Yashka · Part III · Chapter 10 (1/2)

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The Revolution at the Front

The first warning of the approaching storm reached us through a soldier from our Company who had returned from leave at Petrograd.

“Oh, heaven!” he said. “If you but knew what is going on behind your backs! Revolution! Everywhere they talk of overthrowing the Tsar. The capital is flaming with revolution.”

These words spread like wildfire among the men. They gathered in knots and discussed the significance of the report. Would it mean peace? Would they get land and freedom? Or would it mean another huge offensive before the end of the war? The arguments, of course, took place in whispers, behind the backs of the officers. The consensus of opinion seemed to be that revolution meant preparation for a general attack against the Germans in order to win a victory before the conclusion of peace.

For several days the air was charged with excitement and expectation. Everybody felt that earthshaking events were taking place and our hearts echoed the distant rumblings of the storm. There was something reticent about the looks and manners of the officers, as if they were keeping important news to themselves.

Finally, the joyful news arrived. The Commander gathered the entire Regiment to read to us the glorious words of the first manifesto, together with the famous Order No. 1. The miracle had happened! Tsarism, which had enslaved us and flourished on the blood and sweat of the toiler, was overthrown. Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood! How sweet were these words to our ears! We were transported. There were tears of joy, embraces, dancing. It all seemed a dream, a wonderful dream. Who could have believed that the hated regime would be destroyed so easily and in our own lifetime?

The Commander read to us the manifesto, which concluded with a fervent appeal to us to hold the line with greater vigilance than ever, now that we were free citizens, and to defend our newly won liberty from the attacks of the Kaiser and his supporters. Would we defend our freedom? A multitude of throats shouted in a chorus, that passed over No Man’s Land and reverberated in the German trenches, “Yes, we will!”

Would we swear allegiance to the Provisional Government, whose desire it was that we should prepare to drive the Germans out of Free Russia before returning home to divide up the land?

“We swear!” thundered thousands of men, raising their right hands, and thoroughly alarming the enemy.

Then came Order No. 1, signed by the Petrograd Soviet of Workmen and Soldiers. Soldiers and officers were now equal, it declared. All the citizens of Free Russia were henceforth equal. There would be no more discipline. The hated officers were enemies of the people and should no longer be obeyed and kept at their posts. The common soldier would now rule the army. Let the rank and file elect their best men and institute committees; let there be Company, Regimental, Corps and Army committees.

We were dazzled by this wealth of fine-sounding phrases. The men went about as if intoxicated. For four days the festival continued unabated, so wild with delight were the men. The Germans could not at first understand the cause of our rejoicings. When they learned it they ceased firing.

There were meetings, meetings and meetings. Day and night the Regiment seemed to be in continuous session, listening to speeches that dwelt almost exclusively on the words of peace and freedom. The men were hungry for beautiful phrases and gloated over them.

All duty was abandoned in the first few days. While the great upheaval had affected me profoundly, and the first day or two I shared completely the ecstasy of the men, I awoke early to a sense of responsibility. I gathered from the manifestos and speeches that what was demanded of us was to hold the line with still more energy than before. Was not this the meaning of the revolution so far as we were concerned? When I put this question to the soldiers they answered in the affirmative, but they had not the strength of will to tear themselves away from the magic circle of speechmaking and visions. Such was their dazed condition, that they seemed to me no longer sane. The front had become a veritable lunatic asylum.

One day, in the first week of the revolution, I ordered a soldier to take up duty at the listening-post. He refused.

“I will take no orders from a baba,” he sneered, “I can do as I please. We have freedom now.”

It was a bitter shock to me. Why, this very same soldier would have gone through fire for me a week before. And now he was sneering at me. It seemed incredible and overwhelming.

“Ha, ha,” he jeered. “You can go yourself.”

Flushed with vexation I seized a rifle and answered:

“Can I? I will show you how a free citizen ought to guard his freedom!”

And I climbed over the top and made my way to the listening-post where I remained on duty for the full two hours.

I talked to the soldiers, appealing to their sense of honour and arguing that the revolution imposed greater responsibilities upon the man in the ranks. They agreed that the defence of the country was the most important task confronting us. But had not the revolution brought them also freedom, with the injunction to take upon themselves the control of the army, and to abolish discipline? The men were full of enthusiasm, but obedience was contrary to their ideas of liberty. Seeing that I could not get my men to perform their duties, I went to the Commander of the Company and asked to be released from the army and sent home.

“I see no good in staying here and doing nothing,” I said. “If this is war, I want to be out of it. I can do nothing with my men.”

“Have you gone out of your mind, Yashka?” said the Commander. “Why, if you, who are a peasant yourself, one of them, beloved by all the rank and file, cannot remain, what can we officers do? It is our duty as soldiers to stay to the last, until the men come to their senses. I am having my own troubles, Yashka,” he confided to me, in a low voice. “I cannot have my way, either. So you see, we are all in the same boat. We have just got to put up with it.”

It was altogether contrary to my inclinations, but I remained. Little by little things improved. The soldiers’ committees began to exercise their functions, but they did not interfere with the purely military department of our life. Those of the officers who had been disliked by the men, or whose records were typical of Tsaristic officials, disappeared with the revolution. Even Colonel Stubendorf, the Commander of the Regiment, had gone, retiring perhaps because of his German name. Our new Commander was Kudriavtzev, a popular officer.

Discipline was gradually reestablished. It was not the old discipline. Its basis was no longer dread of punishment. It was a discipline founded on the high sense of responsibility that was soon instilled into the grey ranks of our army. True, there was no fighting between us and the enemy. There were even the beginnings of that fatal fraternization plague which was later to be the ruin of the mighty Russian Army. But the soldiers responded to the appeals from the Provisional Government and the Soviet in the early weeks of the spring of 1917. They were ready to carry out unflinchingly any order from Petrograd.

Those were still the days of immense possibilities. The men worshipped the distant figures in the rear who had brought them the boon of liberty and equality. We knew almost nothing of the various parties and factions. Peace was the sole thought of the men. They were told that peace could not come without defeating or overthrowing the Kaiser. Therefore, we all expected the word for a general advance. Had that word been given at that time nothing in the world could have withstood our pressure. Nothing. The revolution had given birth to elemental forces in our hearts that defied and ever will defy description.

Then there began a procession of speechmakers. There were delegates from the army, there were members of the Duma, there were emissaries of the Petrograd Soviet. Almost every day there was a meeting, and almost every other day there were elections. We sent delegates to Corps Headquarters and delegates to Army Headquarters, delegates to a congress in Petrograd and delegates to consult with the Government. The speakers were almost all eloquent. They painted beautiful pictures of Russia’s future, of universal brotherhood, of happiness and prosperity. The soldiers’ eyes would light up with the glow of hope. More than once even I was caught by those eloquent and enticing phrases. The rank and file were carried away to an enchanted land by the orators and rewarded them with tremendous applause.

There were speakers of a different kind, too. These solemnly appealed for a realization of the immediate duty which the revolution imposed upon the shoulders of the army. Patriotism was their keynote. They called us to defend our country, to be ready at any moment for an attack to drive out the Germans and win the much-desired victory and peace. The soldiers responded to these calls to duty with equal enthusiasm. They swore that they were ready. Was there any doubt that they were? No. The Russian soldier loved his Mother Country before. He loved her now a hundredfold more.

The first signs of spring arrived. The rivers had opened, the ice fields had thawed. It was muddy, but the earth was fragrant. The winds were laden with intoxicating odours. They were carrying across the vast fields and valleys of Mother Russia tidings of a new era. There was spring in our souls. It seemed that our long-suffering people and country were being restored to a new life and one wanted to live, live, live.

But there, a few hundred feet away, were the Germans. They were not free. Their souls did not commune with God. Their hearts knew not the immense joy of this wonderful spring. They were still slaves, and they would not let us alone in our freedom. They thrust themselves over the fair extent of our country and would not retire. They must be driven out before we could embark upon a life of peace. We were ready to drive them out. We were awaiting the order to leap at their throats and show them what Free Russia could do. But why was the order postponed? Why wait? Why not strike while the iron was hot?

Yet the iron was allowed to cool. There was a flood of talk in the rear; there was absolute inactivity at the front. And as hours grew into days and days into weeks there sprang forth out of this inactivity the first beginnings of fraternization.

“Come over here for a drink of tea!” a voice from our trenches would address itself across No Man’s Land to the Germans. And voices from there would respond:

“Come over here for a drink of vodka!”

For several days they did not go beyond such mutual invitations. Then one morning a soldier from our ranks advanced openly into No Man’s Land, announcing that he wanted to talk things over. He stopped in the centre of the field, where he was met by a German and engaged in an argument. From both sides soldiers flocked to the debaters.

“Why do you continue the war?” asked our men. “We have overthrown the Tsar and we want peace, but your Kaiser insists on war. Get rid of your Kaiser and then both sides will go home.”

“You don’t know the truth,” answered the German. “You are mistaken. Why, our Kaiser offered peace to all the Allies last winter. But your Tsar refused to make peace. And now your Allies are forcing Russia to continue in the war. We are always ready for peace.”

I was with the soldiers in No Man’s Land and saw how the German argument impressed them. Some of the Germans had brought vodka with them, which they gave to our soldiers. While they were returning to the positions, engaged in heated arguments over the story of the Kaiser’s peace offer, Commander Kudriavtzev came out to rebuke them.

“What are you doing? Don’t you know that the Germans are our enemies? They want to entrap you.”

“Kill him!” a voice shouted in the crowd. “We have been deceived long enough! Kill him!”

The Commander got out of the way quickly before the crowd had caught up the shout of the ruffian. This incident, when the revolution was still in its infancy, was an early symptom of the malady to which the Russian army succumbed in months to come. It was still an easily curable malady. But where was the physician with foresight to diagnose the disease at its inception and conquer it while there was time?

We were relieved and sent to the reserve billets. There a mass meeting was organized in honour of a delegate from the Army Committee who came to address us. He was welcomed by Krylov, one of our most enlightened soldiers, who spoke well and to the point.

“So long as the Germans keep their Kaiser and obey him we will not have peace,” he declared. “The Kaiser wants to rob Russia of many provinces and to enslave their populations. The German soldiers do his will just as you did the will of the Tsar. Isn’t that the truth?”

“The truth! The truth, indeed! Right!” the multitude roared.

“Now,” resumed Krylov, “the Kaiser liked the Tsar and was related to him. But the Kaiser does not and cannot love Free Russia. He is afraid that the German people will take lesson from us and start a revolution in their country. He is, therefore, seeking to destroy our freedom because he wants to keep his throne. Is this plain?”

“Yes! Yes! Good! It’s the truth!” shouted thousands of throats, cheering wildly for Krylov.

“Therefore,” continued the speaker, “it is our duty to defend our country and our precious liberty from the Kaiser. If we don’t destroy him, he will destroy us. If we defeat him, there will be a revolution in his country and the German people will get rid of him. Then our freedom will be secure. Then we shall go home and take possession of all the available land. But we can’t return home with an enemy at our back. Can we?”

“No! No! No! Certainly not!” thundered the swaying mass of soldiers.

“And we can’t make peace with a ruler, who hates us at heart and who was the secret accomplice of the Tsar. Isn’t this true?”

“True! True! True! Hurrah for Krylov!” bawled the vast gathering, applauding vigorously.

Then the delegate from the Army Committee mounted the speaker’s stock. The soldiers were in high spirits, thirsting for every word of enlightenment.

“Comrades!” the delegate began. “For three years we have bled, suffered from hunger and cold, confined in the muddy and vermin-infested trenches. Myriads of our brethren have been slaughtered, maimed for life, taken into captivity. Whose war was it? The Tsar’s. He made us fight and perish while he and his associates revelled in wealth and luxury. Now the Tsar is no more. Why, then, comrades, should we continue his war? Do you want to lay down your lives again by thousands?”

“No! No! No! We have had enough of war!” thousands of voices rang out.

“Well,” continued the delegate, “I agree with you. We have had enough of war, indeed. You are told that our enemy is in front of us. But what about our enemies in the rear? What about the officers who are now leaving the front and fleeing to safety? What about the landowners who are holding fast to the large estates bestowed on them by former Tsars? What about the bourgeoisie who have sucked our blood for generations and grown rich through our sweat and toil? Where are they all now? What do they want us to do? They want you to fight the enemy here so that they, the enemies of the people, can pillage and loot in the rear! So that when you come home, if you live to come home, you will find all the land and the wealth of the country in their hands!”

“It is the truth! The truth! He’s right!” interrupted the vast crowd.