The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion, and the Fall of Imperial Russia (23 page)

Remarked Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna at one of the nobility’s many parties that winter, “
It seems the empress has the emperor entirely under her thumb.… I can’t tell you how downhearted I feel. Everything seems black.… I badly need sun and rest. The emotions of recent times have worn me out.”

If Maria Pavlovna had bothered to look out her palace window, she would have seen others far more worn out than herself. Thousands of poor working women shivered in the subzero temperatures outside Petrograd’s bakeries. They often stood in line all night for a loaf of bread, just to be told in the morning that there would not be any for sale because there wasn’t any flour. But what else was there? A worker could buy little else because of shortages and exorbitant prices. “
These exhausted mothers,” noted one policeman, “having suffered so much in watching their half-starving and sick children are perhaps closer to revolution than anyone else … and more dangerous.”

Meanwhile, their husbands wandered the snow-packed streets. Bellies grumbling, their expressions dark and angry, they complained about the lack of food, the war, and a government that did not care about its people. More and more, workers began marching behind banners that read “Down with the War.” The city, recalled
Ambassador Paléologue, now struck him as a “lunatic asylum,” filled with a “poisonous atmosphere” and “profound despondency and fear.”

The danger of revolution was growing. Indeed, a police report from this time stamped
TOP SECRET
noted that the food shortages combined with an inflation rate of 300 percent had pushed the country to the edge of rebellion. If something dramatic wasn’t done to avert it immediately, a
“hungry revolt” was bound to happen, followed by “the most savage excesses.”

If Nicholas read this report, he did not respond.

And in the Duma, yet another deputy stood. This time it was Alexander Kerensky, an outspoken champion of the worker. “
To prevent a catastrophe,” he cried, “the tsar himself must be removed, by force if there is no other way.”

Only months earlier, Kerensky’s words would have landed him in jail. A man of the government was advocating the tsar’s overthrow! But in the dark mood now gripping Petrograd, his speech did not seem out of the ordinary. Kerensky was simply saying out loud what so many others were thinking.

On February 10, 1917, the tsar’s old friend and cousin Sandro made a final effort to ward off disaster. Traveling to Tsarskoe Selo, he insisted on speaking with Alexandra. He was shown into her bedroom.

The empress reclined on one side of the big double bed in a white dressing robe. With her lips pressed tightly together, she looked cold and angry. On the other side of the bed sat the tsar, his slippered feet crossed on the satin comforter, smoking silently.

Sandro spoke bluntly, beginning with the people’s grim mood.

But Alexandra interrupted him. “
That’s not true. The nation is still loyal to the tsar.” She turned to Nicholas. “Only the treacherous Duma and St. Petersburg society are [our] enemies.”

Sandro corrected her. “I am your friend and so I point out to you that
all
classes of the population are opposed to
your
policies.… Please, Alix, leave the cares of state to your husband.”

Alexandra’s eyes narrowed.

Nicholas continued to smoke.

And Sandro went on. The only way to end “the nation’s wrath” was to immediately appoint leadership acceptable to the people. That meant removing all of Rasputin’s “suspicion-provoking ministers” and replacing them with men of talent and ability. “Don’t let the nation’s wrath reach the explosion point,” he begged.

Alexandra bristled. “All this talk of yours is ridiculous.”

“Remember, Alix,” snapped Sandro, struggling to keep the anger out of his voice, “I remained silent for thirty months. For thirty months I never said … a word to you about the disgraceful goings on in our government, better to say
your
government. I realize you are willing to perish, and your husband feels the same, but what about us?”

Alexandra did not reply.

“Must we all suffer for your blind stubbornness?” Sandro exploded. “No, you have no right to drag your relatives [down] with you.… You are incredibly selfish!”

“I refuse to continue this dispute,” said Alexandra coldly. “You are exaggerating the dangers. Some day, when you are less excited, you will admit that I knew better.”

Remaining silent, Nicholas lit another cigarette.

Sandro realized there was nothing more to say. “
It’s enough to drive you mad,” he later wrote his brother. “Up here at [Tsarskoe Selo] it’s like water off a duck’s back, all is submission to God. How
else can I explain … such total blindness and deafness? The tsar has ceased to rule Russia.”

Three weeks later, on Thursday, March 8, 1917, the women on breadlines snapped. Shouting
“Daite khleb
—Give us bread!” they broke into the bakeries and cleared out the shelves. Masses of angry factory workers quickly joined the women. Marching toward the center of town, chanting
“Daite khleb! Daite khleb!”
the mob broke windows, halted streetcars, and urged others to join them.

While all this was happening, Nicholas’s train was carrying him back to Stavka. As he chugged eastward, he blithely wrote to his wife: “
I will miss my half-hourly game of cards every evening, but vow to take up dominoes again in my spare time.”

In Petrograd the next day, even bigger crowds flowed into the streets. Again they chanted, “Give us bread.” This time, though, shouts of
“Down with the war!” and “Down with the tsar!” were mixed in. Moving as one, the mob headed for the center of the city. That’s when two squadrons of Cossack patrols moved in to disperse them. But because the Cossacks sided with the workers, they came without whips, the weapon they traditionally used when controlling mobs. Seeing this, the crowd applauded. The Cossacks gallantly bowed in return.
“Don’t worry,” they assured the crowd. “We won’t shoot.”

At Stavka, Nicholas gave little attention to reports streaming in from Petrograd. Instead, he noted that the fresh air was doing him good. “
My brain is resting here,” he wrote to Alexandra, “no ministers, no troubling questions, or demanding thought.”

Back in Petrograd, his ministers faced huge new problems. By Saturday, March 10, most of the city’s workers were on strike,
bringing the capital to a standstill. Electricity and water were shut off. Immense crowds of strikers, housewives, and college students crammed the streets. Unfurling revolutionary red banners, they screamed, “
Down with the war! Down with the German woman!” They hurled rocks and chunks of ice at police.

Frantically, the ministers tried to deal with it all. They wrestled with the food problem, hoping the promise of more bread would disperse the crowd. They telegrammed Nicholas and begged him to return, believing that the sight of the tsar might end the violence. They even offered their resignations, urging Nicholas to replace them with a government more acceptable to the people.

But at Stavka, Nicholas continued to “rest” his brain. After a late breakfast, he listened to an army staff report, then took an afternoon stroll. It wasn’t until early evening that he learned of the situation in Petrograd. But he still did not grasp its seriousness. Believing it was just another strike in a long line of strikes, he refused to return to the capital or accept his ministers’ resignations. As for more bread, feeding revolutionaries was out of the question. There was only one way to suppress the rebellion. He sent a stern telegram to his military chief in Petrograd: “
I command you tomorrow to stop the disorders in the capital, which are unacceptable in the difficult time of war with Germany and Austria.”

The tsar’s order meant he would be unleashing soldiers with rifles and machine guns on his own people! This at a time when he still expected their support in waging a war against Germany and Austria-Hungary. And he did not have the slightest idea he’d just taken such a drastic step. Instead, he believed Alexandra’s description of the events. “
It’s a hooligan movement,” she wrote him, “young boys and girls running about and screaming that they have no bread, only to excite.… But this will all pass and quiet down.”

As the pale wintry sun washed over Petrograd that Sunday morning, March 11, the first demonstrators moved into the streets.
Posters hung overnight by the police met them. The posters forbade them from assembling, by command of the tsar. Strikers, they warned, would be forcefully disbanded.

Demonstrators ignored the warning. Again, they surged through the streets, chanting and waving banners. In response, columns of soldiers closed in on them. An officer ordered the crowd to halt. When it didn’t, he gave the command.
“Fire!”

Machine guns crackled. When they stopped, workers’ blood reddened the snow. Two hundred lay dead, and forty were wounded.

The sight sickened the soldiers, most of whom were just country boys fresh from their villages. Not only did these young men understand the demonstrators’ frustrations, they sympathized with them. And so, as the crowd continued to surge, many troops emptied their rifles into the air. One company even refused to fire. When their enraged commanding officer insisted they “aim for the heart,” they shot him instead. Encouraged by the soldiers’ actions, the crowd grew larger … louder … angrier.

Desperate, Duma president Rodzianko sent Nicholas a frantic telegram: “
The hungry, unemployed throng is starting down the path of elemental and uncontrollable anarchy.… State authority is totally paralyzed.… Your Majesty, save Russia; she is threatened with humiliation and disgrace.… Urgently summon a person in whom the whole country can have faith and entrust him with the formation of a government that all the people trust.… In this terrible hour … there is no other way out and to delay is impossible.”

But when the telegram arrived, Nicholas didn’t even bother to read it. Setting it aside, he said, “
That fat Rodzianko has written all sorts of nonsense to me, to which I shall not even reply.” And he spent the rest of the evening playing dominoes.

Monday, March 12, dawned in eerie silence. Meriel Buchanan, daughter of the British ambassador, looked out her window. Everywhere were “
the same wide streets, the same great palaces, and same gold spires and domes rising out of the pearl-colored mists, and yet … everywhere emptiness, no lines of toiling cars, no crowded scarlet trams, no little sledges.… [Only] the waste of deserted streets and ice-bound river … [and] on the opposite shore the walls of the Fortress and the Imperial flag of Russia that for the last time fluttered against the winter sky.”

Suddenly, there came a loud roar, and a mob of demonstrators appeared. Armed and ready to fight with the tsar’s soldiers, they rushed for one of the bridges. At that moment, a regiment stormed toward them. “
It looked as if there would be a violent collision,” recalled one eyewitness. But instead, the two groups became one. The tsar’s army had
joined
the revolution!

Now events moved quickly. Together, citizens and soldiers seized the arsenal, arming themselves with the guns and ammunition that had been stored for the capital’s protection. Soon, men and women draped in cartridge belts and carrying weapons raced down the street, firing wildly into the air. They flung open jails and set the prisoners free, looted shops and bakeries, torched police stations and other government buildings. When firemen arrived at these scenes, rather than fighting the blazes, they cheered and watched the structures burn.

Distraught, the tsar’s younger brother, Grand Duke Michael, telephoned Stavka. Nicholas had to appoint a government acceptable to the people … 
now!
But the grand duke was not allowed to speak with Nicholas directly. Instead, he was forced to leave a message with one of the generals. “
I see,” said the general after Michael explained the dire situation. “Please wait while I speak with the tsar.” Forty long minutes later, the general called back. “The Emperor
wishes to express his thanks,” he told Michael. “He is leaving for Tsarskoe Selo [where he can confer with his wife] and will decide there.”

Nicholas
still
did not understand.

Government ministers finally gave up. Adjourning themselves, they simply walked away.

Duma president Rodzianko tried one last time. “
Sire, do not delay,” he telegrammed to Stavka. “[This] will mean the end of Russia. Inevitably, the dynasty will fall with it. Tomorrow [will] be too late.”

It was already too late. By midafternoon, the first crowd of workers and soldiers waving red flags and singing revolutionary songs arrived at the Tauride Palace, where the Duma was meeting. It was, wrote one historian, “
a motley, exuberant mob. There were soldiers tall and hot in their rough, wool uniforms; students shouting exultantly; and a few gray-bearded old men just released from prison, their knees trembling, their eyes shining.” They had come looking for a government that would be responsive to the people.

Some deputies wavered. It would be illegal, they claimed, to assume the tsar’s powers without his permission. Shouldn’t they cable and ask for his approval first? Otherwise, any government they formed would be illegitimate.

But others, including Alexander Kerensky, the Duma member who just days earlier had called for the tsar’s removal, realized the ridiculousness of their argument. This was a revolution, and all revolutions are by definition illegal: forcible uprisings against an established government. The people had swept away the tsar’s authority, and the only real power now lay with them. And as the hours passed, the capital was sinking deeper into anarchy. The people needed leadership. Kerensky turned to President Rodzianko. “
Can I say the Duma is with them?” he asked. “That it stands at the head of the government?”