Читать книгу 1917. Key to the “Russian” Revolution - Николай Стариков - Страница 3

Almost 90 years have passed after the February and the October Revolutions, but it is still not clear why and how the powerful Russian Empire fell into oblivion. Whenever you study the history of the Russian Revolution, you will find dark spots here and there. Historians have come up with lots of explanations about those events. And lo and behold, as the social and political structure changes, these explanations change, too. They are as substantial and convincing as before, but their essence becomes directly opposite. It is much like whenever a judge changed, the person on trial and the proof system would change, too. These explanations are like rings on the water – they remain atop, and it is all mud, murky water, and silence in the deep.

A bright example is how Lenin traveled in a "sealed" railway car. Some of the historians say the German spy Ulyanov came home bringing German money. The others say the proletarian leader returned to orchestrate a revolution. However, neither can explain why Lenin freely entered Russia or why he didn't have to use any counterfeit documents. Right at the railway station, he called people to overthrow the existing government and just got away with that.

We need the simplest tool to study the history of our revolutions – the common sense. If a healthy, powerful, and very rich person suddenly died, the investigation process would be the same in any country. Competent agencies would consider all the versions, look for motives, vestiges, and proofs of the crime. No variants would be neglected only because "this can't be true." Detectives shall not act from emotions in their job, they have to deal with the facts. And when a whole empire has been destroyed, documents and deeds of people are the facts.

If we start to study the revolution period in our country, our main feeling will be astonishment. That incredibly many acts of states, politicians, governments, and parties within such a short time segment cause contradictory feelings. However, let's not see politicians and statesmen as fools and simpletons. They aren't any witless than we are. If their actions seem odd to us, then we just fail to see their real motives and objectives. If a variety of serious political events miraculously coincide in such a short period, it can't be a game of chance. Let's see who profited from it…

Let's conduct our own investigation. We'll stick to the facts and put away all the emotions and stereotypes. Just then the one to be truly blamed for the catastrophe unprecedented in the Russian history will come out of the shadow…

Convenient bowels of the conspiracy theory are regularly used to hide the truth about the reasons, orchestrators, and sponsors of the Russian Revolution. Indeed, how can the colossus of a revolution be planned in advance? How can all the kaleidoscope of occasions, human characters, and acts of nature be taken into account? What brain or association is capable of that?

This is what we hear from those who either strive to withhold the truth or are just unaware of how the global politics works, and therefore believe that revolutions are always spontaneous like fires in warehouses happen to be. They believe that neither misuse of funds nor revisions can cause fires, that competitors never set fires on their opponents, and enviers never commit acts of arson – they are sure that the only reasons for fires are short circuits and cigarette ends unextinguished without any fraudulent intent…

So, can a revolution be calculated and planned?

Definitely not! No one has ever planned a revolution as an accurate sequence of mathematically precise acts of different people and groups. However, it doesn't mean that there were no intents to shatter Russia from the inside and remove this strong geopolitical competitor.

Do you plan your life from one certificate to another? When I am 18, I will enter University A on Street B, and I will get A in Math and В in Physics. When I am 23, I will be an ordinary manager with 2 years' experience, and then I'll be appointed deputy director, and in 5 years I'll become a director. When I am 26, I'll get married to a blonde by the name of Irene, and we'll have two daughters. We'll have Karina this year, and Olga the next year. When I turn 29, I'll buy a country house…

No one plans their lives that way, that's ridiculous. Life has so many factors that simply can't be predicted. No one is capable of such scheduling, but does it mean that you DON'T MAKE ANY PLANS IN YOUR LIFE? Does it mean you don't construct your life in some way? This is as much nonsense. But this is exactly what our "denouncers' say – because a revolution is as unpredictable as nature, no one can do anything to explode opposing states.

Still, you plan your life – not in every detail, but in general, topically. I need to get a degree, I need to get married, now it's time to have kids. You choose the trends of your life and affect its course. Thus, your life is 50% governed by circumstances and 50% created by yourself.

Likewise, the orchestrators of the Russian Revolution never planned it end-to-end, but they always tried to direct the events according to their needs. They watched the circumstances developing, adjusted, changed and modified their plans, they made their mistakes, had their wins and sustained their defeats. A revolution is like life, and in life, you always plan your objectives depending on sine waves of the reality.

We use different people to our benefit, whether it is good or bad. We just do it. National security agencies do the same – they spent dozens of years to weaken and destroy their opponents. And doing so, they use a lot of people that for various reasons and circumstances are eager to cooperate and help. Sometimes these "helpers" simply don't understand what they are doing, as no one explains to them the essence of their tasks.

States contest each other, and this is indisputable. If the opponent has become weaker, wow. If he hasn't, proceed. Complete destruction of the opponent is an inaccessible objective and is really rare. It requires exclusive good luck and a combination of circumstances, as well as long-term painstaking work, every day and every hour.

This is what the Russian Revolution was about. THAT Tsar in the lead of the country, THOSE allies of the Tsar, that small bunch of extremely talented cynics and riff-raffs from revolutionary parties, that good luck for one party, and that fatal bad luck for the other. Criminal stupidity, foul treachery, impermissible faith, and a gift of oratory – all of it made our revolution happen. There were dozens of thousands of factors that combined for Russia's bad luck.

All those ifs…

However, we can't fail to see that all of it was prepared by the scouts of the foreign nation, who took every effort to get all of it ready…

…Our revolution had two stages that are mistakenly considered to be independent full-weight coups. Whether you admit it or not, it all started in February.[1] We've always been told that the events of the February Revolution were plain and simple: hungry people took to the streets to cry out for some bread and then turned to political slogans. They say it was how autocracy was toppled in Russia. However, the simplicity of this scheme is so very misleading. For instance, Pavel Milyukov, one of the leaders of the February Revolution, the leader of the Constitutional Democratic (KDs) Party, didn't agree with this simplicity. Having participated in those events in person, he didn't delay to write down his reminiscences of them, where he confided that the mechanisms of the February Revolution remained unclear to him.

"This is the darkest spot in the history of the Russian Revolution," Milyukov wrote about the events that had put a start to the February Revolution.[2] The name of the chapter where this quotation comes from is also informative, as it is "Secret Sources of Labor Movement."[3] The matter of how and why this revolution started is "the darkest spot" in regard to the February Revolution. This is so odd – you start to read memoirs of the central figures of those events and see blind spots here and there. You had it all clear, bread – demonstration – revolution, but as soon as you open the memoirs of one of the main "Februarists," the puzzle gets scattered.

"One of the omens for this overthrow was the suppressed unrest within labor masses, its source unclear, though this source could hardly have been the leaders of Socialist Parties within the State Duma."[4]

The coup started with labor demonstrations, but Milyukov was absolutely unaware of who organized them and why they began.

It is only obvious that KDs didn't initiate them, and nor did their allies from the Progressive Party in the Duma. Social Revolutionaries (SRs) didn't take people to the streets, either. This becomes evident as we flip through a book by Victor Chernov, a well-known leader of this party. After the chapter on how the World War proceeded and how revolutionaries from different countries were trying to come to some mutual understanding, he tells us how he returned to Russia after the February Revolution.[5] If SRs had made something this important, they would have been trumpeting about it all over the world: we've started a process that ended in the damned tsarism overthrowing!

Bolsheviks didn't organize the labor demonstrations, either, though later the Soviet historians crept them with the merit of the manifestation arrangement. However, it happened much later, when many of those involved in these events were already dead, and the rest of them were writing their memoirs abroad. At that moment, the matter of who took people to the streets in February 1917 was interesting only to a small coterie, and no one was going to argue with the Red historians. It was so convenient and profitable for the true orchestrators of Russia's collapse. Lenin and his party gave them a 100% good alibi. However, contradicting this lie is so easy – we only need to ask who of the Bolshevist leaders arranged the labor demonstrations that ended in the tsarism overthrowing. It will instantly become clear that all of them were either abroad or in prison, and Vladimir Lenin learnt about the revolution "orchestrated by his party" from the fresh Swiss newspapers. And oh, he was surprised.

And yet, the start of the February Revolution is the key moment for us. We need to know for sure when the Russian Empire started to collapse, and then we will arm ourselves with patience and immense into the subject. And here there are some new discoveries. To be more specific, the logics of these events should be like this: bread – the labor demonstration – the clashes with the police – the revolt of the city garrison soldiers – the revolution. And again, there are mysteries at every turn here:

• it is unknown why the working people came to protest;

• it is also unknown who orchestrated these demonstrations.

"Neither Bolsheviks nor Mensheviks, or the Working Party, or the SRs on their own or all together could have brought the workers of Petrograd to the streets," Viktor Chernov, the leader of the Socialist Revolutionary party, wrote in his memoirs.[6]

So, the workers just stopped working, drew some posters and banners as they must have been bored and for no reason moved forward to overthrow autocracy If we dig further into the Chronicles of the February Revolution, it doesn't become any clearer. Nobody can give a reasonable answer to the second key question – who took the soldiers to the streets?

"Just the day before it (appearance of soldiers – N. S.), the representatives of the left-wing parties met, and most of them were sure that the turmoil was fading away and that the Government had won," Milyukov quoted his Duma colleague Vladimir Stankevich and added, "However, behind-the-scenes revolution preparation remained behind the scenes."[7]

Hey, that is interesting. A revolution took place, and no one can clearly explain how its primary events, which caused the shift in power in Russia, happened. No one got soldiers or workers ready, but as if commanded they took to the streets when it was needed, and the outcome of the case was in favor of the overthrow. "There must have been a directing force, but it obviously had nothing to do with organized left-wing parties," Milyukov tells us.[8] And there are some incertitude and confusion in the words of the KD leader. The revolution happened, but neither the Rights (i.e., KDs and Octobrists) nor the Lefts (i.e., SRs and Social Democrats) had organized it. It's hard not to get confused: they had been waiting for freedom decades-long, and when it came, no one knew whom to bless for it.

And old time-proven clichés – whatever is wrong, the Germans did it – didn't work here. It was so convenient, and no evidence was needed. The key proof is really simple: who else can profit from it? Whom did we fight with? Germany Then, whatever was wrong, the Germans did it. However, if we check the facts closer, this simple logic doesn't work. It wasn't for the first time when in February 1917 our dear Russian workers went on a strike. They had already done that before, for instance, during the Russian Revolution in 1905–1907. Still, never in historiography has anyone written that the first Revolution in 1905 with all its strikes was orchestrated by the Kaiser's intelligence service. That was because it was so ridiculous and absurd to blame the Germans for heating up the Russian liberation movement in that historic period. And indeed, Berlin had no motive for subversion in 1905. It was Japan who had the motive, so historians love to say that during the Russo-Japanese war revolutionaries were paid with Mikado's money. Yet, as World War 1 began, the Japanese lost their motive for subversion (as they were with the Entente), and now the Germans had it, as Russia became their opponent.

Just one problem here – all the questionable events of the Russian Revolutions seem to be written with one hand. One hand held the pen and simply copied the same scenario.[9]

And if we know the Germans didn't orchestrate our first revolt, why should we put the February and even the October in their book?

"Great changes came in the east. In March, the revolution supported by the Entente overthrew the Tsar… It is a mystery to me why the Entente walked hand in hand with the revolution… But there is no doubt the Entente hoped to accrue some benefits from the revolution to make war…," said General Erich Ludendorff, the actual leader of the German Army.[10]

Why did they need the revolution? In fact, it was the revolutionary explosion that destroyed both the Russian and the German Empires…

It wasn't Germany that orchestrated the February Revolution. Why am I so sure? Because by now NONE OF THE HISTORIANS has ever blamed the Germans. The German agents took advantage of the revolt, indeed. If a crowd of drunken soldiers is passing by, why not aim it at counter-intelligence? Why not direct them to kill – not only officers, like in Kronshtadt, but certain people from a special list? And still, it is a smart use of the circumstances shaped up by somebody else…

Everybody blames the German General Staff for orchestrating the October, but no one blames it for the February. And this is weird. The first part of the revolutionary demolition of Russia in 1917 is kind of "ownerless." It happened on its own. Whereas the Germans are believed to have prepared the October. The problem is that both the February and the October Revolutions are links of the same chain, steps of the same stairs. These are two parts of one plan. And if you, dear reader, think this matter is disputable now, when you've just started to read this book, you will have no doubts in that regard after we're done.

And if the orchestrator is the same, and the February Revolution wasn't prepared by the Germans, then who is responsible for our revolution?

…February 1917 brought strange and mysterious events. There were no orchestrators, no reasons, but there were consequences disastrous for Russia. No one knew about them then, they weren't that obvious. Who of the happy protesters flushed with the wind of changes in February 1917 could have imagined that in six months the powerful Russian Army would become a herd of looters and deserters, that soldiers would be killing their officers, and that in eight months a group of fanatics would seize the power? Not even in their nightmares they imagined the Civil War, typhus, famine, their native country absolutely ruined, and millions of people dead.

And yet, "unexplainable" events in the Russian Empire began long before February 1917 and haven't stopped by now. Like a venomous snake, they crawled since the first Russian Revolution over the body of World War 1. They impregnated the February and the October Revolutions to the core. After that, weird and curious coincidences faded away and came back only in 1985 to add plentiful decoration to the quiet and dull life in the Soviet Union. And right after that, the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

So, who orchestrated it all? Who does Russia owe for incomprehensible sufferings of its sons and daughters? To answer this question we have to go back in time that passes by so fast. We need to get back to the start of the Russo-Japanese War. And we'll clearly see that the chaos and anarchy that were to start in Russia had been accurately planned. Those who truly believe that the first and the next Russian revolutions happened on their own should pay attention to one little-known fact. On January 27, 1904, some Philipp Voronov came to the State Bank of St. Petersburg, where he had an account, and explained that he had received a note with a hysterical warning, "Save your money!" Such letters (both handwritten and hectographed) suddenly appeared all over the Russian Empire and filled the country promptly. The authors of the note threatened, "The ministers need money to fight Japan. They take our money from the banks and give us our revenue."

This economic diversion was started in advance. And mind you that those notes appeared in Russian cities right on the first day (!) of the Russo-Japanese War. It means that whoever intended to undermine the financial stability of Russia needed to know when the Japanese were going to "suddenly" attack our fleet in Port Arthur. And the letters had to be printed and sent out all over the country, it was necessary to plan how they were going to be distributed and passed to the paper boys. In short, a serious and extensive work had to be done…

The notes weren't published in vain – in many places the situation quickly became critical, and funds started to outflow from the banks. The panic was especially strong in the provinces of Warsaw, Baltics, Minsk, Vilnius, and Grodno. However, calm and balanced state politics helped to overcome the challenge. Whoever wished it were returned their deposits, and all top Russian newspapers published announcements that the banks undertook to further observe their obligations to their depositors. Similar announcements were posted in the banks and in public places. And the panic settled down. Today the story of the panic among the depositors in 1904 is told in Sberbank of Russia to draw attention to the challenging and hard times this grand company has faced through its 160 years of existence. The matter of who orchestrated these difficulties is not raised or studied anymore. No one draws parallels between the similar actions and further feeding of the revolution machine.

So, who was trying to cause economic collapse in Russia? At first, one would think of blaming Japan. And there is no doubt that the Japanese secret services had their hand in it. Yet, they were definitely unable to cause havoc that major, not least because they didn't have that distributed agent network in Russia. At that time the Japanese secret services only started to communicate with the Russian revolutionaries. Moreover, a sudden activity of the Japanese in searching contacts with the subversives could have alerted the Russian counter-intelligence and warned the tsarist government about the upcoming war. If one such note had got to the wrong hands, the entire Russo-Japan War could have gone differently.

It means someone helped the Japanese. Only someone with the distributed network of agents all over the country could have planned and made it all. And they weren't the revolutionaries because all radical parties swarmed with police spies, and thus, the date of the attack by Japan would have instantly been reported to the tsarist secret police that would have passed it to the army and fleet executives. Such data leak shouldn't have been afforded. Thus, whoever sent notices all over the Russian cities had to have iron discipline and remain in Russia.

Who was it that so accurately and consistently orchestrated the attempt to destabilize the inside life of our country? Who helped the Japanese to find paper boys to distribute the anonymous notes, who started to stir the pot by these yet pacific means?

And there is one more really newsworthy event behind the rapid development of World War 1. It seemed so minor and humble against the catastrophe that no one seemed to pay attention to that, albeit someone should have! Like a small fragment of a large mirror, this event reflected the coming Russian Revolution. Its scenario and driving force showed their worth right before the global conflict, in June 1914. Literally a week before the global conflict there had been a series of strikes in the capital of the Russian Empire. The country, tortured with the first Russian coup, wasn't likely to be surprised with industrial strikes. The police and the tsarist secret police were accustomed to subversive activities of the revolutionaries. However, these strikes were unusual. They were even described in a lot of memoirs. The main specialty of these mayhems and strikes were weirdness and mysteriousness. They started for no apparent cause, kind of "incidentally," and they stopped as suddenly.

Tatiana Botkina, the daughter of the Tsar's doctor who was shot with his crown-bearing patients in Yekaterinburg, recalls those odd strikes, "The workers withheld their labor, thronged the streets, broke trams and lampposts, killed policemen. No one saw the reason for that turmoil. Whoever got caught was thoroughly interrogated about why they had started it all.

'We don't know, they gave us tryoshnitsy (three ruble notes) and told us to give a good working over trams and policemen, and so we did,' they would say."[11]

Mikhail Rodzianko, the chairman of the State Duma, in his writing "State Duma and the February Revolution in 1917," paid much attention to these events, too. "In 1914, right before the war, Petrograd was full of revolutionary incidents. Happening among the working people of Petrograd, these incidents were often quelled by the armed forces. There were demonstrations, meetings, tramway cars were keeled over, telegraph and telephone poles were kicked down, and barricades were built."[12] Rodzianko also indicated the time when the mayhem started, "It started when Russia was paid a visit by Poincare, the president of the French Republic."[13]

For your reference, President Raymond Poincare came to Russia on 20 (7) July, 1914. It was right when the upcoming global conflict was getting started. It was eleven days before the war!

"Last sounds of street fighting accompanied the French president as he put a wreath on the tomb of Alexander III," Leon Trotsky wrote in his "History of the Russian Revolution."[14] Maurice Paleologue, the French ambassador, who met his president in the Russian capital, recalls, "When I returned to Petersburg by railway at a quarter to one, I was told that in the afternoon with no reason and by a signal made from a location unknown major plants of the city stopped their work, and clashes with the police started here and there."[15]

None of the cabinet members had time to analyze the sudden flash of labor demonstrations. Right after that the country was shaken in a way that made a couple of damaged tramways a golden age. However, at the end of July 1914 the Russian government was rather anxious about this mayhem. Yet, as the war began, the Russian special service had no time to determine the reasons and orchestrators of the mysterious strikes. Then they had more important issues to deal with, and later they were quickly and efficiently destroyed by the revolution. And the reason for those strikes has never been discovered. Or rather it hasn't been proved, as the authors of the above-mentioned memoirs readily named the guilty parties and orchestrators without much hesitation.

"There is no doubt that the turmoil among the workers was caused by the activities of the German General Staff," Rodzianko wrote.[16] Tatiana Botkina shared his position and wrote that "tryoshnitsy" given to unconscientious workers by anonymous agitators had come from Germany.[17] Here is the guilty party the Germans. And once again, there is this plain evidence like "But who else?" Who could have agitated the strikes in Russia right on the edge of the war with it? Naturally it had to be someone who was going to attack it – the Germans. And everything is consistent and true here if we miss the simple fact that Germany wasn't going to attack Russia!

The only war plan that existed, the Schlieffen Plan, didn't provide for that.[18] And why would Germany need demonstrations and beating up the policemen in Petersburg? It was the war with France that Germany was actually getting ready for. It would be much more logical to cause some turmoil in Paris to destabilize its industry and environment. Could it have been the Japanese again? Hardly so – during World War 1 Japan joined the Entente and forced the Chinese Qingdao out of it. It no longer had contradictions with Russia. Japan was peacefully building its empire in Asia. Why would it destabilize the Russian political landscape?

Yet, there was a nation that had a motive. The one that was tediously preparing the encounter of its two geopolitical opponents, Germany and Russia. Germany wouldn't dare to fight the entire world (meaning the British Empire and its allies). Thus, Britain through the mouth of Sir Gray, the foreign secretary, evoked in the Germans the sense that the moment was unique – only at that moment, Britain would remain neutral and thereat Germany could be rough and determined. The issue with Serbia could have been solved, and Russia and France could have been put in their proper places. The "allies" were ready to do anything to evolve this false sensation with the German and Austrian governments. In particular, they were ready to simulate Russia's weakness by means of the fabricated strike movement…

The British took every effort to set Germany on Russia. It was them who provoked mysterious riots and the turmoil. All of it was just a part of the large-scale campaign for misleading the German government, which would be later joined even by the British monarch. The objective was to trigger a world war.

"Strikes started for no apparent reason," Rodzianko wrote. "Yet, several days before the war was announced, when the international political stature turned threatening, when the powerful Austria issued its notorious and unacceptable ultimatum for small Serbia, brotherly to us, all the revolutionary turmoil had stopped in the capital as if by magic."[19]

"The announcement of war caused a surge of patriotic enthusiasm. All the broken trams and German tryoshnitsy were forgotten…," Tatiana Botkina wrote about the early stage of the war.[20]

Curiously enough, we see that the striking rampage "as if by magic" stopped right after the battle actions had begun. Yet, that's impossible. If the turmoil had been prepared by the German special service, they should have reinforced their effort when Russia and Germany rushed into the war. And here the operations were folded in a couple of days.

Barbara Tuchman, a writer, won the Pulitzer Prize for her book "The Guns of August" ("August 1914"). Such awards are hardly given for nothing. If we open the book, we'll read, "Count Pourtales, an elderly ambassador, who had lived in Russia for seven years, concluded and repeatedly assured his government that this country would not fight for fear of revolution."[21]

Count Friedrich von Pourtales was the German ambassador to Russia. Having seen the broken trams, he sent a letter to Berlin in July 1914 assuring his government that this country, i. e. Russia, would not fight. Having read enough of such letters, the Germans and the Austrians took a rough attitude, which finally led to the World War. Yet, was it the German intelligence service that performed some spectacular strikes and meetings for their own ambassador? No, they were neither the Germans nor the Japanese. Then who took the Russian workers to the streets and paid them with "tryoshnitsy" to demonstrate Russia's weakness?

If this isn't absolutely clear to you yet, let's consider one more mysterious event. It was described in the memoirs of Viktor Chernov, the head of the Russian Social Revolutionary Party. SRs had close relations with the Polish Socialist Party (PSP), their friendship long and time-proven. They tried to destroy the Russian state during the first revolution, together they killed policemen and soldiers. And when the year 1914 came, the situation changed.

"…We felt somewhat odd and alarming during the speech of Jozef Pilsudski in 1914," the head of SRs wrote.[22] What happened? What caused the sudden coolness between the revolutionary parties? It was nothing, the head of PSP and the future leader of the independent Polish state just delivered a lecture at the Geographical Society of Paris. And it was all about its plot…

"Pilsudski was absolutely sure that in the nearest future Russia and Austria were going to enter a war for the Balkans," Chernov wrote giving the words of this Polish Socialist, who had given an accurate forecast of how World War 1 was going to start.[23] Confidently and accurately Pilsudski explained which nations would support each other, and who and why would rush into the armed conflict. Yet, this still was not the main thing!

"…Pilsudski put the question squarely: what would happen and who would win the war? This was his answer – Austria and Germany would defeat Russia, but would be defeated themselves by the Anglo-French (or the Anglo-American-French)."[24]

The Polish dictator's insights into the future were incredible. Neither Nicholas II nor Wilhelm II or Franz Josef suspected that the war was coming. Archduke Franz Ferdinand quietly played with his children in Belvedere Castle, Gavrilo Princip attended his university classes. Mlada Bosna group didn't consider killing the heir to the Austrian throne yet, and the general staffs of the future opponents didn't even have any plans for the upcoming war. However, Jozef Pilsudski didn't just know the war scenario, but was even aware of how it was going to end!

Even the Head of the SR Fraction Chernov, who detested the tsarist autocracy, hardly understood Pilsudski's reasoning. How can Russia be the only one to be defeated if Britain, France, and the USA were on its side, and, according to the orator, were going to win?! In the 21 century, we easily agree with this Polish leader, as we know what happened next. Yet, in 1914 his prediction, as Chernov put it, looked like "a house of cards, a dream of a manipulator in politics."[25] However, Pilsudski didn't just hesitate to predict the coming war and precisely announce its results but also dropped a hint about the winning tactics for those fighting for free Poland in that war. He only suggested that there were outsiders listening. He sent his comrade by the name of Jodko, the future ambassador of Rzeczpospolita in Constantinople, to discuss the details.

"This discussion is one of the best ones that I've ever had," said the head of the Russian SRs.[26] Of course, having a chance to talk to people who know the future in-and-out is a rare thing. Yet, the more Pilsudski's messenger talked, the more Chernov wondered and the less he understood. Jodko told him that in case of war the Polish were going to help the Germans "to clear the provinces of the Kingdom of Poland" from the Russian Army.

"Let me put it straight… Right now we are thoroughly getting ready for a possible Europe-wide war… We prefer the Austrian Army to the Germans. The Polish military resources are already being trained in our Galicia… We prefer Austria to Germany because the former is weaker and can be imposed our terms," Pilsudski's envoy pulled back the shroud of secrecy.[27]

As the discussion progressed, Viktor Chernov started to groan inwardly. Having seen the first Russian Revolution, he understood that something grand and large-scale was about to start, and he, the head of the SR Party, knew nothing about it. Wheelmen and people directing the flows of the global behind-the-stage politics had steered clear of him this time. The problem was that giving "crazy" lectures was one thing, and following them and training the military resources for the Austrian Army was an absolutely different thing. Independence of Poland, Pilsudski's homeland, was at stake. If his prediction, which sounded like a madman's raving, had turned out wrong, consequences for Poland would have been absolutely unpredictable. That meant that Pilsudski knew something that Viktor Chernov didn't.

And Jodko went on. It turned out that the Polish Socialists had taken everything into account. At the right moment, they were going to betray the Germans and side with the Anglo-French.

"…It isn't a secret for either Paris or London. During the early stage of the war, we are going to cooperate with the Germans to oppose Russia. During the second and the final stage of the war we are going to side with the Anglo-French to oppose Germany."[28]

After these words there was silence. Chernov was definitely impressed. All that we can do is wonder with our eyes wide open. However, as we know what objectives the British and the French had in the coming war, why should we be surprised? They were tediously preparing World War 1 to destroy Russia and Germany Whoever had hatred for these two nations could help. Yet, "the allies' planned a combination so complicated and brilliant that the Polish could have failed to understand all the political narrow curve. That was why Pilsudski was given this information – for Poland to get ready and act as needed. They weren't afraid of the data leak. Should some Jodko share the knowledge with the Russian gendarme, no one would have taken him seriously. Just like in January 1991, no one would believe a story about the August Putsch in the USSR, about the future collapse of the Soviet Union, and the start of the first Chechen War. Such things seem absolutely impossible until they actually happen…

There were so many other incredible and fantastic stories in the Chronicles of World War 1 and the Russian Revolution that rose from it. These stories appear many-colored in reputed memoirs and absolutely free sources, one just needs to pay attention. For instance, the future hero of Finland, at that time – a Russian Cavalry General Carl Gustaf Mannerheim spent three years in battles of World War 1. In February 1917, he came to his native Suomi for a stay. There were joyful meetings, visits, and dates. And in Mannerheim's memoirs we read, "When I visited an old friend of mine from the Cadet Corps for lunch, I met some ex-officers and old friends. Over lunch, no one said a word about 2,000 volunteers that had moved to Germany to receive military education there within the recent two years. And by the way, those were the people that should have joined the army to free Finland in case the long-expected revolution happened in Russia."[29]

Stop. It is 1917. If the Finns had been leaving for Germany for already two years, they should have started in 1915. At that time the revolution was nowhere near Russia. Then how did "the hot-tempered Finnish blokes" (Translator's note: This phrase was popularized by the 1995 Russian comedy 'Peculiarities of the National Hunt' due to the Russian stereotype of Finns being slow in speech, thinking, and action) know that it was to happen? Moreover, for them it was "long-expected," and they were training the anti-Russian Army in advance to make their country independent. Was it a coincidence, a chance, or a twinge of intuition?

No, it wasn't. It was exact knowledge, just like with Pilsudski. The British were planning to destroy Russia and Germany through setting them on one another. They needed allies to fulfil their plan. Russia was very large, and the Poles alone can't have done the trick. Albeit Poland had the top-priority part in crushing of our country, Finland due to its size could have joined the process as late as in 1915. It had a much more humble task, and it received information later, in strict compliance with the scenario…

Thus, using facts and logic, we can find who orchestrated the collapse of the Russian Empire…

Still, logic alone isn't enough for history, so let's turn to facts. The generally accepted version of how the February Revolution started is simple and plain. Russia entered the war, sustained tremendous losses, its economy was exhausted, and naturally, its people were annoyed and overthrew the corrupted autocracy. Was everything so? If we look into the facts in greater detail and consistently interpret them, this simple explanation will fall to pieces like a house of cards.

Let's start with some obvious things that can't be argued. A successful attempt to change the existing regime is called a revolution, and an unsuccessful one – an uprisal, a coup, or an anti-government plot. Whenever the people are dissatisfied with their government, there is a reason that will either lead to a victorious revolution or will be ingloriously suppressed. World War 1 involved 38 countries, including the largest European monarchies. By 1917, after three years of fighting, all members of the global fight incurred tremendous human and economic losses. Surely, the extents of their losses varied, but the participants were different in size, too, and their economic and mobilization potentials were diverse.

Reasons for dissatisfaction, i. е., for dumping the regime during the war, can be some military defeats or incredible deterioration of living conditions. At the end of World War 1, revolutions happened in Germany and Austria-Hungary. Regime changes there were in many respects caused by the military defeats of these empires and the dismal state of their economies. However, in 1917 Russia was the only country where the revolution had already happened. Following this logic, Russia either lost the war a year and a half earlier than all of its opponents, or sufferings and hardships of its citizens were beyond all expectations. This is what the Soviet historiography kept telling us, and today all pro-liberal historians repeat it. Yet, in February 1917 the Russians had neither strategic military nor economic reasons for revolting!

The potential of our country development in the early 20 century was so great that the situation in the country, at the front, and in the army didn't get any worse but even improved. The front was stable, and it was all calm in the country. Of course, in the third year of the war Russia wasn't as full with bread and wine as it used to be. And yet, don't forget that whenever a war happened, it always brought along hunger, deprivation, and military draft. The unprecedentedly colossal encounter caused problems in all spheres of life. The living conditions naturally lowered, the food economy changed for the worse if compared with peaceful times. However, this happened everywhere – at our opponents' and our allies, too. Almost everywhere it came to regulated consumption and food coupons. When the German government discovered the lack of food caused by the British naval blockade, they quickly started to confiscate food and redistribute it directly. Austria-Hungary in early 1915 introduced coupons for bread, which was followed with coupons for other consumer goods. The British were starving, as their ships loaded with foreign provisions were sent to the bottom by the German submarines, and "various agencies confiscated all delivered provisions for military units and supply workers; potatoes and flour were unavailable to the poor."[30] David Lloyd George, the British Prime Minister, wrote, "By the autumn of 1916 the food position was becoming increasingly alarming and grave."[31] France had serious issues with food, too, as half of its territories were occupied by the Germans, and many industrial enterprises were within the warfare zone. Trotsky, who passed Sweden when returning to Russia in 1917, wrote that the only thing he recalls from this neutral Scandinavian country was "bread coupons."[32]

In other words, Russians weren't starving any more than people in other countries at war and were much better than in the "free" Russia soon after the second and the third revolutions. And the deprivation experienced by the Petrograd citizens in 1917 definitely couldn't match the dreadful hunger people suffered during the Blockade of Leningrad. And it wasn't just the same city, many of the people were the same. Yet, starving to death in 1942, people didn't take to the streets to demand bread. Was it because people perceived the opponent differently? Was it because they were ideologically brain-washed? Yes, indeed. Yet, the main thing was that everyone knew that the government wouldn't tolerate any tricks and would suppress any the demonstrations definitely playing in the opponent's favor. And there were no instigators or leaders, no one to fire up and manipulate the crowd to direct it in accordance with their own needs. I mean, it was so easier for the foreign spies to work in Petrograd of 1917 than in Leningrad of 1942…

The economy of the Russian Empire groaned, rattled, but stood up even to the enormous expenses for the war. If in 1914 the war expenses of Russia came to 1,655 mln rubles, in 1915 they were 8,818 mln rubles, and in 1916 they were 14,573 mln rubles.[33] Deliveries of military equipment were to a certain extent covered with the loans provided by Britain and the USA. The military draft sucked out up to 15 mln adult males from Russia. When this figure is announced out of context, it does astound. If compared with other belligerent countries, though, things look much different. Russian peasants draught to the army made up about 9% of the Russian population, whereas German and France sent about 20% of their adult males to fight. Even in Britain, which always used someone else to do the dirty work, it was about 13%.[34]

The situation in Russia was not worse but better than in other countries at war! In Germany they had to draft 17-year-olds, some voted for general mobilization of all males from 15 to 60.[35] The high command demanded that this military service obligation "should be extended to women, at least, to a certain extent." In January 1916, the Emperor of Austria issued a decree declaring males of 50 to 55 liable for military service; in Turkey, it was up to 50.[36] As we see, toils of war affected Russia not more than the other countries at war.

Why did the revolution happen in our country, then?

This is the question we need to ask again and again. Might it be because of the country's lands occupied by the opponent? But then the revolution definitely should have happened in Paris, not in Petrograd, as half of the French lands were under the German heel. A great scene for disturbance formed in Romania. Their army was completely defeated, most of the country and even the capital were occupied by the Germans. And we just lost Poland, which wasn't too important to us, and some Baltic provinces. These lands didn't matter for food supply to the country. All the primordially Russian lands were safe and sound. The production sector was okay, and the population didn't suffer the horrors of war made beyond the stabilized front line. The primary blooming part of Russia was going to be destroyed much later, during the Civil War that was started with this objective, with the direct instigation and strong contribution of the Entente.

Thus, there were no typical prerequisites that normally lead to riots and then to revolutions in war times. But for one, though – the wish of the British government to destroy their dangerous geopolitical opponents and the ability of the British intelligence to provoke unrest, turmoil, and regime changes in the undesirable states.

To make the next move towards correct understanding of what happened in February, we should talk not about reasons of the revolution in general, but about why it actually started:

• exactly in 1917;

• exactly in February of that year.

There were several reasons for that, and their coincidence caused that month of that year to put a start to the Russian tragedy…

The Russian industry was taking every effort to rearm its army as fast as possible. Our military experience obviously demonstrated that we could only rely on ourselves. Deliveries of weapons from the "allies" were accurately measured and pursued a two-fold task – not to let Russia be resoundingly defeated and leave the war and to prevent decisive victories in the Eastern Front. Weakened yet resisting, Russia was needed to fulfil certain scenarios, and the completion time for those plans was drawing close…

At the same time, the Russian government faced the future with confidence. Next year they planned to significantly improve the military situation in the country: the dreadful scourge of the Russian Army, the missile shortage, was coming to its end. It was impossible to measure how many lives we've paid for that persistent silence of the Russian arms. At early stages of the war the field artillery had a reserve of 1,000 missiles per a piece of ordnance, and by 1917 it was 4,000 missiles.[37] This empowered the Russians to plan any heavy attacks with a due preparatory bombardment of the opponent's defense posture. It clearly made the breakthrough and the victory much more possible. If the Russian soldiers managed to carry the war on without missiles and ammo, they were going to become simply unbeatable once they had them.

Armed with only rifles, our soldiers mowed out the best of the Austro-Hungarian Army in the battlefields of Galicia and the Carpathian ravines. The Germans got their share, too – according to statistics, the German regiments fighting in the East Front suffered twice as many losses than the Germans battling in the west. The Turks, who had defeated the British and the French, suffered a catastrophic defeat from the Russian Army, and the Russian soldiers were at the approaches to Iraq already. And this heroic army entered the year 1917 as strong as ever.

Both Russia and its "allies" planned their offensive blows in spring and summer. The German Army, by contrast, planned its strategic defense. "Our position was really challenging and almost desperate. We couldn't think of any offence, and we had to keep our reserves ready for defense. Any of the Entente members would hardly be put out of action. Our defeat seemed inevitable…" Erich Ludendorff wrote in his memoirs.[38]

The German Army was pessimistic as they were reported not only by the German ministers but by their Austro-Hungarian colleagues, too. And the latter were full of some goner's "optimism."

"It is quite obvious that our military strength is coming to an end. To enter into lengthy details in this connection would be to take up your Majesty's time needlessly. I allude only to the decrease in raw materials for the production of munitions, to the thoroughly exhausted human materials, and, above all, to the dull despair that pervades all classes owning to undernourishment and renders impossible any further endurance of the sufferings from the war.

Though I hope we succeed in holding out during the next few months and carry out a successful defense, I am nevertheless quite convinced that another winter campaign would be absolutely out of question; in other words, that in the later summer or in the autumn an end must be put to the war at all costs. Without a doubt, it will be most important to begin peace negotiations."[39]

This is how Count von Czernin, the internal minister in Austria, grimly described the situation in the report for his Emperor. After the Russian Army had significantly increased its combat might, the German Army wouldn't withstand the onslaught from the east and west for long. Germany would be definitely followed by Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey, whose armies stayed up only with the German support. The German submarines were the only hope for Germany – if they didn't help to win the war, they would at least help them to stay up. "Without our submarine warfare, the Quadruple Alliance would have been inevitably defeated in 1917,"[40] Ludendorff indicated. Therefore, no one relied on the overland army anymore.

The military catastrophe of Germany and all of its satellites was inevitably coming in 1917. "If in 1917 Russia had remained an "organized state," all the Danube countries would be just Russian provinces today," said Count Istvan Bethlen, the Hungarian chancellor. "Not only Prague but Budapest, Bucharest, Belgrade, and Sofia would follow the will of the Russian rulers. The Russian military flags would wave in the breeze in Constantinople on the Bosphorus and in Kotor on the Adriatic Coast. Yet, due to the revolution, Russia lost this war and many of its lands…"[41]

The victory was very close, which meant Russia was going to win. However, our joint victory with all of its signs clear wasn't what the "allies" wanted, as in that case they would have to share the trophies. They would have to give Russia the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles and to let Russia out from the blocked Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Thus, Russia might have left the crucible of the dreadful war not ruined but reinforced. And it would have been impossible not to give it the straits if it had won. On December 1, 1916, Nicholas II addressed the army and the navy and explained that he was going to fight for the recovery of our primordial boundaries and for the ownership of Constantinople. Thus, he announced the agreements made, and after Russia had victoriously ended the war, they couldn't have been failed. If Russia hadn't been on the list of the winning nations, though, there wouldn't be any need for sharing!

Our partners from the Entente didn't need the world slaughter to end in the coming year, it was too early. The "allies" didn't need a victory. They wanted to have Russia and Germany, these large states, destroyed, and their economies absolutely ruined. It would be great to have chaos and civil wars to weaken them finally. Early in 1917, the Russians and the Germans weren't yet ready to kill their fellows. It was necessary to make their sufferings even worse for the scenario to work. The "allies" took every effort to prevent the war from ending this year and to prolong it for a year and a half. Millions of soldiers were going to fall on battlefields in accordance with the plan of our "allies," who didn't just need a victory. What they needed were total destruction and the revolution. Russia should have been the first to burst into flames – to get rid of the tsarist regime and detonate the rest of the monarchial Europe. That's why the war took over a year longer, and Germany fell only in November 1918, not in summer 1917. How can a war be "prolonged" when one of the opponents is ready to lose? Only through weakening the other opponent. The February Revolution despite its obvious progressiveness quickly destroyed the Russian Army, which revived the spirits of Germany, Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria. The war went on. That's why "the bourgeois democratic revolution" should have happened in Russia exactly in 1917.

There are other rather compelling facts explaining why the revolution was needed in February, not in August or July. As the Russian General Headquarters planned to land in the Bosphorus in March or April 1917, February was the deadline for a revolution in Russia. After this push in March the revolution would be impossible, and thus, it was due by February. If the Russian Army had entered Constantinople, it would have come into Russia's possession without any prior agreements. So, February was the deadline for the revolution.

Summarized, no matter how weird it sounds, it was an improvement of the military situation, not its worsening, that lead to the February overthrow! It was exactly when the revolution should have happened. Light had already appeared at the end of the tunnel – for Russian patriots. It was the last call for the orchestrators of the global slaughter and the authors to the scenario of our overthrow. They had to hurry, as after the war there wouldn't be a chance to destroy Russia. Before they had blinked, the war would have been over, and there wouldn't have even been a reason for revolution. If you are still in doubt, recall what happened next. As if on an order, monarchy fell, putting an end to all the plans of getting Constantinople and the straits. The Provisional Government discussed it a lot but could do nothing, as they had no army, no navy, and soldiers and sailors weren't eager to fight.

All the above-mentioned were the exterior reasons why the Russian Revolution had to happen before spring 1917. Yet, there was another strictly interior reason why the Russian Emperor had to be quickly overthrown. Historians that tell us about these events lose sight of an important fact. In November 1917, the powers of the Fourth State Duma were to expire. In the end of June 1916, Nicholas II received a report on the meeting held at Boris Shturmer's, the Russian prime minister. "Forming a hardworking and patriotic majority in the State Duma is especially important under the grave situation caused by the war,"[42] which was the government's strategy for the future election, absolutely correctly formed by the attendants of the meeting. The previous election gave Russia many anti-state thinking deputies that used the Duma tribune to accuse the state and its leaders. In war-time, the Duma members took the liberty of saying things that even the British and French parliamentarians wouldn't dare to enounce. It came to a point when Minister of War Sukhomlinov was brought to justice for treason, and his case was initiated by the Duma environment. In this regard, Sir Eduard Gray told the Russian ambassador, "Your government should be really bold to bring the minister of war to justice during the war."

And all these brayers could have easily stayed without the tribune, fame, and prospects. The country leaders intended to hold the elections like a military operation, to make it quick, successful and to completely disorient "the Duma opponent." There was a plan to spread rumors about the extension of terms being a settled matter along with a mass issue of political pamphlets unmasking not only the opposition leaders but even the whole parties. The government had fancy amounts of money ready for the pre-election campaign, it was about 5 million rubles, 2 million of which were to be taken from the Tsar's treasury, and the rest were to be given by the banks. This money was to be used to issue the brochures "Truth about the KDs," "The Yellow Party," which were to reveal the truth about the anti-Russian activities of the Duma liberal factions.[43] If the Russian Government had done it all after a successful landing at the Bosphorus, the carriers of most Russian "democrats" would have come to an end. Status seekers and projectors would have become regular citizens and wouldn't have been able to ever come back to power. Only a state overthrow could disrupt the development so unfavorable for the deputies. The February Revolution pushed the tsarist government aside. Now the members of the Duma took the chairs of ministers in the Provisional Government and controlled the election, in particular, preparation and progress. That is why historians are silent about how deputies' mandates expired, as this knowledge makes the consequent revolution look rather mercantile. Freedom fighters start looking like common careerists ready to risk the well-being of their nation for personal prominence.

Moreover, the government wasn't going to tolerate the Duma vespiary even by fall 1917. An order about the Duma dissolution was being prepared, and the new election was to be held after the victory. On February 22 (9), 1917, Nikolay Maklakov, ex-minister of internal affairs, received the Emperor's order to draft this manifest. Maklakov had been in his retirement for about 2 years after his Duma companions made him chased by the mass media and in the Duma circles. The deputies didn't like him, and he felt the same way about them. Being a minister, he regularly reported to the monarch about the attitude of the parliament leaders that was, to say the least of it, weird and adverse for the country. And it was him who Nicholas II entrusted to compile the manifest draft.

"…It is urgent that we thoroughly consider the entire plan of further actions by the executive powers to be ready for all the temporary difficulties that the Duma and the unions will definitely tangle up some of our people in after the State Duma dissolution…"[44], Maklakov wrote.

The authorities were getting ready for a resolute struggle with the exterior enemy in 1917. To that effect, it was intended to disarm the interior enemy first. None of the authorities thought or believed that "its true allies" were the real enemy of the Russian Empire…

The truth about the Russian chaos in 1917 has been lost under so many speculations and counterfeiting that it is hard to dig it out. However, we need to do it, because the scenario for ruining Russia used in 1917 was slightly changed and repeated in 1991 for the Soviet Union. And if our geopolitical opponents and orchestrators of our country's double trouble remain our "allies," the integrity and even existence of the modern Russia remains at risk. If we know the previous scenarios, we might prevent the future catastrophe…

Thousands or even dozens of thousands of scenarios for state cataclysms and revolutions have been made up during the history of the humanity. However, only several dozens of these "projects" have been a success. Revolutions as destructive as in Russia, bringing as many victims and so totally ruining the country's power have never happened afterwards. And we need to understand some things here:

• Ruination of the Russian Empire wasn't predetermined.

• The revolution wasn't inevitable.

• The operation of the British intelligence for the destruction of their opponent, Russia, wasn't a perfectly designed ingenious plan.

A great number of invisible facts, details, and contingencies had to match each other as in a puzzle. They had to coincide for our REVOLUTION to happen. In such a large-scale project many facts developed favorably for those wishing to destroy Russia and unfavorably for its people and government, Yet, don't get depressed. Every spectacular success of the Anglo-Saxons is always followed by a failure as spectacular. Russia, which seemed destroyed in 1917–1924, managed to retrieve it power. When with a sore heart we think of the year 1917, so fatal for our country, let's remember that in 1945 our tanks entered Berlin.

The main culprits behind the tragic events in Russia were Great Britain and the USA, and to a smaller extent, France. These were the countries that allied the Russian Army to fight their common enemy. An enemy can't be blamed for inciting chaos in the opponent's country to try and win the war. An enemy is an enemy, and any claims in that regard are ridiculous and absurd. However, there is no forgiveness for pseudo-friends that hug you with one hand and stab you with the other.

The next person guilty is the Russian Emperor. His particular government "genius" allowed the Russian enemies to implement their plans. It was he who had given key jobs to the people that betrayed him. It was he who made his immediate surrounding permanently allergic to himself. It was he who let his country be dragged into the World War and who sacrificed hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers' lives for mythical "allied" ideals. It was he who abdicated all of a sudden, unexpectedly for both his army and his country turning the unrest of the workers and the revolt of the Petersburg garrison into the February Revolution. However, Nicholas II paid an ultimate price for his mistakes – he paid with the lives of his innocent children. Only God can judge him…

Other culprits behind the country's destruction should be named, too. Or, let's say, one culprit. This is not an organization or person, this is a social stratum. This is the Russian social elite. The revolution and everything that followed it was accurately orchestrated and supported by the intelligence services of the "allies." They were the main culprits behind what happened, but we need to understand that it was the treacherous behavior of the Russian elite that helped the "allies" to turn their ominous plans into reality. Today, when top leaders of our country call for unity, for rallying of the elite, we have to understand that it was the absence of such consolidation that had brought the Russian Empire to ruination. As the proverb goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. It was the attempt to make the country more prosperous and to improve the Russian realities that lead to millions of victims and destruction of the country.

The policy of Nicholas II was leading monarchy to its end – this was what the other members of the ruling dynasty thought. The Tsar was steering the country to a catastrophe, leaders of most Duma parties believed. Mediocre war running ended in outrageous losses and defeats, this was what the Russian top military leaders said. Everyone saw the only way out – Nicholas Romanov had to be dismissed. No one expected that their attempts to save the country would trigger its ruination. If all these groups hadn't started "to save" the Russian Empire, it might have withstood the test of time till today!

The interior plot against the Russian monarchy started long before. Those looking for changes construed the war as a favorable opportunity they were afraid to lose. If Russia had won the war, it would have only reinforced the accursed autocracy, so they needed to seize power right at that moment and to bring this war "to a victorious end together with the allies." This was the stance of the main Duma parties, the KDs and the Octobrists, members of the so-called "Progressive Block." The plot was led by the leaders of these parties, Pavel Milyukov and Alexander Guchkov, as well as the Chairman of the State Duma Mikhail Rodzianko. High-ranking military officials also took their part in the plot – Generals Mikhail Alexeyev, Vasily Gurko, and Nikolay Ruzsky.

In 1915, the SR Alexander Kerensky decides to take some care of his health, sapped in the Duma battles. Later he became the most famous member of the Provisional Government. The future "Father of Russian Democracy" goes to a holiday resort in Finland. Let's pledge him the honor, "Soon after my return, I attended a secret meeting of the Progressive Block's leaders where it was decided to overthrow the Tsar by a palace revolution and to replace him with his 12-year-old heir Alexei, appointing Grand Prince Michael Alexandrovich of Russia as his regent."[45] The military men had their part in the coup d'état. I mean the high general officers that were dissatisfied with the Tsar's personality and his attitude in the World War. Many members of the Romanov family also craved for Nicholas to abdicate as they hoped to get better positions with the new monarch. Some members of the ruling dynasty and fans of the Republican regime didn't understand how abnormal their ideas were for those of royal descent. Just like some vegetarian lions, they dreamt of the times when everyone would be vegetarian and missed the fact that in that case they would inevitably starve themselves to death.

Freedom fighters in their white gloves during a dreadful war conspired to depose the leader of the state. Naturally, they believed there would be no blood. Imagine if the City Committee of Moscow decided to dismiss Stalin "without violence" in December 1941. None of the plotters expected that with the war going on, the country, exhausted by overwhelming efforts, might fail to stand the race for power. And it never occurred to them that they might be unable to retain that long-awaited power. Most of the Romanovs who simple-heartedly had taken delight of the February overthrow were killed by Bolsheviks, and the rest had a narrow escape from the country in turmoil.

The Russian elite perceived the fever for changes in the ruling circles, and it became the basis for the country destruction plan of the "allies." "Soft" monarchists like Rodzianko, Milyukov, and Guchkov hoped there would be a constitutional monarchy led by Tsarevich Alexei or Grand Prince Michael Alexandrovich, the brother to Nicholas II. The political Lefts, who used Kerensky as a megaphone, wanted a republic. The military men wanted to have a steady hand and to stop treachery from the pro-German party in the Tsar's circle. No one was confused about the absence of real evidence for that treachery – as the Tsarina was German, she was considered to be the culprit behind our defeats. And it was she and Rasputin who were supposed to seek a separate peace agreement with Germany. These were the rumors spread in high society salons, blight barracks, and the Duma corridors.

To turn their plans into reality the plotters initially planned to arrest the Tsar and the Tsarina and make him abdicate in writing. This was the main scenario, approved by the Duma and military plotters. As the "allies" had a bigger plan, their intelligence services decided to correct the plot scenario to make it more natural, to provide a motive and to make the revolt look like popular discontent, not a plot.

Indeed, at that time many people knew about the plot against Nicholas. It was definitely known in London and in Paris. General Mikhail Bonch-Bruevich knew many plotters in person, "The idea that sacrificing the Tsar might save the dynasty called into existence a lot of plotting groups and societies that were considering a palace revolt… Paleologue and George Buchanan, the French and the British ambassadors, were also aware of it."[46]

In May 1916, Europe was attended by the Russian parliamentary delegation led by Milyukov. "Allied" governments had a liking for this "parliamentary social" group. The Russian intelligence reported that during informal meetings of the parliamentarians they often discussed matters that normally lead to execution in wartime. Nicholas II was receiving more and more reports about that, and he was also aware that the Duma opposition members were supported by Britain and France. Anna Vyrubova, the Empress's maid, wrote, "The Tsar told me that he knows from reliable sources that the British Ambassador Sir Buchanan is actively engaged into intrigues against Their Majesties and that he is as near as holding meetings with grand princes in that regard."[47]

Such evidence is in plenty. Major General of the Cortege, Palace Superintendent Voeykov recalled his impressions from meeting the British and the French Ambassadors during the New Year's levee in 1917 in Tsarskoye Selo.

"At the levee Ambassadors Buchanan and Paleologue were inseparable. When they asked me when the war was likely to end, I replied that from my perspective the state of the army had drastically improved and that if nothing happened, we should expect a fast and favorable outcome of the campaign. They didn't answer to that, but exchanged looks that left a bad taste in my mouth."[48]

The "allies" were not just aware of the brewing plot – they orchestrated and coordinated it. To direct the events according to their need, they used the secret agents of the western intelligence services. As if by magic, strikes, meetings, and demonstrations, which no one had organized, started again, and only after that the blinded elite captained the destructive forces. Most of the people who had their hands in destroying Russia sincerely wanted to do their homeland good and were used by the "allies" without seeing their cards. Like Matryoshka dolls stacked one into another, every plotter knew his own accurately proportioned piece of truth regarding the original idea. In fact, the true Master of puppets always keeps a low profile and sends his puppets to act in the spotlight. Such secret agents had back seats for the time being, but after the overthrow they made their leap for power to destroy the very foundation of the Russian state as soon as possible and to throw it into chaos. To destroy Russia, a puppet government had to be placed at the steering wheel, a government obeying the will of somebody else. Later, when all those puppets were in the Provisional Government, they acted weirdly and at first thought incomprehensibly, they literally dug their own graves and drew the Bolshevist revolution nearer. Further acts of the Februarists can't be reasonably explained unless we suppose they obeyed the orders of their masters and worked off the money spent to compile their "perfect biographies."

However, we will come back to the "odd" and "strange" actions of the Provisional Government later. Now let's recall how the February Revolution progressed…