Fall of Giants

They were the only passengers on the streetcar. Lenin questioned the conductress on what she thought of the latest political developments.

Walking from the Finland Station they heard hoofbeats and hid from what turned out to be a troop of loyalist cadets looking for trouble.

Grigori triumphantly delivered Lenin to the Smolny at midnight.

Lenin went at once to Room 36 and called a meeting of the Bolshevik Central Committee. Trotsky reported that Red Guards now controlled many of the city’s key points. But that was not enough for Lenin. For symbolic reasons, he argued, the revolutionary troops had to seize the Winter Palace and arrest the ministers of the provisional government. That would be the act that convinced people that power had passed, finally and irrevocably, to the revolutionaries.

Grigori knew he was right.

So did everyone else.

Trotsky began to plan the taking of the Winter Palace.

Grigori did not get home to Katerina that night.

{V}

There could be no mistakes.

The final act of the revolution had to be decisive, Grigori knew. He made sure the orders were clear and reached their destinations in good time.

The plan was not complicated, but Grigori worried that Trotsky’s timetable was optimistic. The bulk of the attacking force would consist of revolutionary sailors. The majority were coming from Helsingfors, capital of the Finnish region, by train and ship. They left at three A.M. More were coming from Kronstadt, the island naval base twenty miles offshore.

The attack was scheduled to begin at twelve noon.

Like a battlefield operation, it would start with an artillery barrage: the guns of the Peter and Paul Fortress would fire across the river and batter down the walls of the palace. Then the sailors and soldiers would take over the building. Trotsky said it would be over by two o’clock, when the Congress of Soviets was due to start.

Lenin wanted to stand up at the opening and announce that the Bolsheviks had already taken power. It was the only way to prevent another indecisive, ineffective compromise government, the only way to ensure that Lenin ended up in charge.

Grigori worried that things might not go as fast as Trotsky hoped.

Security was poor at the Winter Palace, and at dawn Grigori was able to send Isaak inside to reconnoiter. He reported that there were about three thousand loyalist troops in the building. If they were properly organized and fought bravely, there would be a mighty battle.

Isaak also discovered that Kerensky had left town. Because the Red Guards controlled the railway stations he had been unable to leave by train, and he had eventually departed in a commandeered car. “What kind of prime minister can’t catch a train in his own capital?” Isaak said.

“Anyway, he’s gone,” Grigori said with satisfaction. “And I don’t suppose he’ll ever come back.”

However, Grigori’s mood turned pessimistic when noon came around and none of the sailors had appeared.

He crossed the bridge to the Peter and Paul Fortress to make sure the cannon were ready. To his horror he found that they were museum pieces, there only for show, and could not be fired. He ordered Isaak to find some working artillery.

He hurried back to the Smolny to tell Trotsky his plan was behind schedule. The guard at the door said: “There was someone here looking for you, comrade. Something about a midwife.”

“I can’t deal with that now,” Grigori said.

Events were moving very fast. Grigori learned that the Red Guards had taken the Marinsky Palace and dispersed the preparliament without bloodshed. Those Bolsheviks in jail had been released. Trotsky had ordered all troops outside Petrograd to remain where they were, and they were obeying him, not their officers. Lenin was writing a manifesto that began: “To the citizens of Russia: The provisional government has been overthrown!”

“But the assault has not begun,” Grigori told Trotsky miserably. “I don’t see how it can be managed before three o’clock.”

“Don’t worry,” said Trotsky. “We can delay the opening of the congress.”

Grigori returned to the square in front of the Winter Palace. At two in the afternoon, at long last, he saw the minelayer Amur sail into the Neva with a thousand sailors from Kronstadt on its deck, and the workers of Petrograd lined the banks to cheer them.

If Kerensky had thought to put a few mines in the narrow channel he could have kept the sailors out of the city and defeated the revolution. But there were no mines, and the sailors in their black pea jackets began to disembark, carrying their rifles. Grigori prepared to deploy them around the Winter Palace.

But the plan was still bedeviled by snags, to Grigori’s immense exasperation. Isaak found a cannon and, with much effort, got it dragged into place, only to find that there were no shells for it. Meanwhile, loyalist troops at the palace were building barricades.

Maddened by frustration, Grigori drove back to the Smolny.