Coming when they did these were foolish words. As subsequent events proved “all of the enslaved and oppressed” did not rise, nor were they in a position to rise at that time. The publication of this telegram did not advance the cause one iota, but it did put the government on guard. Kronstadt was doubly watched from that moment.
The Duma was dissolved just one month later, and three weeks after the dissolution Kronstadt tried to rise—a costly, futile effort.
In early June the garrison consisted of about twenty thousand sailors, four thousand heavy artillery, and two thousand infantry. In August the sailors and artillery numbered approximately the same, but more infantry had been brought down from Peterhof. This alone should have been a warning to the military organization, but the roster of the revolutionary sympathizers was apparently so long, the outlook so encouraging, that the force of the loyal men was hopelessly under-estimated. In this particular bad generalship was to blame.
The Sunday preceding the mutiny I visited Kronstadt. Near the center of the island is a summer garden in which a military band plays each Sunday afternoon. Ordinarily this garden is crowded with visitors. I found it as desolate as a cemetery. The band was there—playing manfully to deserted groves and empty benches. Here and there a soldier strolled with his sweetheart. But the absence of the usual gala throng was ominous. The streets, too, were still. Houses were closed. Veritably it was an evacuated city. Upon inquiry, I was told that a rumor had been circulated during the previous two or three days that all of Kronstadt had been mined, by the government, and a warning issued to the soldiers and sailors that if mutiny did break out the mines would be exploded, blowing sailors, soldiers, ships, and town into Kingdom Come. This sounded to me like a ridiculous fiction. And I still scout the idea. But the Russian people have learned by costly experiences that the wildest tales of the government often prove true in Russia. A panic had, therefore, possessed the town, and all of the townspeople who could had fled. Extraordinary as this report sounds, it would unquestionably have been a safer thing for the government to do than to allow Kronstadt to become a revolutionary stronghold. Wandering about the town I could discover no signs of an imminent uprising. I even failed to find any of my acquaintances among the military organization, which made me wonder a good deal. And indeed, as I learned later, at this time, four days before the actual outbreak, there was no thought of attempting the mutiny immediately, on the part of the revolutionary leaders. In reality it was planned for several weeks later, when the peasants would have gathered their scanty harvests and be ready to fight: when the railroad, postal and telegraph strikes were planned to come off simultaneously; then, as an adjunct to these national movements, the army and navy mutinies were to begin. The plan was an elaborate one and looked thrillingly good on paper, but as has happened before the agent provocateur of the government had not been taken into account. Upon signal, Sveaborg, near Helsingfors, was to rise, then Reval in the Baltic provinces, then Sebastopol on the Black Sea, and finally Kronstadt. With these four important strongholds captured it would seem that the fight was won. The month of September, or possibly October, was the time selected to set in motion the attacks upon these centers—in conjunction with a general strike and multitudinous peasant uprisings—jacquerie—all over the empire.
A plan of this magnitude necessarily depended for execution upon a great many different people, and, despite all the care that was supposedly exercised, every detail was early reported to the government, with the result that the whole thing was not only forestalled, but precipitated, and at the moment when everything was most favorable to the government.
Violent reaction followed the dissolution of the Duma. The American mind can scarcely conceive of the degree of suppression employed by the Russian government. Nearly every liberal newspaper in St. Petersburg was immediately confiscated and many permanently suppressed. Not only radical journals, but moderate newspapers, like those edited by Professor Paul Miliukoff and Professor Kovalevsky, newspapers of dignity and spirit, untainted by commercial or ignoble motives, such as we in America cannot appreciate. Foreign newspapers,—from England, from France, from Germany,—were so rigidly censored that nothing about Russia worth reading escaped elimination. This aspect of the censorship was most farcical. The men who wrote the telegrams and articles remained in St. Petersburg. The things they wrote were lamp-blacked in every individual paper that entered the country. Personal correspondence was demoralized. The letters of private individuals were ruthlessly opened and frequently confiscated. And as for arrests, it seemed as if nine out of every ten men who had ever expressed a liberal opinion were marked for prison. It was estimated that six hundred political arrests were made in St. Petersburg alone during the week of the Duma dissolution. These wholesale arrests continued for weeks all over Russia. The governmental troops seemed to be in absolute control everywhere. The atmosphere of St. Petersburg was at first tense with expectancy that some change would come and turn the tables, but as days passed and the iron heel of the bureaucracy only pressed the harder over the land, liberal sympathizers became utterly discouraged and despairing. This was the situation when I went to Kronstadt on the Sunday of the fatal week. On that day all was quiet. So was it on Monday. Tuesday there were a score of rumors in the air, most of them wild and fantastic, but yet seeming indicative of something. Wednesday news of the Sveaborg mutiny reached St. Petersburg. The reports were hysterical. The Sveaborg fortress was reported fallen, and ships sent to recapture the batteries had themselves fallen under mutiny. Fighting was next reported at Reval, and at the same time from Sebastopol. All telegrams were favorable to the revolutionists. All eyes turned to Kronstadt. Kronstadt awaited the signal. Suddenly all communication was cut off between St. Petersburg and the centers of activity. Even the railroad to Helsingfors was broken—the bridge dynamited. The last reports that got through were entirely favorable to the mutineers, and, therefore, the assumption was that the telegraph, telephone, and railroad lines were held by the revolutionists.
Some of the foreign correspondents in St. Petersburg hastened toward Sveaborg, but I, knowing Kronstadt so intimately, went there, to be on hand for the fight which seemed so imminent. The regular boats between St. Petersburg and Kronstadt were discontinued Wednesday afternoon. This seemed an indication of something brewing, so I hurried over the course I had so hastily come a few weeks earlier when “escaping” with Pasha. I reached Orienbaum by train, and there secured a boat across the mile-broad stretch of water to the fortress.
It was just sunset when I reached the island and made my way through the deserted streets of the town. A remote hill village could be no lonelier. No one seemed to know who had disturbed the connections with St. Petersburg.
The first information of importance I gleaned was that nearly all of the ships stationed at Kronstadt had just put out to sea, and that of those remaining all but one or two had been dismantled. That is to say, their guns had been dismounted and most of the sailors disarmed. The effect of these precautions upon the men was precisely what any reasonable and logical person would have supposed—discouragement from immediate action. I found a small government boat lying at a quay with about twenty sailors and heavy artillerymen lounging about the decks. There was no officer near, so I boarded the ship and sat talking with the men for half an hour or more. After the first few minutes they opened up and told me that they knew almost nothing of what was going on at Helsingfors as the government had prevented their seeing any newspapers. They admitted that there were plans for a mutiny—“but not yet.” All agreed to this: “Not now.” The artillerymen said: “If any ship flying a red flag comes along it will not be fired upon by us. But we don’t want to start the affair.” I spent the remainder of the evening going from point to point and talking to sailors, soldiers, and young men about the town. Nearly all told me the same thing. “We know we must rise. There is no other way. But we must not be hasty. We will wait and rise together with other garrisons and with the fleet.” The men seemed all to have learned well their lesson of restraint from the workers of the military organization, for I knew absolutely that this was what they had been instilling into the Kronstadt garrison for weeks.
By ten o’clock I was satisfied that Kronstadt would remain serene for the present. There was no indication whatever of movement anywhere on the part of either sailors or soldiers. Returning to the quay I found the regular ferry-boat running to Orienbaum as usual. I boarded the one which left at ten-thirty. We were delayed a few minutes at starting by a brawling sailor. This was the only enlivening incident I had witnessed. Midway to the mainland a search-light on a warship, which had just crept in close to Kronstadt, began sweeping the water. Round and round, now slowly, now fast, now near, now far. Once the great white path caught our little boat and fastened upon us. Then it turned and flashed toward the sea. The night was wonderful, still and calm, with a clear sky and brilliant stars above, and a soft summer breeze drifting pleasantly across the distant waters of the gulf. Perfect peace seemed to brood over Kronstadt. When the circling search-light fell upon the grim fortress walls they stood out in frowning silence which seemed set and lasting—like eternal verities, great hopes of struggling men, and all things which endure.