1917. Key to the “Russian” Revolution. Николай Стариков
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Ambassadors Buchanan and Paleologue were inseparable. When they asked me when the war was likely to end, I replied that from my perspective the state of the army had drastically improved and that if nothing happened, we should expect a fast and favorable outcome of the campaign. They didn't answer to that, but exchanged looks that left a bad taste in my mouth."[48]
The "allies" were not just aware of the brewing plot – they orchestrated and coordinated it. To direct the events according to their need, they used the secret agents of the western intelligence services. As if by magic, strikes, meetings, and demonstrations, which no one had organized, started again, and only after that the blinded elite captained the destructive forces. Most of the people who had their hands in destroying Russia sincerely wanted to do their homeland good and were used by the "allies" without seeing their cards. Like Matryoshka dolls stacked one into another, every plotter knew his own accurately proportioned piece of truth regarding the original idea. In fact, the true Master of puppets always keeps a low profile and sends his puppets to act in the spotlight. Such secret agents had back seats for the time being, but after the overthrow they made their leap for power to destroy the very foundation of the Russian state as soon as possible and to throw it into chaos. To destroy Russia, a puppet government had to be placed at the steering wheel, a government obeying the will of somebody else. Later, when all those puppets were in the Provisional Government, they acted weirdly and at first thought incomprehensibly, they literally dug their own graves and drew the Bolshevist revolution nearer. Further acts of the Februarists can't be reasonably explained unless we suppose they obeyed the orders of their masters and worked off the money spent to compile their "perfect biographies."
However, we will come back to the "odd" and "strange" actions of the Provisional Government later. Now let's recall how the February Revolution progressed…
Chapter 2
Driving Forces of the February Revolution: Lies and Delusions
The history will curse the proletarians but it will also curse us, the ones who evoked the storm.
The British and French funds assisted Guchkovs and Milyukovs in overthrowing Nicholas II so that they could be of help in conquering Germany.
February 1917 was the point when interests of the British and the local plotters came together. (Usually all the dates of the February Revolution appear in history books according to the Julian Calendar; let us also follow this rule. However, according to the Gregorian Calendar it would be the March Revolution.)
It was time for immediate action; any delay might result in loosing grip of the situation. Therefore, the tops of the western intelligence agencies gave the green light to their agents. Luckily, right before the coup they got a legal way to be in the center of future events and adjust their plans. Petrograd hosted the regular Inter-Allied Conference. Its official goal was coordination of the tactics of the "allies" in future offensive actions. The non-official one was to complete the last-minute preparations for the coup. The coincidence was certainly of purely accidental nature: earlier all coordination meetings had taken place solely in France. However, on the eve of elimination of the Russian monarchy, financed and encouraged by the allied secret services, the Supreme War Council was for the first time moved to the Russian capital. While the generals and diplomats talked war, plotters checked the coup alert, gave last-minute instructions and money Delegates arrived in the Russian capital on February 3 (16), 1917, and left on February 6 (20). In two and a half weeks, on February 23 (March 8), 1917, Petrograd saw the first riots.
Thoroughly preparing the overthrow of the Russian monarch, the "allies" lavished Nicholas with praises and simply smothered with embraces. Their hypocrisy had no limits. By 1916, Tsar Nicholas II had been honored with the highest awards of France, Britain, Belgium, and Serbia. He was even honored with the rank of Field Marshal of Great Britain, though even the British king was not in this rank.
This book is not particularly about the revolution processes in Russia, so we will only slightly address the chronicles of the February and the October of 1917. Revolutionaries and their actions are mostly interesting to us with regard to their relations with the "allies" from the Triple Entente. I should mention right away, there is no direct evidence that the British and the French financed the February Revolution, just as there is no direct evidence of the plot against the Russian Tsar. There is a great number of hints, references in various books, observations, and logical conclusions. In particular, the logic of events, deeds, and actions confirm that they were the ones who helped to organize and fund the destruction of the Russian state. If we analyze the conduct of the Triple Entente, the conclusion will be forced upon us. The sequence of the world massacre and its outcome (where Russia turned to be among the defeated, though it had been fighting on the winners' side for three years) give direct hints to that. Another evidence that the "allies" had a hand in destroying the Russian monarchy are the dates of the revolution: well-chosen as much as unexpected…
"Behind-the-scenes revolution preparation remained behind the scenes," Milyukov wrote in his memoirs. And then the workers with no one behind them, simply the workers on their own took into the streets of the Russian capital. In the end, nobody was prepared for such a scenario: neither the plotters from the Duma conceiving the palace coup, nor the generals who assisted them. Social Revolutionaries (SRs) and Bolsheviks, enjoying cozy Swiss coffee shops and beer houses, had no clue about the revolution. Vladimir Lenin didn't count on it spending his time in Zurich, Lev Trotsky could not believe the lines in New-York newspapers, Joseph Stalin had no idea his exile would end in a few days. Russian Emperor calmly boarded his train to the General Headquarters in Mogilev, and his spouse saw him off with an easy mind.
Everything was supposed to look as if the situation was unfolding on its own, and the waves of people's indignation caused the overthrow of the odious monarchy. Therefore, there had to be not a regular riot but some massive turmoil that could pass for a people's revolution. The displeased part of the Russian elite was ready to act but was short of a cause. Trotsky gave an excellent description of their mood in his memoirs, "The stage for the last act had long been prepared but, as usual, nobody expected that the time for action had already come."
The cause for people's discontent was chosen perfectly – bread. Provisions in Russia were in abundance – in 1916 the surplus of bread minus internal consumption and supplies from allies made up around 197 mln poods (Translator's note: Russian pood is a unit of mass equal to about 16 kg).[49] Yet, in February it was the first time when interruptions in supply began. The scenario of 1905 was repeating: demonstrations, troops, and victims. The only difference was that in 1917 the capital stationed not the selective guards' regiments but reserve units. At the same time, a new draft of recruits born in 1898 had been completed. The barracks were filled with 18 and 19-year-olds, who had been drafted in earlier to replenish the heavy casualties at the front. In case of clashes with "people's" demonstrations, it could be easily predicted that these troops would not be effective in subduing the coup.
The first alarm of the Russian tragedy rang on February 18: just the same as on the eve of the Bloody Sunday the strike outburst at the Putilovksy Factory The enterprise was not an ordinary one, it was the defensive plant that manufactured products on which life and death of our soldiers depended. In the democratic France, colonial forces would seal off the defensive plant on a strike at wartime, while all the troublemakers would be arrested, tried and shot. In the "Prison of Nations," as the imperial Russia is presented to us, not a single police officer moved towards the plant.
The authorities did so many weird things that February, and all of it started with this forbearance for the strikers. The coup was not subdued in the inception. Even nature seemed to act against Russia. It was extremely cold in Central Russia, as cold as minus 43°C. Over 1,200 steam trains were out of order, which resulted in provision supplies' interruptions. Problems with food started in the capital on February 18, so the authorities had to announce introduction of bread coupons in the city. Apart from that, groundless rumors about upcoming hunger were insistently spread in Petrograd. Obviously, citizens started purchasing more bread, which resulted in even bigger food shortage. There was no brown bread in the
Ib. P. 238.
Kitanina T. War, Bread, Revolution (Provisions Issues in Russia. 1914 – October 1917). L.: Nauka, 1985