Fall of Giants

Walter was infuriated by his father’s half-baked excuses. “The admiral gave his word as an officer that no American would reach Europe,” he said. “Our intelligence is that fourteen thousand of them landed in France in June. So much for the word of an officer!”

That stung Otto. “He did what he believed was best for his country,” he said irately. “What more can a man do?”

Walter raised his voice. “You ask me what more a man can do? He can avoid making false promises. When he doesn’t know for sure, he can refrain from saying he knows for sure. He can tell the truth, or keep his stupid mouth shut.”

“Von Holtzendorff gave the best advice he could.”

The feebleness of these arguments maddened Walter. “Such humility would have been appropriate before the event. But there was none. You were there, at Castle Pless-you know what happened. Von Holtzendorff gave his word. He misled the kaiser. He brought the Americans into the war against us. A man could hardly serve his monarch worse!”

“I suppose you want him to resign-but then who would take his place?”

“Resign?” Walter was bursting with fury. “I want him to put the barrel of his revolver in his mouth and pull the trigger.”

Otto looked severe. “That’s a wicked thing to say.”

“His own death would be small retribution for all those who have died because of his smug foolishness.”

“You youngsters have no common sense.”

“You dare to talk to me about common sense? You and your generation took Germany into a war that has crippled us and killed millions-a war that, after three years, we still have not won.”

Otto looked away. He could hardly deny that Germany had not yet won the war. The opposing sides were deadlocked in France. Unrestricted submarine warfare had failed to choke off supplies to the Allies. Meanwhile, the British naval blockade was slowly starving the German people. “We have to wait and see what happens in Petrograd,” said Otto. “If Russia drops out of the war, the balance will change.”

“Exactly,” said Walter. “Everything now depends on the Bolsheviks.”

{II}

Early in October, Grigori and Katerina went to see the midwife.

Grigori now spent most nights in the one-room apartment near the Putilov works. They no longer made love-she found it too uncomfortable. Her belly was huge. The skin was as taut as a football, and her navel stuck out instead of in. Grigori had never been intimate with a pregnant woman, and he found it frightening as well as thrilling. He knew that everything was normal, but all the same he dreaded the thought of a baby’s head cruelly stretching the narrow passage he loved so much.

They set out for the home of the midwife, Magda, the wife of Konstantin. Vladimir rode on Grigori’s shoulders. The boy was almost three, but Grigori still carried him without effort. His personality was emerging: in his childish way he was intelligent and earnest, more like Grigori than his charming, wayward father, Lev. A baby was like a revolution, Grigori thought: you could start one, but you could not control how it would turn out.

General Kornilov’s counterrevolution had been crushed before it got started. The Railwaymen’s Union had made sure most of Kornilov’s troops got stuck in sidings miles from Petrograd. Those who came anywhere near the city were met by Bolsheviks who undermined them simply by telling them the truth, as Grigori had in the schoolyard. Soldiers then turned on officers who were in on the conspiracy and executed them. Kornilov himself was arrested and imprisoned.

Grigori became known as the man who turned back Kornilov’s army. He protested that this was an exaggeration, but his modesty only increased his stature. He was elected to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party.

Trotsky got out of jail. The Bolsheviks won 51 percent of the vote in the Moscow city elections. Party membership reached 350,000.

Grigori had an intoxicating feeling that anything could happen, including total disaster. Every day the revolution might be defeated. That was what he dreaded, for then his child would grow up in a Russia that was no better. Grigori thought of the milestones of his own childhood: the hanging of his father, the death of his mother outside the Winter Palace, the priest who took little Lev’s trousers down, the grinding work at the Putilov factory. He wanted a different life for his child.

“Lenin is calling for an armed uprising,” he told Katerina as they walked to Magda’s place. Lenin had been in hiding outside the city, but he had been sending a constant stream of furious letters urging the party to action.

“I think he’s right,” said Katerina. “Everyone is fed up with governments who speak about democracy but do nothing about the price of bread.”

As usual, Katerina said what most Petrograd workers were thinking.

Magda was expecting them and had made tea. “I’m sorry there’s no sugar,” she said. “I haven’t been able to get sugar for weeks.”

“I can’t wait to get this over with,” said Katerina. “I’m so tired of carrying all this weight.”