But one institution—the scourge of the nation—they failed to wipe out. Nay more, they restored it. The Tsar had abolished vodka. The prohibition was continued in force by the new regime, but only on paper. Nearly every returned soldier took to distilling vodka at home, and the old plague of the country recovered its power and took its part in the building of the Bolsheviks’ new world.
Every town and village had its committee or Soviet. They were supposed to carry out orders from the Central Government. An order was issued to confiscate all articles of gold and silver. Committees searched every house for such belongings. There was, also, or was supposed to be, an order taxing furniture and clothes. When the taxes arbitrarily demanded were not paid, the furniture and clothes were taken away.
In the towns it was the townsmen who suffered, in the villages the peasants, all under the pretext of confiscating the riches of the bourgeoisie. It was sufficient for a peasant to buy a new overcoat, perhaps with his last savings, for him to be branded as an exploiter and lose his precious garment. The peculiar thing about such cases was the fact that the confiscated article would almost invariably appear on the back of one of the Bolshevik ringleaders. It was merely looting, and the methods were pure terrorism, practised mostly by the returned soldiers.
I received some letters at Tutalsk. One was from my adjutant, Princess Tatuyeva, who had arrived safely in Tiflis, her native town.
One morning I went to the post office to ask for letters.
“There goes Bochkareva!” I heard a man cry out.
“Ah, Bochkareva! She is for the old regime!” another fellow replied, apparently one of the Bolshevik soldiers.
There were several of them and they shouted threats and insults at me. I did not reply but returned home with a heavy heart. Even in my own home I was not safe.
“My God,” I prayed, “what has come over the Russian people? Is this my reward for the sacrifices I have made for my country?”
I resolved not to leave the house again. Surely this madness would not last long, I thought. I spent most of the day reading the Bible and praying to Heaven for the awakening and enlightenment of my people.
On the 7th of January, 1918, I received a telegram from Petrograd, signed by General X. It read:
Come. You are needed.
The same day I bought a ticket for the capital, bade farewell to my family, and set out. I removed the epaulets from my uniform, thus appearing in the garb of a private.
About this time the Germans, to the profound shock of the revolutionary masses, began their sudden advance into Russia. It had an almost miraculous effect on the Bolshevik sympathizers. The train was as usual packed with soldiers, but there was a noticeable difference in their expression and conversation. All the braggadocio had been knocked out of them by the enemy’s action. They had been lulled into the sweet belief that peace had come and that a golden age was about to open for them. They could not reconcile that with the swift advance of the Kaiser’s soldiers toward Petrograd and Moscow.
It was refreshing, exhilarating to listen to some of the men.
“We have been sold!” one heard here and there.
“We were told that the German soldiers would not advance if we left the front,” was another frequent expression.
“It is not the common people, it is the German bourgeoisie that is fighting us now,” was an argument ordinarily given in answer to the first opinions, “and there is nothing to be afraid of. There will soon be a revolution in Germany.”
“Who knows,” some would doubtfully remark, “that Lenin and Trotsky have not delivered us into the hands of the accursed Germans?”
There were always delegates from local committees going somewhere, and they talked to the soldiers, answering questions and explaining things. They could not very well explain away the German treachery, but they held out the promise of a revolution in Germany almost any day. The men listened but were not greatly impressed by the assurances of the agitators. One felt that they were still groping in the dark, although the light was dawning on their minds. The awakening could not be long postponed.
I had a safe and comfortable journey to Petrograd. Nobody molested me, nobody threatened my life. I arrived at the capital on the 18th of January. The station was not as strongly guarded as two months before. Red Guards were not in such evidence in the streets, which appeared more normal. I went to one of my former patronesses and learned of the terror in which the capital lived.
The following day I called on General X, who greeted me cordially. Kiev, he told me, had just been captured by the Germans. They were threatening Petrograd, and the opposition of the Red Guards would not prevent or even postpone its capture by one day if the Germans were bent upon taking the city.
Red Terror was rampant in Petrograd. The river was full of corpses of officers who had been slain and lynched. Those who were alive were leading a wretched existence, fearing to show themselves in public because of the temper of the mob, and therefore on the verge of death from starvation. Even more harrowing was the situation of the country. It was falling into the hands of the enemy so rapidly that immediate action of some sort was imperative.
A secret meeting of officers and sympathizers had been held at which it was decided to get in touch
