The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

My cousin and I were enrolled in the medical school without any complications. As required, she commenced with the natural sciences while I immediately became engrossed in anatomy. Professor Haup, a specialist on frogs who knew everything anyone had ever said or written about frogs, and who himself had published an enormous work called The Frog, was an excellent pedagogue. He attempted to provide a maximum amount of knowledge in the minimum amount of time to his students. Therefore, he arrived in class before the students and wrote a complete summary of his lecture on the blackboard. I worked for Haup in the anatomy laboratory—preparing a leg for experimental purposes, the names of the muscles of which I still remember to this day. I also attended the lectures of the famed August Weissman, an imposing elder of the Old Testament type. He captivatingly expounded his theory of heredity for which Soviet Lysenkoists posthumously labeled him a “formalist” and “obscurantist” in biology.

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Chapter Nine

Like the rest of Russia, Moscow led a tense political life. But to a substantial degree it mirrored the life of St. Petersburg. The government was in St. Petersburg: Witte, Trepov, Durnovo, the grand dukes and the tsar. The central committees of the political parties were there. Finally, a new professional-political organization arose there and functioned legally—the Soviet of Workers Deputies. There was a branch in Moscow, though the fine-tuning derived from the St. Petersburg soviet. When it was decided to call a strike there at the end of November, the Moscow soviet could only join in support. The question of a strike was also discussed by the Moscow soviet. Mensheviks and SR’s [Social Revolutionary Party] called for caution. But St. Petersburg’s decision predetermined that of Moscow and on December 6th the Moscow soviet unanimously decided to commence a general strike on the next day.

Fondaminskii and I were assigned to the congress of railroad delegates. He argued for the necessity of a general strike and asked them to join it, while I was stitching together the corresponding resolution. The railroaders resolved to support the strike. The strike did not produce the desired result, and with an equal mix of spontaneity and premeditation “turned” into a revolt. The state immediately resorted to extreme measures. The meeting, which had convened in the “Aquarium,” was fired upon. And in the center of the city, artillery was let loose against Fidler’s Realschule [a vocational high school] where the so-called “volunteers” had gathered—most of these were youths who had not yet reached legal age and who were either students or from the working class. Following revolutionary tradition and for self-defense, barricades were set up in the streets of Moscow. They were also intended to impede the movement of mounted patrols.

I was not involved in the decisions. These were made by higher party functionaries. The building of barricades, however, was one of the responsibilities of the mid-level party member. Thus, together with others, in some square in the Arbat district, I hauled chairs, boxes, and barrels with a sense of great uneasiness and helplessness. I piled other things on top of them and unsuccessfully tried to topple a light pole with its glass already broken. I did not at all feel that the destructive spirit was simultaneously a constructive one. Those more adept, and, perhaps, less prone to reasoning, built barricades better and faster in other locations.

The headquarters of the SR committee during the insurrection was in the apartment of Lidiia and Lev Armand whom I knew from Rikkert’s seminar in Freiburg. All the directives and guidance emanated from this alley in the Arbat—insofar as guidance was possible in a semi-elemental uprising. This was the center for news and people: news regarding what was happening and people to provide information on the situation and to receive proclamations, directions, and counsel. The proclamations were mainly written by Andrei Aleksandrovich

Mark Vishniak, In Two Worlds

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Nikitskii, our “scribe” as we called him. It was here also that the combatants and the volunteers came for weapons: revolvers, cartridges, and bombs. We spent all the days and nights of the uprising here, collecting and then discussing information, attempting to bring reason and order to chaos. Sometimes we had to carry out individual assignments ourselves. Thus, Lev Armand and I were sent to get cartridges. We reached the specified point safely. I was loaded up with cartridges hung front and back under my coat and headed back. The way led through the Prechistenka. A sentry stopped me at the house occupied by General Kostanda who was in charge of the forces.

“Where are you going?”

I answered. The soldier ran his hands along the overcoat and spouted out:

“Go ahead, yid face!”