In Berdichev Gaol—The Transfer of the “Berdichev Group” of Prisoners to Bykhov.

Besides Markov and me, whose share in events has been depicted in the preceding chapters, the following were cast into prison:

3. General Erdeli, Commander of the Special Army.

4. Lieutenant-General Varnovsky, Commander of the 1st Army.

5. Lieutenant-General Selivatchev, Commander of the 7th Army.

6. Lieutenant-General Eisner, Chief of Supplies to the South-Western Front.

The guilt of these men lay in their expression of solidarity with my telegram No. 145, and of the last, moreover, in his fulfilment of my orders for the isolation of the frontal region with respect to Kiev and Zhitomir.

7 and 8. General Eisner’s assistants—General Parsky and General Sergievsky—men who had absolutely no connection with events.

9. Major-General Orlov, Quartermaster-General of the Staff of the Front—a wounded man with a withered arm, timid, and merely carrying out the orders of the Chief-of-Staff.

10. Lieutenant Kletsando, of the Tchekh troops, who had wounded a soldier of Lyssaya Gora on August 28th.

11. Captain Prince Krapotkin, a man over sixty years of age, a Volunteer, and the Commandant of the Commander-in-Chief’s train. He was not initiated into events at all.

General Selivatchev, General Parsky and General Sergievsky were soon released. Prince Krapotkin was informed on September 6th that his actions had not been criminal, but was set free only on September 23rd, when it appeared that we were not to be tried at Berdichev. For a charge of rebellion to hold good against us an association of eight men at the very least had to be discovered. Our antagonists were much interested in this figure, being desirous of observing the rules of decorum.... There was another prisoner, however, kept in reserve and separate from us, at the Commandant’s office, and even afterwards transferred to Bykhov—a military official named Boudilovitch—a youth weak in body, but strong in spirit, who on one occasion dared to tell a wrathful mob that it was not worth the little finger of those whom it was maltreating.[72] No other crime was imputed to him.

On the second or third day of my imprisonment I read in a newspaper, which had accidentally or purposely found its way into my cell, an order from the Provisional Government to the Senate, dated August 29th, which ran as follows:

“Lieutenant-General Denikin, Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the South-Western Front, to be removed from the post of Commander-in-Chief and brought to trial for rebellion.—Signed: Minister-President A. Kerensky and B. Savinkov—in charge of the War Ministry.”

On the same date similar orders were issued concerning Generals Kornilov, Lukomsky, Markov and Kisliakov. Later an order was issued for the removal of General Romanovsky.

On the second or the third day of my arrest the guard-room was visited, for our examination, by a Committee of Investigation, under the superintendence of the Chief Field Prosecutor of the Front, General Batog, and under the presidency of Assistant-Commissar Kostitsin, consisting of:

Lieutenant-Colonel Shestoperov, in charge of the Juridical Section of the Commissariat; Lieutenant-Colonel Frank, of the Kiev Military Court; 2nd Lieut. Oudaltsov and Junior Sergeant of Artillery Levenberg, members of the Committee of the Front.

My evidence, in view of the facts of the case, was very short, and consisted of the following statements: (1) None of the persons arrested with me had taken part in any active proceedings against the Government; (2) all orders given to and through the Staff during my last days, in connection with General Kornilov’s venture, proceeded from me; (3) I considered, and still consider, that the activity of the Provisional Government is criminal and ruinous for Russia, but that nevertheless I had not instituted a rebellion against it, but having sent my telegram No. 145, I had left it to the Provisional Government to take such action towards me as it might see fit.

Later the Chief Military Prosecutor, Shablovsky, having acquainted himself with the material of the investigation and with the circumstances which had arisen around it in Berdichev, was horrified at the “uncautious formulation” of my evidence.

By September 1st Iordansky was already reporting to the War Ministry that the Committee of Investigation had discovered documents establishing the existence of a conspiracy which had long been preparing.... At the same time, Iordansky, man of letters, inquired of the Government whether, in the matter of the direction of the cases of the Generals arrested, he could act within the limits of the law, in conformity with local circumstances, or whether he was bound to be guided by any political considerations of the Central Authority. In reply he was informed that he must act reckoning with the law alone and ... taking into consideration local circumstances.[73]

In view of this explanation, Iordansky decided to commit us for trial by a Revolutionary Court-Martial, to which end a Court was formed of members of one of the Divisions formerly subordinated to me at the Front, while Captain Pavlov, member of the Executive Committee of the South-Western Front, was marked down for public prosecutor.

Thus the interests of competency, impartiality and fair play were observed.

Iordansky was so anxious to obtain a speedy verdict for myself and for the Generals imprisoned with me that on September 3rd he proposed that the Commission, without waiting for the elucidation of the circumstances, should present the cases to the Revolutionary Court-Martial in groups, as the guilt of one or other of the accused was established.

We were much depressed by our complete ignorance of what was taking place in the outer world.

On rare occasions Kostitsin acquainted us with the more important current events, but in the Commissar’s comments on the events only depressed us still more. It was clear, however, that the Government was breaking up altogether, that Bolshevism was raising its head higher and higher, and that the country must inevitably perish.

About September 8th or 10th, when the investigation was over, our prison surroundings underwent, to some extent, a change. Newspapers began to appear in our cells almost daily; at first secretly, afterwards, from September 22nd, officially. At the same time, after the relief of one of the Companies of Guards, we decided to try an experiment: during our exercise in the corridor I approached Markov and started talking with him; the sentries did not interfere. From that time we began talking with one another every day; sometimes the sentries demanded that we should stop, and then we were silent at once, but more frequently they did not interfere. In the second half of September visitors also were allowed; the curiosity of the “comrades” of Lyssaya Gora was now apparently satisfied; fewer of them gathered about the square, and I used to go out to walk every day, was able to see all the prisoners and exchange a few words with them now and again. Now, at least, we knew what was doing in the world, while the possibility of meeting one another removed the depression caused by isolation.

From the papers we learned that the investigation of the Kornilov case was committed to the Supreme Investigation Committee, presided over by the Chief Military and Naval Prosecutor, Shablovsky.[74]

About September 9th, in the evening, a great noise and the furious shouts of a large crowd were heard near the prison. In a little while four strangers entered my cell—confused and much agitated by something or other. They said they were the President and members of the Supreme Committee of Investigation for the Kornilov case.[75]

Shablovsky, in a still somewhat broken voice, began to explain that the purpose of their arrival was to take us off to Bykhov, and that, judging by the temper which had developed in Berdichev, and by the fury of the mob which now surrounded the prison, they could see that there were no guarantees for justice here, but only savage revenge. He added that the Committee had no doubt as to the inadmissibility of any segregation of our cases, and as to the necessity of a common trial for all the participators in the Kornilov venture, but that the Commissariat and the Committees were using all means against this. The Committee, therefore, asked me whether I would not wish to supplement my evidence by any facts which might yet more clearly establish the connection between our case and Kornilov’s. In view of the impossibility of holding the examination amidst the roar of the crowd which had gathered, they decided to postpone it to the following day.

The Committee departed; soon after the crowd dispersed.

What more could I tell them? Only, perhaps, something of the advice which Kornilov had given me at Moghilev, and through a messenger. But this was done as a matter of exceptional confidence on the part of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, which I could in no case permit myself to break. Therefore, the few details which I added next day to my original evidence did not console the commission and did not, apparently, satisfy the volunteer, a member of the Committee of the Front, who was present at the examination.

Nevertheless, we waited with impatience for our liberation from the Berdichev chamber of torture. But our hopes were clouded more and more. The newspaper of the Committee of the Front methodically fomented the passions of the garrison; it was reported that at all the meetings of all the Committees resolutions were passed against letting us out of Berdichev; the Committee members were agitating mightily among the rear units of the garrison, and meetings were held which passed off in a spirit of great exaltation.

The aim of the Shablovsky Commission was not attained. As it turned out in the beginning of September, to Shablovsky’s demand that a separate trial of the “Berdichev group” should not be allowed, Iordansky replied that “to say nothing of the transfer of the generals to any place whatsoever, even the least postponement of their trial would threaten Russia with incalculable calamities—complications at the front, and a new civil war in the rear,” and that both on political and on tactical grounds it was necessary to have us tried in Berdichev, in the shortest possible time, and by Revolutionary Court-Martial.[76]

The Committee of the Front and the Kiev Soviet of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates would not agree to our transfer, despite all the arguments and persuasions brought forward at their meeting by Shablovsky and the members of his Commission. On the way back, at Moghilev, a consultation took place on this question between Kerensky, Shablovsky, Iordansky and Batog. All, excepting Shablovsky, came to the altogether unequivocal conclusion that the front was shaken, that the soldiery was restless and demanding a victim, and that it was necessary to enable the tense atmosphere to discharge itself, even at the cost of injustice.... Shablovsky rose and declared that he would not permit such a cynical attitude toward law and justice.

I remember that this tale perplexed me. It is not worth while disputing about points of view. But if the Minister-President is convinced that in the matter of protecting the State it is admissible to let oneself be guided by expediency, in what way, then, was Kornilov to blame?

On September 14th a debate took place in Petrograd, in the last “court of appeal”—in the military section of the Executive Committee of the Council of Workmen’s and Soldiers’ Delegates—between Shablovsky and the representative of the Committee of the South-Western Front, fully supported by Iordansky. The last two declared that if the Revolutionary Court-Martial was not held on the spot, in Berdichev, in the course of the next five days the lynching of the prisoners was to be feared. However, the Central Committee agreed with Shablovsky’s arguments, and sent its resolution to that effect to Berdichev.

So an organised lynching was prevented. But the Revolutionary institutions of Berdichev had at their service another method for liquidating the “Berdichev group,” an easy and irresponsible one—the method of popular wrath....

A rumour spread that we were to be taken away on the 23rd, then it was stated that our departure would take place on the 27th at 5 p.m. from the passenger station.

To take the prisoners away without making the fact public was in no way difficult: in a motor-car, on foot in a column of cadets, or, again, in a railway carriage—a narrow gauge-line came close up to the guard-house and joined on to the broad gauge-line outside the town and the railway station.[77] But such a method of transferring us did not agree with the intentions of the Commissariat and the Committees.

General Doukhonin inquired from the Stavka, of the Staff of the Front, whether there were any reliable units in Berdichev, and offered to send a detachment to assist in our move. The Staff of the Front declined assistance. The Commander-in-Chief, General Volodchenko, had left on the eve, the 26th, for the Front....

Much talk and an unhealthy atmosphere of expectation and curiosity were being artificially created around this question....

Kerensky sent a telegram to the Commissariat: “I am sure of the prudence of the garrison, which may elect, from among its numbers, two representatives to accompany.”

In the morning the Commissariat began visiting all the units in the garrison, to obtain their consent to our transfer.

The Committee had appointed a meeting of the whole garrison for 2 p.m., i.e., three hours before our departure, and in the field, moreover, immediately beside our prison. This mass meeting did indeed take place; at it the representatives of the Commissariat and of the Committee of the Front announced the orders for our transfer to Bykhov, thoughtfully announced the hour of our departure and appealed to the garrison ... to be prudent; the meeting continued for a long time and, of course, did not disperse. By 5 o’clock an excited crowd of thousands of men had surrounded the guard-room, and its dull murmur made its way into the building.

Among the officers of the Cadet Battalion of the 2nd Zhitomir School of 2nd Lieutenants, which was on guard this day, was Captain Betling, wounded in many battles, who before the War had served in the 17th Archangelogorod Infantry Regiment, which I commanded.[78] Betling asked the superior officer of the School to replace by his half-company the detachment appointed to accompany the prisoners to the railway station. We all dressed and came out into the corridor. We waited. An hour, two hours passed....

The meeting continued. Numerous speakers called for an immediate lynching.... The soldier who had been wounded by Lieutenant Kletsando was shouting hysterically and demanding his head.... Standing in the porch of the guard-room, Assistant Commissaries Kostitsin and Grigoriev were trying persuasion with the mob. That dear Betling, too, spoke several times, hotly and passionately. We could not hear his words.

At last, pale and agitated, Betling and Kostitsin came up to me.

“How will you decide? The crowd has promised not to touch anyone, only it demands that you should be taken to the station on foot. But we cannot answer for anything.”

I replied:

“Let us go.”

I took off my cap and crossed myself:

“Lord, bless us!”

The crowd raged. We, the seven of us, surrounded by a group of cadets, headed by Betling, who marched by my side with drawn sword, entered the narrow passage through this living human sea, which pressed on us from all sides. In front were Kostitsin and the delegates (twelve to fifteen) chosen by the garrison to escort us. Night was coming on, and in its eerie gloom, with the rays of the searchlight on the armoured car cutting through it now and then, moved the raving mob, growing and rolling on like a flaming avalanche. The air was full of a deafening roar, hysterical shouts, and mephitic curses. At times they were covered by Betling’s loud, anxious voice:

“Comrades, you have given your word!... Comrades, you have given your word!...”

The cadets, those splendid youths, crushed together on all sides, push aside with their bodies the pressing crowd, which disorders their thin ranks. Passing the pools left by yesterday’s rain, the soldiers fill their hands with mud and pelt us with it. Our faces, eyes, ears, are covered with its fetid, viscid slime. Stones come flying at us. Poor, crippled General Orlov has his face severely bruised; Erdeli and I, as well, were struck—in the back and on the head.

On our way we exchanged monosyllabic remarks. I turned to Markov:

“What, my dear Professor, is this the end?”

“Apparently....”

The mob would not let us come up to the station by the straight path. We were taken by a roundabout way, some three miles altogether, through the main streets of the town. The crowd is growing. The balconies of the Berdichev houses are full of curious spectators; the women wave their handkerchiefs. Gay, guttural voices come from above:

“Long live freedom!”

The railway station is flooded with light. There we find a new, vast crowd of several thousand people. And all this has merged in the general sea which rages and roars. With enormous difficulty we are brought through it under a hail of curses and of glances full of hatred. The railway carriage. An officer—Elsner’s son—sobbing hysterically and addressing impotent threats to the mob, and his soldier servant, lovingly soothing him, as he takes away his revolver; two women, dumb with horror—Kletsando’s wife and sister, who had thought to see him off....

We wait for an hour, for another. The train is not allowed to leave—a prisoner’s car is demanded. There were none at the station. The mob threatens to do for the Commissaries. Kostitsin is slightly buffeted. A goods car is brought, all defiled with horse-dung—what a trifle! We enter it without the assistance of a platform; poor Orlov is lifted in with difficulty; hundreds of hands are stretched towards us through the firm and steady ranks of the cadets.... It is already 10 p.m. The engine gives a jerk. The crowd booms out still louder. Two shots are heard. The train starts.

The noise dies away, the lights grow dimmer. Farewell Berdichev!

Kerensky shed a tear of delight over the self-abnegation of “our saviours”—as he called—not the cadets, but the Commissaries and the Committee members.

“What irony of fate! General Denikin, arrested as Kornilov’s accomplice, was saved from the rage of the frenzied soldiers by the members of the Executive Committee of the South-Western Front and by the Commissaries of the Provisional Government.”

“I remember with what agitation I and the never-to-be-forgotten Doukhonin read the account of how a handful of these brave men escorted the arrested generals through a crowd of thousands of soldiers who were thirsting for their blood....”[79] Why slander the dead? Certainly, Doukhonin was no less anxious for the fate of the prisoners than for ... the fate of their revolutionary escort....

That Roman citizen, Pontius Pilate, smiled mockingly through the gloom of the ages....