Berezovo: A Revolutionary Russian Epic

Capital punishment, he scribbled, is a prime example of the regime’s lunatic philosophy. Previously, when it seemed the executions were so frequent that the machinery for dealing with them was in danger of breaking down (in Kiev prison there was such a shortage of suitable candidates for the post of assistant hangman that they had used a drunken murderer to do their work) the Princes in the Duma called for the abolition of the death penalty. The motion was adopted and passed on July 11 1906. By July 23, the Duma was already dissolved and discredited and nothing had been changed. If anything, the number of executions had increased. So much for the power of constitutional democracy!

He paused in his writing. It was doubtful whether the Tsar’s ministers had even been informed of the Bill, not that it would have made a scrap of difference. The logic of the men who held the reins of power was beyond the reach of rational debate. “Capital punishment is legal, therefore opposition to it is illegal. Ergo, abolition is an illegal act. Q.E.D.” Try as they might, the honoured Duma deputies could not argue with such reasoning. In any case, the introduction of Siege Law had meant that the judicial rules were thrown out of the window wherever major outbreaks of unrest had occurred. In the same year that their Excellencies had anguished over civil hangings, at least 864 people had been shot without sentence, and that was the official figure. Trotsky was sure that the true figure could be three times that number. Just as he had predicted, the first Duma had achieved nothing, and the second Duma would fare no better.

As if to show its Deputies the futility of their actions, a week after the first Duma had been dismissed, there had been a demonstration of genuine power. The Kronstadt garrison had risen and declared itself no longer under the orders of the Tsar. Even now, just thinking about it made Trotsky grind his teeth in exasperation. From what he had heard the plan had so nearly worked. The major rising was to be preceded by a smaller rebellion at Sveaborg that was intended to draw army units away from Petersburg. If only the Finnish Red Guards hadn’t got carried away and dynamited the railway track before the soldiers could be put on the trains, then Kronstadt and possibly even Petersburg could have risen in armed revolt again. Not that the naval garrison, by itself, could have had a decisive effect. Although the cruisers Pamyat Azova and Asia had also risen and flown the red flag, the earlier example of the Potemkin had shown that sailors were by their nature too self-reliant, too independent, to join up spontaneously with the revolutionary proletariat. There were too many moujiks and too few technicians and engineers in their ranks for them to make that leap in the dark. The episode tormented him. Oh, if only I had been there, he thought, what an opportunity it would have provided! What a powder keg!

But there it was: the deepest tragedy of revolution. Either the leaders hesitate in the crisis, or are recklessly premature, or find themselves in the wrong place at the right time and the moment is lost.

If, he promised, and then corrected himself. No, not if… When the Kronstadt rises again, they won’t find me unprepared. I will know exactly what to do.

If… When…

Despondently, he sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the crumpled pages of the newspaper at his feet. When would conditions be right again? he wondered. How long a period would have to pass before the country was once again shaken by the conditions that could herald a New Russia? Ten years? Twenty years? Thirty?