterhof that included kayaking, a horseback ride with his wife, a party for his daughter Maria's sixth birthday, and a soothing dip in the warm waters of the Gulf of Finland, this was an unthinkable possibility.

O
N THE
Potemkin,
the ability of twenty officers to control 763 sailors had always relied on a fragile social construct: the officers expected discipline because that was what they had always known. The sailors were in the habit, reinforced by the threat of punishment, of obeying their commands. But that afternoon, after the guards refused to fire on the unarmed sailors by the railing, after Gilyarovsky grabbed for one of their rifles, and after Nikishkin fired a shot into the sky, this construct collapsed—irrevocably.

Gilyarovsky rushed toward the gun turret and Vakulenchuk. If he killed this leader among the sailors, he might defuse the mutiny—or so he thought. Lieutenant Neupokoyev followed the second officer. As they came around the turret, Vakulenchuk aimed at Gilyarovsky, but his shot went wide, hitting Neupokoyev in the head. His fellow officer fallen behind him, Gilyarovsky raced forward, firing on the run. His first shot hit Vakulenchuk in the chest. The sailor stumbled forward, adrenaline and momentum carrying him. He managed to grab Gilyarovsky's rifle by the muzzle and wrestle it from his hands before being shot again from behind by a petty officer. Spinning around, Vakulenchuk fell to the deck. Blood spilled from his two wounds.

Across the deck, Matyushenko threw his rifle at Golikov, hoping to spear the captain with its bayonet. He missed. Golikov stepped away, in a panic ordering one of his officers to take down the names of anyone participating in the mutiny and telling another to run and signal the
Ismail
to approach the
Potemkin
so they could escape. Sailors quickly overran these two officers, forcing them to jump overboard;
neither order was carried out. With rifles firing wildly about him, Golenko scurried off the deck toward the safety of his cabin.

Meanwhile, Matyushenko retrieved his weapon before chasing after Gilyarovsky. First, though, he had to force his way through the melee of sailors. Some were scrambling for the hatch to retrieve more guns from the armory, but most were simply stunned. On a battleship, routines and rules governed everything—except mutiny. Shocked by the sudden crack of rifles, unsure about what was happening, and confused about whom to follow or what to do, the sailors acted on instinct. They dashed off the quarterdeck; they stood rooted in place like statues; they grabbed, shoved, and screamed at one another to get out of the way of the crossfire that had already killed several of their comrades. Several revolutionaries attempted to organize these sailors as the mutiny began, but the men were too terrified to listen to direction.

Matyushenko finally cleared his way through the crush of sailors and rounded the turret where his friend had stood a second before. He arrived just in time to see Neupokoyev killed and, a few seconds later, the second officer standing over the crumpled heap of Matyushenko's friend Vakulenchuk.

A searing feeling of loss and hatred overwhelmed Matyushenko as he pulled the trigger of his rifle to kill Gilyarovsky. The rifle misfired. Gilyarovsky fired in return, narrowly missing Matyushenko. The second officer then ordered the remaining guards to kill the mutineers. In response, the guards fled. Gilyarovsky aimed at their backs, exposing himself to fire in his desire to kill these sailors for their betrayal. Seizing their chance, Matyushenko and two other sailors leveled their rifles and shot him by the railing. The second officer collapsed onto the deck. By the capstan, Lieutenant Liventsev tried to snatch a rifle from one of the guards and come to Gilyarovsky's aid. He was ripped apart by a hail of bullets.