Empress appeared to sit in her window, they bowed to her. The soldiers repeatedly had to intervene and break up clusters of people who gathered in the muddy street whenever the Grand Duchesses came out on a balcony. Merchants openly sent gifts of food, nuns from the local convent brought sugar and cakes, and peasant farmers arrived regularly with butter and eggs.
Removed from the inflammatory atmosphere of Petrograd, Colonel Kobylinsky managed to restore some discipline in his men. The soldiers, watching the once august and unapproachable personages walking a few feet away, were surprised to find them a simple, united family. Although the men of the 2nd Regiment remained hostile, the soldiers of the 1st and 4th Regiments warmed, especially to the children. The Grand Duchesses talked often to these men, asking them about their villages and families. Marie quickly learned the names of all the wives and children. To many of the men, Alexis remained “the Heir,” an object of special respect and affection. When one favorite section of the 4th Regiment was on duty, Alexis and his father sometimes slipped quietly into the guardhouse to play games with these men.
Kobylinsky remained in sole authority until late in September, when two civilian commissars arrived to take charge of the captives, although Kobylinsky was ordered to keep his command of the military guard. The two commissars, Vasily Pankratov and his deputy, Alexander Nikolsky, both were Social Revolutionaries who had spent years in exile in Siberia. Although they were friends, Pankratov and Nikolsky were opposite in character. Pankratov, a small, earnest man with bushy hair and thick glasses, presented himself formally upon arrival to the Tsar.
“Not wishing to infringe the rules of politeness,” he wrote, “I requested the valet of the former Tsar to report my arrival and to state that I wished to see his master.…
“ ‘Good morning,’ said Nicholas Alexandrovich, stretching out his hand. ‘Did you have a good journey?’
“ ‘Thank you, yes,’ I replied, grasping his hand.
“ ‘How is Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky?’ asked the former Tsar.…”
Pankratov asked whether Nicholas was in need of anything.
“ ‘Could you allow me to saw wood?… I like that kind of work.’
“ ‘Perhaps you would like to have a carpenter’s shop? It is more interesting work.’
“ ‘No, just see that they bring some logs into the yard and give me a saw,’ replied Nicholas Alexandrovich.
“ ‘Tomorrow it shall be done.’
“ ‘May I correspond with my relatives?’
“ ‘Certainly. Have you enough books?’
“ ‘Plenty, but why do we not receive our foreign journals; is this forbidden?’
“ ‘Probably it is the fault of the post. I shall make enquiries.’ ”
Pankratov pitied the Tsar and was genuinely fond of the children. Alexis’s illness disturbed him, and he sometimes sat, just as Rasputin had done, and spun long stories of his years in Siberia. Once, entering the guardhouse, he was astonished to discover Nicholas and his children sitting and talking to the guards. The Tsar graciously asked Pankratov to sit and join them at the table, but Pankratov, disconcerted by this scene, excused himself and fled.
Nikolsky, tall, with a broad face and thick, uncombed hair, felt differently about the captive family. Rough and unmannered, he bitterly blamed the Tsar personally for his imprisonment and tried in petty ways to even the score. He burst into rooms without knocking and spoke to the prisoners without removing his cap. He liked to offer his hand in apparent innocence and then, seizing the hand proffered in return, squeeze with his bony fingers until his victim winced with pain. As soon as he arrived, Nikolsky announced that the entire Imperial party would have to be photographed for identification. Kobylinsky objected, saying the sentries already knew everyone by sight. Nikolsky flew into a rage, shouting, “We were once ordered by the police to have our pictures taken, full face and profile, and so now their pictures shall be taken.” As the pictures were being taken, Alexis peeped to watch, which brought another bellow from the angry Nikolsky. The Tsarevich, who had never been yelled at before, retreated in astonishment. Later, a case of wine for the family arrived from Petrograd. Its appearance in Tobolsk fired a passionate debate among the soldiers on the issue of pampering prisoners. The soldier who accompanied the case from Petrograd declared that it had been packed not only with Kerensky’s permission but in Kerensky’s presence. Dr. Derevenko pleaded that if the alcohol was not to be given to the Imperial family, he be allowed to take it for use in the city hospital. The arguments were useless; Nikolsky sternly saw his duty. Without being opened, the bottles were dropped into the river.
As old, doctinaire Social Revolutionaries, both Pankratov and Nikolsky believed it their duty to assist the political education of the soldiers. Unfortunately, said Kobylinsky, who watched these proceedings with apprehension, “the result of these lectures was that the soldiers were converted [not to Social Revolutionary principles] but to Bolshevism.” There were more complaints about pay and food.
Nevertheless, the family was not markedly affected. They had endured worse treatment at Tsarskoe Selo, and they remained unafraid and hopeful for the future. All of the survivors remarked that, despite the narrow confinement, the peaceful autumn months in Tobolsk were not wholly unpleasant.
In October, the long Siberian winter descended from the Arctic upon Tobolsk. At noon, the sun still shone brightly, but by mid-afternoon the light had faded, and in the gathering darkness, crisp, heavy frosts formed on the ground. As the days grew shorter, Nicholas’s greatest privation was lack of news. Despite Pankratov’s assurances, the mail did not arrive regularly, and he depended for information on the blend of rumor and fact which drifted into Tobolsk and appeared in the local newspapers. It was through this medium that he morosely followed the rapid crumbling of Kerensky and the Provisional Government.
Ironically, Kerensky himself had assisted in making this tragedy inevitable. Despite the government’s narrow triumph over the July Uprising, General Kornilov, now Commander-in-Chief of the Army, concluded that the government was too weak to resist the growing power of the Bolsheviks. Accordingly, at the end of August, Kornilov ordered a cavalry corps to occupy Petrograd and disperse the Soviet. He proposed to replace the Provisional Government with a military dictatorship, keeping Kerensky in the Cabinet but assuming the dominant role himself. Kerensky, as strongly socialist as he was anti-Bolshevik, resisted Kornilov’s Rightist coup by what seemed to him the only means available: he appealed to the Soviet for help. The Bolsheviks responded enthusiastically and began forming the workers into Red Guard battalions. Meanwhile, as part of the arrangement, Kerensky released Trotsky and the other Bolshevik leaders.
As it happened, Kornilov’s threat evaporated quickly; his cavalrymen immediately began to fraternize with the militia sent to oppose them. Kerensky then asked the Red Guards to return the weapons they had been issued, and they refused. In September, the Bolsheviks gained a majority within the Petrograd Soviet. From Finland, Lenin urged an immediate lunge for supreme power: “History will not forgive us if we do not take power now … to delay is a crime.” On October 23, Lenin, in disguise, slipped back into Petrograd to attend a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee, which voted 10 to 2 that “insurrection is inevitable and the time fully ripe.”
On November 6, the Bolsheviks struck. That day, the cruiser
This skirmish was the Bolshevik November Revolution, later magnified in Communist mythology into an epic of struggle and heroism. In fact, life in the capital was largely undisturbed. Restaurants, stores and cinemas on the Nevsky Prospect remained open. Streetcars moved as usual through most of the city, and the ballet performed at the Maryinsky Theatre. On the afternoon of the 7th, Sir George Buchanan walked in the vicinity of the Winter Palace and found “the aspect of the quay was more or less normal.” Nevertheless, this flick of Lenin’s finger was all that
