The Revolutionary City of Petrograd (2)
Around the time Anastasia led the White Army out of Moscow, Alexander Kolchak—Admiral of the nascent Russian fleet and temporary chairman of the Duma—convened the provisional Duma. Representatives from Yekaterinburg’s citizens, nobles who had joined the cause there, Green Army delegates, and many others filled the seats. These were people originally divided by wildly different ideologies and beliefs; after the civil war, the Duma was to decide the path the new Russia would follow—whether it would be a socialist state, a democratic republic, or a monarchy.
Kolchak had summoned them to settle the question before the princess returned from her campaign. “When Her Highness returns to Petrograd, we will convene again to make the final decision. But to avoid chaos then, I believe it best to gather a prevailing opinion now.”
“Mr. Chairman, please state the agenda.”
“The direction our Russia must take from this point forward.”
A low murmur of unease rippled through the assembly. The proposal had come too suddenly. A few had anticipated it, yet after months of nothing but war and frantic reform, their surprise was understandable.
“Some among you no doubt hope for a moderate socialist state distinct from the Bolsheviks. Republicans are surely present, as are monarchists. Yet every one of you knows the truth: this Russia cannot function without Her Highness the Princess. The territories of Mongolia and North Manchuria have been recognized precisely because she exists. Even now, while the civil war prevents their formal incorporation, they stand with us because of her.”
“Then is the Chairman suggesting we simply return to the old order?”
Everyone in the Duma knew Kolchak was a monarchist. With Anastasia vigorously driving reform, some suspected he might be using the moment to drag the nation back into autocratic antiquity.
“That is not my intention. From the beginning, Her Highness herself has shown no desire for the old autocracy.”
“Then…?”
“The Great Russian Federation. The United States. That is what the princess has planned.”
“The United States…”
It meant reorganizing the ethnic minorities, the warlords, and regional leaders into a federal structure. Having survived the Red-White Civil War together, they would become one again beneath a single union. A Russian United States in which many nations and peoples would blend and advance side by side. Indeed, minority representatives already sat in the Duma; the very plan that had won their support for the White Army had been built on this idea.
Federation. United States. Kolchak intended to go one step further.
“On top of that, what would you say to establishing Her Highness as Tsarina under a constitutional monarchy?”
The enthronement of Anastasia as Tsarina. In truth, Kolchak had only one reason for pressing the motion. He had spoken of stepping back, of withdrawing from power. Yet the fact that he had continued radical reforms even in the midst of civil war suggested he was not entirely ready to disappear. If he had truly meant to go into exile, he would have done so long ago.
The princess had also assumed the title of Great Khan of Mongolia. From all this, Kolchak had drawn a single conclusion: Anastasia wanted someone else to raise her to the throne. Because of what her father had done, she could not declare herself Tsarina on her own. She needed another to lift her up. Seeing through her heart, Kolchak had placed the proposal before the Duma.
Of course, it would be naïve to claim he had no personal stake. He had tied his fate to hers from the start. Should the princess fail to become Tsarina and instead go into exile or retreat, he would be forced to do the same. It was not mere lust for power. After all the blood and toil, simply fading into the background felt unbearable. Already branded a monarchist, he would certainly be purged under any republican or socialist regime. Therefore, the only path was a federal constitutional monarchy with Anastasia as Tsarina.
The parliamentarians whispered among themselves.
Well, the tide has already turned.
If the princess steps aside now, Russia will fracture again.
Even under constitutional monarchy, her prestige would make it little different from autocracy for the foreseeable future.
She already controls the military and the hearts of the people. Opposition would be pointless.
The Salic law has become meaningless.
Had South Russia not yet joined, the Green Army might have protested loudly. But the south had come over, the army and public sentiment were firmly in the princess’s grasp, and in such a situation it was far wiser to keep one’s parliamentary seat than to rise in futile revolt.
“I am in favor,” Krasnov—the republican who had defended Moscow alongside General Gaida—declared. Vasily Kharlamov of the Caucasus White Army, other White leaders, and even the socialist-leaning Green Army commanders followed in swift succession.
One member raised the Salic law and earned sharp glares, but the objection was brushed aside. In the end, the vote was unanimous. The postwar Russian state would be established as a constitutional monarchy and federal republic.
Of course, though they called it a united states, it was in reality Russian Empire Season 2.
Petrograd
“Her Highness the Tsarina has personally taken Moscow! Now we—the armies of the Great Russian Empire—shall capture Petrograd and present it to her!”
Supported by Finnish forces, Yudenich’s army stood on the verge of taking the city. Yet the Bolshevik reinforcements arriving with Trotsky proved formidable, and Petrograd’s defensive lines grew stubbornly thick.
“Hold the reactionaries to the last! You must defend the revolutionary city of Petrograd at all costs!”
The capital had nearly fallen, but Trotsky’s return as a rallying point reversed the tide. After all, this was the revolutionary city. The birthplace of the revolution could not be allowed to fall to such counter-revolutionaries. Trotsky defended Petrograd with fanatical determination. They had already lost Moscow in humiliating fashion and been forced to abandon Comrade Lenin. They could not afford to yield here as well.
Thanks to Trotsky’s desperate resistance, Yudenich’s offensive failed. Pavel Bermondt’s Western Russian Army, still recovering from its own losses, could offer no assistance.
“Damn it. Does the Finnish commander have no other ideas?”
“It appears difficult. Had Finland avoided its own civil war and been able to pressure Petrograd from the beginning, the outcome might have been different.”
If they had helped Yudenich earlier, perhaps. But even if Mannerheim wished to act alone, there was only so much one man could do. At least this time, thanks to the Tsarina’s proposal, things had gone as well as they could.
A thunderous cheer erupted.
“What is happening?”
“Tsarina Anastasia approaches at the head of a great army!”
“The Tsarina herself?”
The woman who had slaughtered the reds in Moscow had now come in person, leading tens of thousands. A monarch personally commanding troops on the battlefield in the twentieth century—did such a thing even make sense? Artillery would soon turn the ground into a sea of blood, yet here she came. Of course her father, Nicholas II, had also gone to the front to direct battles, but this was different. The princess who should have been wearing dresses, laughing gaily, marrying, and becoming a wife was instead dressed in military uniform and leading soldiers into war. It was nothing like the days of Rasputin. Unlike the time when revolutionaries had betrayed the imperial family, countless people now followed this Tsarina.
The morale of the White Army encircling Petrograd soared to the heavens.
In the Battle of Moscow the Bolsheviks had pulled nearly every unit from their western offensive back to defend the city. Most had died or surrendered; only a handful remained in the west. Those remnants collapsed or capitulated the moment they were attacked. There were still some hardcore Bolsheviks, but that was all. In any case, it was not only me dealing with them—Brusilov was thrashing them soundly on the western front.
“O God, protect the blessed saint of all Russia!”
“O God, protect the Tsarina!”
It really is a shame. I clicked my tongue. If only Lenin, Stalin, the entire Red Army high command, and the Soviet Union itself had been holed up in Petrograd, smashing the revolutionary city would have carried far greater symbolic weight. That’s the only disappointing part. The revolutionary city has been reduced to nothing more than an ordinary enemy stronghold.
“How many enemy troops are there?”
“We do not have exact figures, but intelligence suggests several tens of thousands.”
Tens of thousands. That would be easier than Moscow. Leaving aside the White units I had stationed in recaptured territories to maintain order, the army I had brought was more than enough to overturn Petrograd. If they resisted desperately we would take some losses, but they were only remnants. The harder they fought, the more the White Army’s hatred and fury toward the Bolsheviks would swell.
I wondered whether Trotsky would accept a surrender offer. That hardcore red would never agree.
“Tens of thousands…”
“We should launch the offensive at once,” Yudenich urged, teeth visibly clenched.
But I had no intention of attacking immediately. Petrograd was isolated. Even if Trotsky gritted his teeth and held on, there would be no fresh supplies of weapons, no replacement of the flawed Mosin-Nagants with Fedorov rifles, no sudden appearance of tanks or aircraft. Food was obviously out of the question. The citizens, already steeped in distrust of the Bolsheviks—would they abandon Trotsky? Or would they cling to him to the end, true to the legacy of the revolutionary city? That question interested me.
“These people were once my father’s subjects. Let us surround the city and give them a few days. That will at least make us appear merciful.”
I granted them those days. Naturally—astonishingly—Trotsky maintained absolute silence in response to the surrender proposal. We even scattered leaflets telling the citizens of Petrograd that if they delivered Trotsky and his inner circle, there would be no battle.
The result was total disregard. They were determined to see blood. Or perhaps they meant that even in death they would not hand the capital of the Russian Empire over to me intact. I had clearly given them a chance. The reds of Petrograd were the ones who threw it away. At this point, only the hardcore ones remained.
Until now I had endured, but I despise the reds. In the world where I had lived as an ordinary college student, those filthy creatures had triggered nuclear war and destroyed civilization. They preached idealism while practicing oppression and tyranny. Cockroaches who spoke of universal equality yet worshipped dictators—the very embodiment of hypocrisy. Those feelings merged with Anastasia’s own memories of her family being executed by firing squad, driving my disgust to an extreme.
I had clearly told them to surrender. They were the ones who refused.
“I gave them a chance. They ignored it. Must I forgive them?”
“No.”
“They remain infected by the red plague. I intend to cure them with the most extreme medicine—death. Does anyone object?”
“Death to the Bolsheviks!”
“Deliver merciless retribution!”
The White Army commanders unanimously approved the purge. These were men who had fought the Bolsheviks for years. Those who had refused to join the revolution and instead risen against it had no reason to oppose the extermination of their old enemy.
“Moscow became filthy as the center of the red plague, yet after surrendering it will become part of the new Russia—though it can never again be the Third Rome. Petrograd, however, is different.”
Therefore it could not be forgiven. If it insisted on remaining the city of revolution until the end, it would be uprooted without mercy.
All the White commanders present—Pyotr Wrangel, Drozdovsky, Nikolai Yudenich, Krasnov, Pepelyaev, and the rest, along with Mannerheim who had come as commander of the Finnish army. Anton Denikin, Brusilov, and Ungern were excluded; they were busy conducting the western offensive and mopping up Bolshevik remnants.
I looked over them and declared:
The commanders answered as one.
The hardcore Bolsheviks of Petrograd could not be allowed to tie our feet. The remaining red embers scattered across Russia must not be permitted to rise again. We would obliterate the very symbol of revolution.