At the table the conversation turned on the state of affairs at the front. Asked to tell of the latest developments, I said, as nearly as I can remember:
“The agitation to leave the trenches and go home is growing. If there is not an immediate offensive, all is lost. The soldiers will disperse. It is also an urgent necessity to send back to the fighting line the troops now scattered in the rear.”
Rodzianko answered as nearly as I can remember as follows:
“Orders have been given to many units in the rear to go to the front. All have not obeyed, however. There have been demonstrations and protests on the part of several troops, due to Bolshevist propaganda.”
That was the first time I ever heard of the Bolsheviks. It was May, 1917.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“They are a group led by one Lenin, who has just returned from abroad by way of Germany, and Trotsky, Kollontai and other political exiles. They attend the meetings of the Soviet at the Tauride Palace, in which the Duma meets, stir up class-bitterness and demand immediate peace.”
I was further asked how Kerensky then stood with the soldiers, being informed that he had just left for a tour of the front.
“Kerensky is very popular. In fact, the most popular man with the men at the front. The men will do anything for him,” I replied.
Rodzianko then related an incident which made us all laugh. There was an old porter in the Government offices who had served many Ministers of the Tsar. Kerensky, it appeared, made it a habit to shake hands with everybody. So that whenever he entered his office he shook hands with the old porter, thus quickly becoming the laughingstock of the servants.
“Now, what kind of a Minister is it,” the old porter was overheard complaining to a fellow-servant, “who shakes hands with me?”
After dinner Rodzianko took me to the Tauride Palace, where he introduced me to a gathering of soldiers’ delegates, then in session. I was warmly welcomed and given a prominent seat. The speakers gave descriptions of conditions at various sections of the front that tallied exactly with my own observations. Discipline was gone, fraternization was on the increase, the agitation to leave the trenches was gaining strength. Something must be done quickly, they argued. How could the men be kept up to the mark till the moment when an offensive should be ordered? That was the problem.
Rodzianko arose and proposed that I should be asked to suggest a solution. He told them that I was a peasant who had volunteered early in the war and fought and suffered with the men. Therefore, he thought, I ought to know what was the right thing to do. Naturally, I was very much embarrassed. I was totally unprepared to make any suggestions and, therefore, begged to be excused until I had thought the matter over.
The session continued, while I sank deep into thought. For half an hour I racked my brain in vain. Then suddenly an idea dawned upon me. It was the idea of a Women’s Battalion of Death.
“You have heard of what I have done and endured as a soldier,” I said, rising to my feet and turning to the audience. “Now, how would it do to organize three hundred women like myself to serve as an example to the army and lead the men into battle?”
Rodzianko approved of my idea. “Provided,” he added, “we could find hundreds more like Maria Bochkareva, which I greatly doubt.”
To this objection I replied that numbers were immaterial, that what was important was to shame the men, and that a few women at one place could serve as an example to the entire front. “It would be necessary that the women’s organization should have no committees and be run on the regular army basis in order to enable it to help towards the restoration of discipline,” I further explained.
Rodzianko thought my suggestion splendid and dwelt upon the enthusiasm that would inevitably be kindled among the men if women should occupy some of the trenches and take the lead in an offensive.
There were objections, however, from the audience. One delegate got up and said:
“None of us can take exception to a soldier like Bochkareva. The men at the front know her and have heard of her deeds. But who will guarantee that the other women will be as decent as she and will not dishonour the army?”
Another delegate remarked:
“Who will guarantee that the presence of women soldiers at the front will not lead to the birth there of little soldiers?”
There was a general uproar at this criticism. I replied:
“If I take up the organization of a women’s battalion, I will hold myself responsible for every member of it. I will introduce rigid discipline and will allow no speechmaking and no loitering in the streets. When Mother Russia is drowning it is not a time to run an army by committees. I am a common peasant myself, and I know that only discipline can save the Russian Army. In the proposed battalion I should exercise absolute authority and insist upon obedience. Otherwise, there would be no use in organizing it.”
There were no objections to the conditions which I outlined as preliminary to the establishment of such a unit. Still, I never expected that the Government would consider the matter seriously and permit me to carry out the idea, although I was informed that it would be submitted to Kerensky upon his return from the front.
President Rodzianko took a deep interest in the project. He introduced me to Captain Dementiev, Commandant of the Home for Invalids, asking him to place a room or two at my disposal and generally take
