Stalin: A Biography

Nicholas II was late in comprehending the scale of the opposition. Hurrying back from Mogilëv towards Petrograd, he was told the game was already up. He took the advice of the Supreme Command; he consulted the speaker of the dispersed State Duma, Mikhail Rodzyanko. At first he wanted to preserve the dynasty by transferring the throne to his haemophiliac son Alexei. No one at court thought this sensible. Then he approached his brother Grand Duke Mikhail, but Mikhail refused the offer. Nicholas II succumbed and on 2 March abdicated to public delight across the empire. Euphoric crowds took to the streets of every town and city.

News travelled to Siberia along the telegraph lines faster than newspapers could be carried by rail. The Bolshevik group in Achinsk was jubilant. Nicholas the Bloody had been overthrown. The dynasty was at an end. The revolutionaries in the town gathered together regardless of party affiliation just after Grand Duke Mikhail’s refusal was made known. A spirited discussion followed. Feeling the need to contribute actively to the political outcome, many exiles signed a telegram congratulating the Grand Duke on his civic gesture. Stalin later claimed that his friend Kamenev appended his signature. Kamenev vehemently rejected the accusation; and even Stalin admitted that Kamenev had immediately regretted his action. In March 1917, in any case, Kamenev and Stalin agreed on their strategic objectives. A Provisional Government was formed on 3 March with the sanction of the Menshevik-led Petrograd Soviet. The Prime Minister would be the liberal Prince Georgi Lvov and liberals, especially the Constitutional-Democrats (or Kadets), dominated the cabinet. Only one socialist, the Socialist-Revolutionary Alexander Kerenski, became a minister. The original Bolshevik scheme for the establishment of a ‘revolutionary democratic dictatorship’ had been thwarted, and Kamenev and Stalin were willing — like most Mensheviks, most Socialist-Revolutionaries and many Bolsheviks — to give the Provisional Government their support conditional on ministers promulgating the basic civil freedoms and limiting themselves to a defensive war against the Central Powers.

As quickly as they could get tickets, the Bolsheviks in Achinsk made their way from Krasnoyarsk along the Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow and then onwards to Petrograd. Chief among them were Kamenev, Stalin and former Duma deputy Matvei Muranov. The experience was very different from the earlier trip each had made towards their place of exile. They travelled as normal passengers rather than in the arrest wagon. Because of their recent detention near the main line they were going to reach Petrograd before most other leading exiles, not to mention the émigrés. Kamenev and Stalin in particular were committed allies; they agreed on policy, and Stalin was not keen to resurrect the old business of Kamenev’s behaviour at the 1915 trial. Their intention was to seize control of the Bolshevik Central Committee in the capital. They aimed to make up for years lost in Siberian detention.

On 12 March 1917 the three of them stepped off the train at the Nicholas Station in east-central Petrograd. Light snow was falling, but Stalin and his companions hardly noticed. Kureika had accustomed them to a lot worse. They were back in Petrograd at last! In his hands Stalin carried a wicker suitcase of medium size; his personal possessions were few and he had no savings to his name. He was wearing the same suit he had worn on his departure in July 1913.¹³ The one sartorial difference was that he had valenki on his feet. These were the long padded boots worn by Russians in the winter.¹⁴ He was pinched-looking after the long train trip and had visibly aged over the four years in exile. Having gone away a young revolutionary, he was coming back a middle-aged political veteran. Stalin had written to alert his old friend Sergei Alliluev of their arrival.¹⁵ He expected him to be at the station and, perhaps, to have passed on the message to the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee. Fellow passengers and railway personnel had been fêting Stalin, Kamenev and Muranov as heroic fighters against the fallen regime. An honorific reception in Petrograd was anticipated.

In fact no one turned up at the Nicholas Station. There were no bands, no speeches, and no ceremonial escort to party headquarters at the house of the Emperor’s former mistress Matilda Kseshinskaya.¹⁶ They had to fend for themselves. When they had left the capital for Siberia, they had been Central Committee members and they expected to be treated with due decorum. They had a rude surprise.