Tag Archives: Cadets

IT BEGAN in the Russian capital, in the city which had been called St. Petersburg and was now called Petrograd. Bread had been rationed and on March 8, 1917, crowds of women and boys formed into long lines at the bakeries to get their share. Russians were used to waiting in line and usually they were patient, but on this day they were hungry. Besides, they were tired of the war, tired of the tsar, tired of living without hope. When they learned that there was no bread to be had, they lost their patience. They suspected that the bread was being held back to force a rise in prices. The women and boys rioted and the police were called out. Workers who had been on strike joined the rioters. They swarmed into the streets, marching and chanting, “We want bread! We want bread! We want bread!” In the days that followed, more and more workers left their jobs and went on strike. There were more riots. The police lost control and mobs roamed the city, calling for bread, peace and freedom. They looted shops, tore down the emblems of the tsar from buildings, broke into police stations and let prisoners loose from the jails. Soldiers were ordered to stop the mobs and to shoot if necessary, but many of the soldiers were raw recruits who came from families of peasants or workers. They, too, wanted bread and peace and freedom. They refused to fire on the mobs; instead, they joined them in battling the police. Even the Cossacks, those fierce fighters who had never hesitated to beat down the people — even they mingled with the crowds. Scenes like this were repeated in city after city; all Russia wanted peace, bread and freedom. With comparatively little bloodshed — less …

SOME DAY there would be no tsars, but there was little sign of that during the last years of the nineteenth century. Alexander III still held Russia in a firm grip. When he died in 1894, his son Nicholas II came to the throne. Nicholas was twenty-six years old. He was a handsome young man and a few months after his father’s death he was married to a German princess. They were in love and it looked as though Nicholas would be a popular ruler. His reign began badly. In 1896, a great crowd gathered on a field in Moscow to celebrate his coronation as tsar. It was the custom to hand out little presents, such as handkerchiefs and cups, at these celebrations. Afraid that there might not be enough for everyone, the crowd surged forward. When mounted police tried to hold back the crowd, men, women and children were pushed into ditches and two thousand persons were killed. To make it even worse, that same night the tsar and the tsarina, his wife, danced at a ball held at the French embassy. People grumbled that the tsarina was a foreigner who had no feeling for Russians and the tsar was not much better. Nor did the people like the tsar’s reply to a message of congratulation from the officials of a town near Moscow. The officials said that they hoped “the rights of individuals and public institutions will be firmly safeguarded.” Nicholas answered that he would support the principle of absolute rule just as firmly “as it was preserved by my unforgettable great father.” It was plain that under Nicholas the Russians could expect no greater freedom than they had had under Alexander III. There would be no civil liberties, no better treatment of the peasants and of minority …