“I am leaving Colonel Samarine, of the General Staff, as a Liaison Officer. There will be at least one live man.”
By the irony of fate that officer whom Krymov trusted so well afterwards played a fatal part, as he was the indirect cause of the General’s suicide.... Krymov was very pessimistic in his account of the political situation:
“Nothing will come of it in any case. How can business be done when the Soviet and the licentious soldiery hold the Government pinioned? I offered to cleanse Petrograd in two days with one division; but, of course, not without bloodshed. ‘Not for anything in the world,’ they said. Gutchkov refused. Prince Lvov, with a gesture of despair, exclaimed: ‘Oh! but there would be such a commotion!’ Things will get worse. One of these days I shall go back to my army corps. I cannot afford to lose touch with the troops, as it is upon them that I base all my hopes. My corps maintains complete order and, perhaps, I shall succeed in preserving that spirit.”
I had not seen Petrograd for four years. The impression produced by the Capital was painful and strange.... To begin with, the Hotel Astoria, where I stayed, had been ransacked. In the hall there was a guard of rough and undisciplined sailors of the Guards. The streets were crowded, but dirty and filled with the new masters of the situation in khaki overcoats. Remote from the sufferings of the front, they were “deepening and saving” the Revolution. From whom? I had read a great deal about the enthusiasm in Petrograd, but I found none. It was nowhere to be seen. The ministers and rulers were pale, haggard, exhausted by sleepless nights and endless speeches at meetings and councils, by addresses to various delegations and to the mob. Their excitement was artificial, their oratory was full of sonorous phrases and commonplaces, of which the orators themselves were presumably thoroughly sick. Inwardly in their heart of hearts they were deeply anxious. No practical work was being done; in fact, the ministers had no time to concentrate their thoughts upon the current affairs of State in their departments. The old bureaucratic machine, creaking and groaning, continued to work in a haphazard manner. The old wheels were still revolving while a new handle was being applied.
The officers of the regular army felt themselves to be stepsons of the Revolution and were unable to hit upon a proper tone in dealing with the men. Among the higher ranks, and especially the officers of the General Staff, there appeared already a new type of opportunist and demagogue. These men played upon the weaknesses of the Soviet and of the new governing class of workmen and soldiers, to flatter the instincts of the crowd, thereby gaining their confidence and making new openings for themselves and for their careers against the background of revolutionary turmoil. I must, however, admit that in those days the military circles proved sufficiently stolid in spite of all the efforts to dismember them, and that the seeds of demoralisation were not allowed to grow. Men of the type described above, such as the young assistant of the War Minister, Kerensky, as well as Generals Brussilov, Cheremissov, Bonch-Bruevitch, Verkhovsky, Admiral Maximov and others were unable to strengthen their influence and their position with the officers.
The citizen of Petrograd, in the broadest sense of the word, was by no means enthusiastic. The first enthusiasm was exhausted and was followed by anxiety and indecision.
Another feature of the life in Petrograd deserves to be noticed. Men have ceased to be themselves. Most of them seem to be acting a part instead of living a life inspired by the new breath of revolution. Such was the case even in the Councils of the Provisional Government, in which the deliberations were not altogether sincere, so I was told, owing to the presence of Kerensky, the “hostage of democracy.” Tactical considerations, caution, partisanship, anxiety for one’s career, feelings of self-preservation, nervousness and various other good and bad feelings prompted men to wear blinkers and to walk about in these blinkers as apologists for, or at least passive witnesses of, “the conquests of the Revolution.” Such conquests as obviously savoured of death and corruption. Hence the false pathos of endless speeches and meetings; hence these seemingly strange contradictions. Prince Lvov saying in a public speech: “The process of the great Russian Revolution is not yet complete, but every day strengthens our faith in the inexhaustible creative forces of the Russian people, in its statesmanlike wisdom and in the greatness of its soul.”... The same Prince Lvov bitterly complaining to Alexeiev of the impossible conditions under which the Provisional Government was working, owing to the rapid growth of demagogy in the Soviet and in the country. Kerensky, the exponent of the idea of Soldiers’ Committees, and Kerensky sitting in his railway carriage and nervously whispering to his adjutant: “Send these d.... committees to h....” Tchkheidze and Skobelev warmly advocating full democratisation of the army at a joint sitting of the Soviet, of the Government and of the Commanders-in-Chief, and during an interval in private conversation admitting the necessity of rigid military discipline and of their own incapacity to convince the Soviet of this necessity....
I repeat that even then, at the end of March, one could clearly feel in Petrograd that the ringing of the Easter bells had lasted too long, and that they would have done better to ring the alarm bell. There were only two men of all those to whom I had the occasion to speak who had no illusions whatever: Krymov and Kornilov.