And then Nicolai smiled. How strange, he thought. Here he was, a widower, aged sixty-two. He had lost his estate. His country was locked in a terrible war, with no end in sight. His monarch had just fallen. Yet today he felt as if his whole life was beginning again.
He was sorry for the Tsar, personally. He didn’t think he was a monster – just an inadequate man in an impossible position. But although he had worked hard for years to reach some sort of liberal compromise with the stubborn ruler, now Nicholas was gone, he realized he was relieved. Democracy could begin at last.
What was it his son had said the other day? He had argued so passionately.
‘You don’t see what you’re doing, Father,’ he had warned. ‘The whole empire has been set up to revolve around the Tsar. Everything, everyone, is attached to him. It’s like some huge machine that turns around a single lynchpin. Take that pin out and the whole apparatus will just fly apart.’
Would Russia fly apart? Nicolai didn’t see why. ‘The Duma is there,’ he had said. ‘There are sensible men in it.’
‘Ah, you liberals,’ Alexander had replied with sad affection. ‘You always think people are going to be reasonable.’
The Duma would do very well, in Nicolai’s view. At least for the time being. It was, after all, the nearest thing to a democratic body that Russia possessed. Already it had chosen a group to act as a Provisional Government, and almost all the parties had agreed to support it. Yesterday, he had heard, some of the workers’ leaders and Mensheviks in St Petersburg had formed some sort of workers’ council – a ‘soviet’, they called it. He knew one or two of the leaders, not bad fellows. They could certainly help to restore some order in the factories.
And then there would be progress. The programme of the Provisional Government was already clear – prosecute the war. Everyone except the Bolsheviks agreed to that – and the Bolsheviks didn’t count for much these days. Then move quickly to hold elections to a new Constituent Assembly which would replace the Duma. A full democratic body. One man, one vote. Everyone, left and right, was agreed about that too.
‘I can feel it,’ he murmured, as he gazed into the street. ‘A warm ray of hope.’
And then he saw Alexander.
The fellow was hurrying along, certainly. He had a piece of paper in his hand and he looked excited. This must be it, then: the formal abdication. With a happy smile, Nicolai prepared to greet him.
So why was the boy frowning? Had the Tsar said something foolish, even now?
‘The abdication came through?’ he enquired.
‘No. The Tsar still can’t bring himself to sign it. But he will. He hasn’t any choice. The army chiefs are telling him to go as well.’
‘Then what’s this?’ Nicolai pointed to the paper.
Alexander handed it to him without a word. And Nicolai read.
It was not long. It was addressed to the Petrograd military garrison, and it contained seven terse clauses.
It told every company to elect committees who would remove control of all arms and equipment from the officers. Officers were no longer to be addressed by honorary titles or saluted off duty. The committees were also to elect representatives to the Petrograd Soviet, which announced that it, and not the Provisional Government, was now the final authority on all military matters.
It was signed by the Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, dated the previous day. And it was headed, simply and without further explanation: Order No. 1.
Nicolai stared at it in disbelief. Then he exploded with laughter.
‘This is absurd! The Petrograd Soviet is just an informal workers’ body. It’s not elected by anyone and has no authority. Nobody’s going to take any notice of it.’
‘But they already are. I’ve been to some of the barracks. They’re all going to comply. Some of them just laughed at me because I was wearing an officer’s uniform.’
‘But the regular troops, our soldiers at the front…’
‘The order’s already on its way to them. I tell you, most of the troops will follow it.’
Nicolai was silent, thunderstruck.
‘Then who’s in charge?’ he cried.
Alexander shrugged.
‘God knows.’
1917, July
Boris Romanov grunted with satisfaction as he stepped from the shady verandah into the salon. Only the ticking of the clock in its marble case could be heard.
He enjoyed the house with its green walls, its little white portico and its cool interior. He went up every afternoon and sat on the verandah. Once it had belonged to the Bobrovs; then Vladimir Suvorin. And now, to all intents and purposes, it was his. He smiled grimly at the thought. The revolution – his revolution – had finally come.
The last few months at Russka had been strange. News of the Tsar’s abdication and of the new Provisional Government had only filtered slowly through to the provinces. Boris had not known for sure until ten days afterwards. He had met a peasant travelling from Riazan province who, a month later, still refused to believe it.
And what did these events in Petrograd mean? The Provisional Government had promised a Constituent Assembly. Good. There was complete freedom of speech and assembly now. No harm in that. But above all, the fall of the Tsar must mean one thing.
‘Now,’ he told his family, ‘we shall get the land.’
Everyone knew it. The Provisional Government was discussing how it was to be done. All that spring, soldiers had been deserting from the front and making their way home, so as not to miss out on the distribution. Two had appeared back in the village.
But nothing had happened. The Provisional Government, as it did in all things, moved slowly, legalistically and hesitantly.
It was in late April that he had led the villagers onto the estate. It had been very simple. There was nobody to stop them. When he entered the house, only Arina had been there to protest.
‘What right have you got to do this?’
He had grinned. ‘The people’s right.’ And when she had foolishly tried to bar his way, he had just shoved her aside with a laugh. ‘This is the revolution,’ he had told her.
It was a curious situation – as if the place had entered a sort of limbo. Technically the estate still belonged to Vladimir Suvorin, just as did the factories at Russka. But Vladimir was in Moscow now. Arina continued to live in the house; so did her son Ivan, who for the time being continued his woodwork. Meanwhile, the villagers cut down some of Suvorin’s trees and grazed their cattle on the slope before the house. And who was going to say anything? It was only a question of time before it was all made legal, whatever that might mean.
And as far as Boris Romanov was concerned, this was the revolution.
To others, perhaps, it might involve something more. That very month there had been an attempt to take over the Provisional Government in Petrograd. A madcap plan – an armed rising – by those Bolsheviks. Boris knew about Bolsheviks. They were fellows like that accursed red-head, Popov. They had been growing in numbers lately with their slogan ‘All power to the Soviets’, and their screaming editorials in their paper, Pravda. But their revolt had been smashed. One of their leaders, Trotsky, was in jail. Another, Lenin, had fled abroad. ‘And let’s hope that’s the last of them,’ Boris had said.
There was a new man at the head of the government now, a Socialist called Kerensky. He’d called in General Kornilov to restore order. Perhaps he’d speed up the Constituent Assembly and the legalizing of the land distribution, too.