Maid of Baikal: A Novel of the Russian Civil War

But many who knew Savinkov doubted the accidental overdose theory and were inclined to believe that the S-R leader’s second-in-command, Zhelezin, had arranged Savinkov’s death to resemble suicide. These accusations did not appear widely in the Russian press, however, owing both to political partisanship and to heavy doses of intimidation and bribery. As a result, when the time came to nominate a new Prime Minister a fortnight later, the S-R party leadership put forward Zhelezin. And in the months that preceded his election, Zhelezin acted with consummate ruthlessness and skill to secure his grip on the reins of power.

Once he became Prime Minister, the very first to feel the sting of Zhelezin’s lash were the right-wing Siberian conspirators who had elevated Admiral Kolchak to Supreme Ruler in late 1918, including Pepelyayev, Rozanov, Krasilnikov, Mikhailov and Ivanov-Rinov. Many early Kolchak backers who did not flee into exile were arrested. A few months later, Zhelezin followed this terror campaign with a second, against former Bolsheviks in Moscow and Petrograd. Despite amnesty for acts committed during the revolution and civil war, prosecutors charged them with war crimes not covered by the amnesty. The campaign gained steam when hitherto secret Bolshevik archives were leaked to the press. With Zhelezin’s flanks on both left and right now secure, the Prime Minister set about marginalizing his remaining political rivals and laying the foundation for one-party rule.

Though Zhelezin’s actions troubled many of Russia’s foreign allies, what he had done was no more severe, and far less bloody, than what Hitler had done in Germany during the same year of 1934, in the Night of Long Knives,[49] or the Japanese in Manchuria, while attempting to pacify their puppet state of Manchukuo since 1931.[50] So long as Zhelezin continued to repay interest and principal on Russia’s debts to foreign banks, purchased American, British and French goods, and refrained from making threatening noises against neighboring Poland, Ukraine, and Finland, Western leaders praised Zhelezin as a ruler with whom they could do business. Even more, they valued Russia as a strategic buffer between Germany and Japan and hoped she might again one day become a powerful ally against aggression from those two rising nations.

This was why President Franklin Roosevelt selected David Barrows as his new Ambassador to Moscow. Since his prior service in Russia, Barrows had served as President of the University of California, explored Africa, and during the summer before his appointment to Moscow, led the California National Guard in suppressing Communist-inspired dock strikes in San Francisco.[51] If ever there was an American ambassador qualified to take the measure of a man like Zhelezin and guide American policy toward a Russia that was sliding rapidly into dictatorship, Barrows was that man.

* * *

Upon entering the reception room, Ned’s eye wandered toward the buffet, where he saw the familiar face of Igor Ivashov, now a Major General and Russia’s Deputy Chief of Staff. Standing next to him was a woman of slender figure whose raven hair was cut short in the bobbed style of the day. Though the woman’s back was turned, she bore a striking resemblance to how he imagined Zhanna Dorokhina might have looked, had she lived. In accepting Ned’s invitation, Ivashov had written that he had a surprise to share. But surely this could not be it. Ned’s heart raced as he approached the buffet and the woman wheeled around. Her face was quite pretty and looked vaguely familiar, but this was most certainly not the Maid. She smiled and held out her hand for Ned to kiss. Ivashov grinned at Ned but remained silent.

“So very pleased to meet you. I’m Ned du Pont,” Ned said as he took the woman’s hand.

“But you’ve already met,” Ivashov interrupted with a genial laugh, quite uncharacteristic of the taciturn young officer he had known years before. “You met on a quiet railway platform one night in Omsk. Don’t you remember?”

“Ah, the pretty schoolgirl and the rowdy cadets?” Ned asked, hazarding a guess.

“Yes, the very one! Natalia is the surprise I wrote to you about,” Ivashov continued. “She married one of the young cadets you saw, but later divorced him. We learned of each other last year and arranged to meet.”

“And were wed last month,” Natalia added with a radiant smile, taking her husband’s arm in hers.

Though Ned had visited Moscow on several occasions over the years, he and Ivashov had not spoken to each other since Ned left Russia in January of 1920.

“Do you remember that evening in Kazan when we shared cold soup and stale bread and vowed to drink champagne at the Metropol once we defeated the Bolsheviks?” Ned asked his old friend. He waved to a nearby waiter bearing a tray laden with crystal coupe glasses brimming with champagne. “At last we can fulfill our wish!”