(1)
Edward T. Heald, diary entry (1st January, 1917)
Much talk
and excitement about Rasputin's murder. His body was taken from the
Neva yesterday, within a mile of a bridge which I walked over coming
back from the Mayak an hour after his body had been thrown in.
(2)
Edward T. Heald, letter to his wife (27th February, 1917)
Crowds
of unarmed strikers and families gathered on the Nevsky Prospect during
the day and order was preserved by the Cossacks. We anticipated a
repetition of former times of disturbances when women and children
were ridden down by the Cossacks. This time, however, they used no
violence, but merely rode through the open lanes of the people, while
the latter shouted at them "You're ours" and the Cossacks
smiled back.
(3)
Edward T. Heald, letter to his wife (26th February, 1917)
We were
told that the cordial feeling existed the previous day between the
soldiers and the strikers had changed owing to the fact that one of
the officers had been killed. The police still had control of the
situation at least in the centre of the city. There were reports,
however, that there were three hundred thousand armed strikers on
the outskirts in the factory districts, and that when they could stop
them. We also heard that the government had brought in quantities
of ammunition, machine guns, armored automobiles, and tanks as well
as large numbers of Cossacks to meet the emergency.
(4)
Edward T. Heald, letter to his wife (3rd March, 1917)
Probably
the predominant impression that an American received from the events
of the day was the self-restraint and order of the soldiers, as well
as the workingmen. There were cases of killing and bloodshed, and
during the day many were taken to the hospitals; but considering the
size of the revolution and the number of men and soldiers engaged
in the struggle, the amount of bloodshed was small. Outside of the
destruction of property of the police districts, the officer's quarters,
and the homes of the suspected aristocracy, there was little looting.
(5)
Edward T. Heald, letter to his wife (2nd May, 1917)
The sudden
burst of radical propaganda, which has developed during the past week,
is attributed to a man named Lenin who has just arrived from Switzerland.
He came through Germany, and rumour is that he was banqueted by Emperor
Wilhelm. As he entered the country through Finland, he harangued the
soldiers and workingmen along the way with the most revolutionary
propaganda. One of the Americans who came through on the same train
told us how disheartening it was. Lenin's first words when he got
off the train at Petrograd were "Hail to the Civil war."
God knows what a task the Provisional Government has on hand without
adding the trouble that such a firebrand can create.
(6)
Edward T. Heald, letter to his wife (6th May, 1917)
The Petrograd
Soviet was still in session when the Peasants' Convention opened up.
Madame Breshkovskaya, the "Grandmother of the Revolution",
who has recently returned from the long exile in Siberia, made a strong
appeal for real democracy, and the peasants came back strong for democracy
and against the radical Bolsheviki. The latter only got two or three
votes out of eight hundred.
In the
Petrograd Soviet a radical, who had just arrived from New York, by
the name of Trotsky, got up and made a demagogic appeal for the overthrow
of the Duma and for the putting of the Soviet in power as the government.
But the great leaders of the meeting, Kerensky, Tseretelli and Plekhanov,
were against him, and the Soviet voted for participation in the Duma
Government and a new cabinet by a large majority.
(7)
Edward T. Heald, letter to his wife (6th October, 1917)
The Bolsheviki
were largely the forward, pushing, city type, while the non-Bolsheviki
were largely the slow-moving, slow-thinking, good-natured, easy-going,
country type. The non-Bolsheviki were on the defensive. They felt
no conviction about any cause. They were not hostile to Bolshevism
but simply kind of uneasy in their consciences about it. The Bolsheviki
seemed to sense that fact and directed their attack to overcome that
uneasiness.
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