The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

I request, Olga Valerianovna, that you write what you know regarding this overthrow and where the former sovereign will go. The troops feel sorry for Nikolai Aleksandrovich, the only consolation is that Mikhail Aleksandrovich will be chosen. We have no newspapers that describe the politics of state, and so rely on rumors and what the officers say.

For now, Olga Valerianovna, good bye, be healthy, I wish you all the very best. Give my regards and wishes for good health and all the best to your mama Olga Petrovna.

Respectfully your acquaintance N. Filatov.

I have not received your books, from boredom I read fairy tales, though I do not like reading them, but in the evenings my comrades, who find them interesting, ask me to read them.

2. ACTIVE ARMY. FRONT LINE TRENCHES

May 12th of this year [1917]

How do you do greatly-respected Olga Valerianovna, I send you my greetings and wishes for all the very best. I first of all inform you, Olga Valeri-anovna, the following. Yesterday I received your letter of the 29th of last month, and today I received your 9 books in two packages. You ask me to write what is happening at the front, that is, what the general mood and discipline are like. I will endeavor to write you everything that has happened since March 5th. On March 5th I wrote you that we, that is the troops, do not want the New Government, but we want the old one. For this you probably called me a fool. But I deserve that name only in part, in that I could not wait for the matter to be resolved.

We were read some orders. These orders stated that a soldier has the right to travel first class and some other privileges, then it was said that discipline now will be severe, that for every minor infraction any officer has the right to shoot soldiers like [. . .] in a field trial, without sending a report to the upper command, as was formerly done. Then the officers explained what sort of

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minor infractions can be cause for summary execution. There were many such orders that made our hair stand on end and our skin crawl. We were very strictly forbidden to gather and talk about the tsar, it was strictly forbidden to say that the tsar had been deposed, and not that he himself abdicated. We were allowed to say that Mikhail Aleksandrovich will be chosen tsar. The officers scurried about and fussed as if caught in a trap. Finally the commander of our regiment, Colonel Velikopolskii, wrote a telegram to the Provisional Government. In this telegram the commander wrote that in my regiment there is utter antagonism, that soldiers desert their posts, nobody obeys anything, and that he demands discipline (that means extraordinary).

I do not need to repeat to you, Olga Valerianovna, what sort of situation we found ourselves in (between two fires). To think that there was antagonism in our ranks and we abandoned our posts. The telegram went through the headquarters of our 84th division, but when it reached the corps headquarters, it was sent back and two days later the commander of our Second Caucasus Corps came to visit us in our entrenchments. The corps commander spent a lot of time in the trenches, asked about all our needs and satisfied them, as he was able. We all loved him very much and he knew us soldiers well too, that’s why he stopped the telegram and did not let it go further. He knew full well that under the old government we never caused antagonism, and under the new government we certainly shouldn’t either. He knew that was all fabrications by the officers. When he came he told us the whole truth. After his departure the gentleman officers themselves began to incite unrest. They gathered us and said:

“Now you are citizens, just the same as us officers, so why do you not ask for better living conditions, like we officers enjoy. Why don’t you demand cots, blankets, mattresses and so on? You live like swine, sleep on bough beds quite unsuitable for a citizen, and receive only 75 kopeks per month.”

When we began to explain that in time of war conditions dictate that it is not permissible to have cots, blankets and mattresses in the trenches, the officers said that you are a fool, an ass and blockhead. They said “In our mess we eat your soup and leave you only water, and we still get a fabulous sum for rations and dinner.”

And they said many such words, which could have incited antagonism, but we have our preachers, who ardently persuaded us not to believe the officers, to be patient and keep hope. We realized all this ourselves and acted as our conscience dictated. For now I will finish writing, and will write again the 14th or the 15th of this month, that is in two days.

I did not write you for so long, because I had a premonition that you are no longer in Tbilisi, and I don’t know the address in Moscow. I have not received your letter in which you wrote that you moved to Moscow. Our spirit at the

Nikolai Filatov, A Soldier’s Letters