her eyes. “The workers and soldiers have made the revolution-why do we need the confidence of anyone else?”
This question had bothered Grigori, too, but the answer had convinced him. “We need businessmen to reopen factories, wholesalers to recommence supplying the city, shopkeepers to open their doors again.”
“And what about the tsar?”
“The Duma is demanding his abdication. They have sent two delegates to Pskov to tell him so.”
Katerina was wide-eyed. “Abdication? The tsar? But that would be the end.”
“Yes.”
“Is it possible?”
“I don’t know,” said Grigori. “We’ll find out tomorrow.”
In the Catherine Hall of the Tauride Palace on Friday, the debate was desultory. Two or three thousand men and a few women packed the room, and the air was full of tobacco smoke and the smell of unwashed soldiers. They were waiting to hear what the tsar would do.
The debate was frequently interrupted for announcements. Often they were less than urgent-a soldier would stand up to say that his battalion had formed a committee and arrested the colonel. Sometimes they were not even announcements, but speeches calling for the defense of the revolution.
But Grigori knew something was different when a gray-haired sergeant jumped onto the platform, pink-faced and breathless, with a sheet of paper in his hand, and called for silence.
Slowly and loudly he said: “The tsar has signed a document… ”
The cheering began after those few words.
The sergeant raised his voice: “… abdicating the crown… ”
The cheer rose to a roar. Grigori was electrified. Had it really happened? Had the dream come true?
The sergeant held up his hand for quiet. He had not yet finished.
“… and because of the poor health of his twelve-year-old son, Alexei, he has named as his successor the grand duke Mikhail, the tsar’s younger brother.”
The cheers turned to howls of protest. “No!” Grigori shouted, and his voice was lost among thousands.
When after several minutes they began to quieten, a greater roar was heard from outside. The crowd in the courtyard must have heard the same news, and were receiving it with the same indignation.
Grigori said to Konstantin: “The provisional government must not accept this.”
“Agreed,” said Konstantin. “Let’s go and tell them so.”
They left the soviet and crossed the palace. The ministers of the newly formed government were meeting in the room where the old temporary committee had met-indeed, they were to a worrying degree the same men. They were already discussing the tsar’s statement.
Pavel Miliukov was on his feet. The monocled moderate was arguing that the monarchy had to be preserved as a symbol of legitimacy. “Horseshit,” Grigori muttered. The monarchy symbolized incompetence, cruelty, and defeat, but not legitimacy. Fortunately, others felt the same way. Kerensky, who was now minister of justice, proposed that Grand Duke Mikhail should be told to refuse the crown, and to Grigori’s relief the majority agreed.
Kerensky and Prince Lvov were mandated to go to see Mikhail immediately. Miliukov glared through his monocle and said: “And I should go with them, to represent the minority view!”
Grigori assumed this foolish suggestion would be trodden upon, but the other ministers weakly assented. At that point Grigori stood up. Without forethought he said: “And I shall accompany the ministers as an observer from the Petrograd soviet.”
“Very well, very well,” said Kerensky wearily.
They left the palace by a side door and got into two waiting Renault limousines. The former president of the Duma, the hugely fat Mikhail Rodzianko, also came. Grigori could not quite believe this was happening to him. He was part of a delegation going to order a crown prince to refuse to become tsar. Less than a week ago he had meekly got down from a table because Lieutenant Kirillov had ordered him to. The world was changing so fast it was hard to keep up.
Grigori had never been inside the home of a wealthy aristocrat, and it was like entering a dream world. The large house was stuffed with possessions. Everywhere he looked there were gorgeous vases, elaborate clocks, silver candelabra, and jeweled ornaments. If he had grabbed a golden bowl and run out of the front door, he could have sold it for enough money to buy himself a house-except that right now no one was buying golden bowls, they just wanted bread.
Prince Georgy Lvov, a silver-haired man with a huge bushy beard, clearly was not impressed by the decor, nor intimidated by the solemnity of his errand, but everyone else seemed nervous. They waited in the drawing room, frowned upon by ancestral portraits, shuffling their feet on the thick rugs.
At last Grand Duke Mikhail appeared. He was a prematurely balding man of thirty-eight with a little mustache. To Grigori’s surprise he appeared to be more nervous than the delegation. He seemed shy and bewildered, despite a haughty tilt to his head. He eventually summoned enough courage to say: “What do you have to tell me?”
Lvov replied: “We have come to ask you not to accept the crown.”
“Oh, dear,” said Mikhail, and seemed not to know what to do next.
Kerensky retained his presence of mind. He spoke clearly and firmly. “The people of Petrograd have reacted with outrage to the decision of His Majesty the tsar,” he said. “Already a huge contingent of soldiers is marching on the Tauride Palace. There will be a violent uprising followed by a civil war unless we announce immediately that you have refused to take over as tsar.”
“Oh, my goodness,” said Mikhail mildly.
The grand duke was not very bright, Grigori realized. Why am I surprised? he thought. If these people were intelligent they would not be on the point of losing the throne of Russia.
The monocled Miliukov said: “Your Royal Highness, I represent the minority view in the provisional government. In our opinion, the monarchy is the only symbol of authority accepted by the people.”
Mikhail looked even more bewildered. The last thing he needed was a choice, Grigori thought; that only made matters worse. The grand duke said: “Would you mind if I had a word alone with Rodzianko? No, don’t all leave-we will just retire to a side room.”
When the dithering tsar-designate and the fat president had left, the others talked in low voices. No one spoke to Grigori. He was the only working-class man in the room, and he sensed they were a bit frightened of him, suspecting-rightly-that the pockets of his sergeant’s uniform were stuffed with guns and ammunition.
Rodzianko reappeared. “He asked me whether we could guarantee his personal safety if he became tsar,” he said. Grigori was disgusted but not surprised that the grand duke was concerned about himself rather than his country. “I told him we could not,” Rodzianko finished.
Kerensky said: “And…?”
“He will rejoin us in a moment.”
There was a pause that seemed endless, then Mikhail came back. They all fell silent. For a long moment, no one said anything.
At last Mikhail said: “I have decided to decline the crown.”
Grigori’s heart seemed to stop. Eight days, he thought. Eight days ago the women of Vyborg marched across the Liteiny Bridge. Today the rule of the Romanovs has ended.
He recalled the words of his mother on the day she died: “I will not rest until Russia is a republic.” Rest now, Mother, he thought.
Kerensky was shaking the grand duke’s hand and saying something pompous, but Grigori was not listening.
We have done it, he thought. We made a revolution.
We have deposed the tsar.
In Berlin, Otto von Ulrich opened a magnum of the 1892 Perrier-Jouet champagne.
