The Russian Revolution полностью

For all his good intentions, therefore, Trepov had little success. On November 19, when the Duma reconvened, he delivered to it a programmatic speech. The left, led by Kerensky and Chkheidze, received him with abusive screams that went on for forty minutes during which he could not utter a word.* When order was finally restored, he gave a conciliatory address very reminiscent, in tone and content, of Stolypin’s Duma speeches. He promised to put an end to illegality. He asked for help:

Let us forget our quarrels, let us postpone our feuds.… In the name of the government, I declare directly and openly that it wishes to commit its energies to constructive, pragmatic work in cooperation with the legislature.⁹⁶

The duty of patriots was not to destroy the government but to strengthen it. Trepov used the occasion to reveal that the Allies had promised Russia Constantinople and the Straits.

It was to no avail. Heckled and disrupted, Trepov faced an audience that spurned conciliation: now that Stürmer had been sacrificed, it wanted Protopopov’s head. When he had finished, Vladimir Purishkevich asked for the floor. Cheered on by the socialists, this extreme monarchist demanded that the government cease “selling Russia out to the Germans” and rid itself of Rasputin and “Rasputinism.”

The sessions that followed gave no sign that passions were cooling. The radical deputies now shed such few inhibitions as had constrained them in the past and openly incited the country to rebellion. The Mensheviks and the other socialists walked out of parliament on December 2, after the Progressive Bloc had unanimously supported the government’s rejection of German proposals for a separate peace. Two weeks later, Kerensky exhorted the population to disobey the government.⁹⁷

Nor did Trepov obtain countervailing support from the Court. Alexandra intrigued against him out of fear of losing influence. In letters to Nicholas she branded him a liar who deserved to be hanged.⁹⁸ Nicholas for once ignored his wife’s advice and agreed with Trepov that Protopopov had to go. On November 11, he informed Alexandra that Protopopov was unwell and would be replaced: he asked her not to involve Rasputin in this matter because the responsibility for the decision was entirely his. Alarmed, Alexandra requested Nicholas by telegram not to act until they had had a chance to talk, and the next day departed with the children for Mogilev. Face to face, she promptly turned her husband around. When Trepov arrived in Mogilev to have the Tsar approve Protopopov’s successor, Nicholas curtly informed him that Protopopov would stay, after all. Not even Trepov’s threat of resignation would make him relent. A. I. Spiridovich cites this incident as the most glaring example of Rasputin’s influence.⁹⁹

As 1916 drew to a close, all the political parties and groupings united in opposition to the monarchy. They agreed on little else. The extreme left would be satisfied with nothing short of a radical transformation of Russia’s political, social, and economic system. Liberals and liberal-conservatives would have been content with parliamentary democracy. Both, for all their differences, thought in terms of institutions. The extreme right, which by now had also joined the opposition, by contrast, dwelled on personalities. In its view, Russia’s crisis was the fault, not of the system, but of the individuals in charge, notably the “German” Empress and Rasputin. Once these two were out of the way, all would be well. It was not possible to get at the Empress directly, since this would have required a palace coup, but some monarchists believed they could attain the same end by isolating her from Rasputin. Alexandra’s well-known emotional attachment to the starets suggested that separation from him would induce in her a psychic breakdown. Freed from his wife’s baneful influence, Nicholas would come to his senses and yield power to the Duma. Should he fail to do so, he could be replaced with a regent chosen from among the grand dukes, most likely Nikolai Nikolaevich. Such talk was common in November and December of 1916 in the capital’s highest social circles: at the Yacht Club, frequented by the grand dukes, in the halls of the Duma and the State Council among monarchist deputies, in aristocratic salons, even at Army Headquarters in Mogilev. It was a repetition of February 1801 when the plot against Paul I, which ended in his murder, was the talk of St. Petersburg society.