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Late in the evening on March 1, Yesaul Gniloribov, who had taken an important position with General Zuyev, the chief of the Dvinsk military sector, summoned several people to his home. There, too, was Colonel Korenev, General Zuyev's adjutant. Gniloribov gave us the first information that he had received by direct telegraph from Petersburg that there was unrest and the people were awaiting the downfall of the czarist dynasty and the taking of power by the opposition circle from the State Duma (the Parliament). Thus did we in Vitebsk receive the news of the 1917 Revolution. Throughout the night, the Vitebsk Russian newspaper received telegrams about the events in Petersburg. In the morning, the newspaper came out with the sensational news: that the Czar and his brother, Grand Duke Michael, had abandoned the throne. The Duma had named a governing committee headed by Rodzianko. In Petersburg, the council of labor deputies had prepared itself. It was clear: the revolution had come. But what would follow? During that night I discussed this with some friends and we decided to call for deliberations at 9 in the morning on March 2.

The revolution arrived suddenly, unexpectedly. It was not easy to adjust to the situation. It disturbed our minds that the revolution would have enough problems with the war that was engulfing the world. And this thought prompted a second: that there should not be a pogrom against the

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Jews! Until the revolution gathered its strength and became organized, let the police and the Okhrana, with the help of backward elements, not remember the Jews' existence! We remembered that on the morning of October 17, 1905, the Black Hundreds incited pogroms on Jews, students, and the intelligentsia and attempted to drown the revolution in Jewish blood. In conjunction with these thoughts, there also arose the thought of the circumstances that brought the failure of that first revolution. The main reason was that very quickly the army had split from the followers of the revolution, the working class had isolated itself, the peasantry that was very weakly bound to the city had gone back to their villages and, like earlier, had turned themselves into a mysterious sphinx; and also the broader layers of the intelligentsia had turned their backs on the revolution. What should people do in order not to repeat the picture of shared incomprehension and enmity that the reactionaries could so easily exploit in their own interest?…

These were the thoughts with which I went to our consultation, which was called for 9 in the morning in the central labor organization in the city, in the community sick bank that served some six thousand workers. The room was packed. All of the organized elements of the working class were there, members of the two legal professional unions – from the printers and their employees, the representatives of the shoemakers cooperative, which played a special role in the city. From the socialist parties, only representatives of the “Bund” attended, no others. The other organizations, whether the Mensheviks, the Socialist Revolutionaries, whether other Jewish parties, only appeared a couple of days later. Since the “Bund” represented only a few choice people, one could say that the first workers consultation in Vitebsk in the first days of the revolution was devoid of parties, and each person who took part in it was there on his own personal responsibility.

I was chosen to preside over the consultation. In a brief speech, I presented all of the available information from Petersburg, and I proposed that we, labor representatives and socialists, should first of all organize ourselves. We should create unions for all

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the professions and work out a program to guarantee the workers a shorter work day, better working conditions, and so on. As for the political representation, I announced that the “Bund” should quickly start to organize and I proposed that the other labor groups should do the same.

It is interesting that in the discussions that soon began the speakers demanded – that a council of labor deputies should be created in Vitebsk immediately. Speakers for this proposal were Sh. Rivkin, a shoemaker, later a member of the city administration; the chair of the sick bank B. Ginzburg (earlier one of the leaders of the Sejmists, known by the name Bar-Levav, who soon after the revolution joined the “Bund”); Kvasman, who called himself a “Plekhanovist,” a follower of Plekhanov, who belonged to the right socialists, to the movement for defending the country (the Oboronists). They all stressed that we should form a council of labor deputies. This council should be the revolutionary center of the city. And since in Petersburg such a council had already been created, it was clear that all cities and towns should move in that direction. The assembly fully adopted this proposal.

Then I declared that the experience of 1905 had shown me that such activities were largely responsible for the failure of the first revolution and therefore I would recommend that we wait a bit and see what would emanate from the labor council in Petersburg. But my announcement and my voice were at that moment unpopular. It was unanimously decided that people outside of the professional unions should immediately move to elections for the labor council; for every 20 workers and employees of the factories and workshops, one deputy should be chosen. I was charged with immediately composing an announcement with an order that a labor council be formed on March 5-6. This announcement was sealed in the name of the group of initiators, the representatives of the leadership of the sick bank, and a group of socialists.

About 65-70 people took part in this consultation, which was spontaneously transformed into a typical revolutionary meeting. When people In the city learned of the first labor gathering, different people with resolutions an declarations began to come. A Christian young woman declared in the name of

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the students in the gymnasium and the technical high school, who had met in the building of the Alexandrovsk Gymnasium, that they had voted to go out with banners and to demonstrate in the streets. It was not easy for us to tamp down the mood. Apparently we were far from deciding that we should go “to the masses in the streets” to conduct the business of the revolution.

A soldier, too, came to the meeting and gave out a hectographed leaflet from the fourth military repair-workshop. The leaflet stated that the soldiers were followers of the new free order and called on their fellows to maintain discipline. It was very important that among soldiers we had friends of the revolution. But for me personally this information called forth no great joy, for this reason: the soldier who pronounced this fiery declaration was a Jew, Rubinshteyn. For me this produced a doubt, because what kind of a tie could a young Jewish worker have with the great number of military divisions that were in Vitebsk?

At noon, the telephone rang. A member of the city administration, Veglin, called me to say that at one o'clock he had called a meeting of city citizens in the city council and he asked us without fail to send a delegation from the working class.

After a short discussion we decided to go. So we elected from our ranks a delegation of 9 people: the chair of the printers union, D. Filitov; Bar-Levav Ginzburg, a metallist; the shoemakers Rivkin and Ratchkovsky; the seamstress Batya Rubinovitsch; the tobacco worker Khanin (who was once sent to hard labor for taking part in a strike; Kvasman, and myself. It was already late and we had to rush to the meeting.

In the hall of the council things were lively. It was still not a typical revolutionary meeting. But the important democratic circles, knowing about the great events in Petersburg, arrived in various ways because something would happen in the city council, and they filled the hall, desiring to hear the first free speeches and to breathe the air of the revolution.

When we, representatives of the working class, entered,

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the following picture met our eyes. The chair, Veglin, a stand-in for the mayor, was on the dais with a chain around his neck. He was surrounded by leading citizens of the city. Near him were sitting the head of the military sector, several generals, and the governor, a new man who had only recently been named to the Vitebsk Gubernia. Veglin had read some telegrams that had come from the city council in Petersburg (from Rodziankon and others). He greeted the gathered citizens and introduced the representative of the military and civilian authority. General Zuyev announced his full trust in the people who had taken the rudder of the Russian ship of state into their own hands, and he expressed his confidence that according to a prior order, Russia would defend itself against the German aggressor. The governor, Khitrovo, declared himself a longtime backer of freedom and equality and promised to serve the new arrangement with his whole heart. He spoke passionately, with gesticulations, and concluded by saying, “Believe, sirs, the Russian Khitrovo…”

These two speakers as representatives of the old czarist order made a strange impression on those gathered there. On hearing the declarations of freedom from these people, everyone had the thought that the governor and the generals were counting on possibly remaining in authority after the political changes that the revolution had brought. The mood was not good. Things were in a mishmash and general confusion.

At that moment spoke Volkovitch, the former mayor and deputy from Vitebsk in the first Duma. A man known as a liberal. He was met with applause. His brief speech, in which he recalled the long, painful years during which the people thirsted constantly for freedom; he spoke about the many victims who for generations had been brought to the altar in the fight for freedom. And he concluded with a call to all citizens to unite and with their combined powers to solve the great problems that the war and the revolution had placed before Russia. Actually it was not the thoughts and ideas that Volkovitch had developed that worked upon the crowd. It was the tone, the music of his speech, the sound of a mensch who was prepared to take power on his shoulders and who understood the responsibilities that he had for the

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future. After ten years of enforced silence, Volkovitsch affirmed and reaffirmed his status as a political activist.

After Volkovitch, Veglin turned over the meeting to a representative from Vitebsk's Jews. There were in the hall many Jewish activists from different movements – people who had the right to state an opinion when there was a question concerning Jews gave the podium to the Kozianer Rabbi Melamed, a quiet man, a learned man, a doctor of philosophy, a Zionist, but a man who had little importance in Vitebsk's Jewish circles. In a certain sense, one could say that the fact alone that Melamed appeared in the name of the Jewish public threw some light on the confusion that quickly engulfed most of the city's Jews at the first news of the revolution.

In his brief speech, Melamed recalled the situation of the Jews in czarist Russia.

The representatives of the workers stood a little to the side. My friends maintained that I should speak on their behalf. I felt somewhat disordered. I was tortured by the question of what kind of a plan did our activists from the various movements have. What did they intend to do? Would they allow Governor Khitrovo to stay at the rudder and Veglin to lead the city council? Was the function of the working class to encourage the bourgeoisie to organize itself? At that moment, Volkovitch approached me and answered my doubts. He told me that he awaited my instructions for proceeding, in order to take the fate of the revolution into our hands on the spot.

My speech was improvisatory, because I had had no time to consult with anyone. First I told the assembly the decision taken by the first consultation with the working class, that we were taking steps to create a council of labor deputies and organize professional unions. In order to defend the new free order and to make firm the accomplishments of the revolution, we had first of all – I said – we had to bring political consciousness and culture into the working-neighborhood organizations; the labor organizations will lead a battle against the exploitation that rules the country; the workers, together with all the followers of the revolution,

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must take the necessary measures to guarantee the security of the new democratic order. Speaking about the situation in Vitebsk, I proposed that for that evening we should call another meeting to choose a security committee, to eliminate the representatives of the czarist order, to create a militia, and so on. I called on all organizations and associations, as well as national minorities in the city to send at 9 that evening their delegates to this meeting at the city council. Veglin agreed to my proposal, and with that, the first gathering in Vitebsk came to an end.

I had not yet succeeded in leaving the city council when one of the Jewish activists approached me and invited me to a Jewish consultation that was called for 4 o'clock in the office of the savings and loan, which had long ago turned into a Jewish center – a place where the Jewish kehillah congregated.

For various reasons, in the last couple of months before the revolution I had kept my distance from the Jewish kehillah. There was a conflict between the left and the moderate elements, I will discuss that in another place. However, I had been tied for years through shared community work with this Jewish activist. We had experienced terrible days and nights together, bitter unrest that could not be erased from memory. I was being invited by our socialists who were represented in the kehillah. Perhaps they saw me as one of those who, with the triumph of the revolution, would have a direct tie to the government and they wanted to have me as a “contact.” I should be grateful that the atmosphere at the meeting was cold and formal. If I will be permitted to note the dominating mood of the Jewish activist with whom I had a personal, not only a community relationship, I must say that the meeting was dominated by a fear of coming events – there was no trust in the revolution, no exaltation or joy. For a moment I thought that all of the devoted activists felt like components of the old order and would be dispensed with like that order. But there was no time to analyze the mood that dominated. Without wanting to, but only out of necessity, this body compiled a list of Jewish organizations, associations, and institutions

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that would by the evening denote their delegates who would go to the “security committee,” in the center of the revolution, that would be created that evening in the city council.

Meanwhile we socialists decided that on March 4 there should be meetings of the different professions: for shoemakers, for tailors, for employees, in order to form professional unions. On March 6 there would also be the founding of the labor deputies. The Bund had already named that day for the first legal community gathering. The first steps were also taken to create contacts with the soldiers in the city and with the representatives of the more or less organized peasants in the gubernia.

Time flew, so with a certain delay I got to the city council, where we were supposed to elect the security committee, the organ of the new government.

The city council hall was literally chaotic, with an enormous crowd of people. It was quite difficult to find a spot. It was even more difficult to understand what was going on. In that part of the hall where city council meetings were held the councilmen were gathered as usual, as were the deputies from the old city council, mixed in with members of the public. And as if nothing new had happened in the world, they now, on March 2, held their regular meeting. They considered the issue of the food supply for the city and for the garrison, and the councilmen took turns speaking. It was hard to say if Veglin, the chair of the meeting had intentionally called together the city council because Rodzianko from Petersburg had sent a telegram. If the national Duma could take upon itself to organize the all-Russian revolutionary government, why should the Vitebsk city council not take upon itself to organize the local revolutionary government? And also the Vitebsk city council consented to the principle of the Black Hundreds, Russian homeowners, while the Jews were not represented, nor were workers or soldiers, which seemed not to be an obstacle.

Impatiently and fitfully I listened to what was happening. I jumped on a chair and begged Veglin to be able to speak. He hesitated for a moment: how could he give the floor to a person

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who was not a councilman? I did not stop, and I said some words about the people who had always been adherents of the old czarist order and now had the chutzpah to usurp for themselves the freedom that the people had fought for. Veglin vaguely responded. The “liberals” on the city council defended themselves: Sineokov and Raedemeister. The citizens, however, who filled the hall showed no less impatience than I had. For several minutes there was such a mood that people wanted to throw themselves on the councilmen and throw them out of the hall. I was still standing on the chair, and I forcefully proposed to the council that:: 1) the councilmen should immediately leave the hall; 2) the hall should be opened to a free gathering of the citizens with the aim of choosing a security committee; 3) the old councilmen could, if they wanted, gather in the mayor's office with the same goal of choosing their representative to the security committee.

At that same moment, on another chair at the other end of the hall, totally unexpectedly, a soldier appeared who, in the name of the revolutionary army, emphasized my proposal and demanded that the comedy should come to a close, it is unnecessary to say that my appearance, like the demand of the soldier, was met with stormy applause. For the councilmen, there was no way out except for them to leave the hall, one after the other, and go to their homes, where the revolution forgot them.

The hall was given over to the citizenry. We controlled the city council. That soldier was Alexander Tarla, a young Moscow lawyer, who had for a couple of years lived in the Vitebsk barracks and whom I knew slightly. He was a Menshevik, and he soon took on the post of first presider of the council of soldier-deputies.

On the dais stood: the chair of the sick-bank Ginzburg and Yesaul Gniloribov. Ginzburg invited up Shmuel Pisarevsky and me and gave us the chairmanship. Pisarevsky was a former Bundist and a devoted democratic activist. I was thinking about the future security committee, since I had not heard the first political speeches that were given in the hall and had called forth the enthusiasm of the public. I noticed that Volkovitch was not in the hall. If he was not,

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a lesser man would be chosen as chair – Gniloribov or someone else. I left, therefore, to find Volkovitch. I telephoned him at home, but he was not there. He was playing cards today, as he did every evening, in the “Dvorianskaya Sobrania” [assemblage of nobles]. I called him out, but he hesitated and would not come to the meeting. I said to him, “Alexei Onufrievitsch, it's either now or never.” And in 10 or 15 minutes he showed up at the hall, went up on the dais, and was elected by applause as chair of the meeting. Colonel Korenev was also there. All of us who were sitting on the dais gave long political speeches. What can one say about these speeches? I can say only one thing, that they were characteristic of that time – they did not represent any party. No one appeared on behalf of this or that movement. Each person spoke only for himself…

There were a couple of episodes during this meeting. The presidium announced that in the hall was a suspect person, Stepanov, who was tied to the gendarmes. Someone went up to him and quietly urged him to leave the meeting. He left quickly. Then people informed us that the brass workers from the Surazher highway were preparing a pogrom upon the Jews and that a crowd was going from there to the city council in order to deal with the revolution. You have to keep in mind that on March 2 the police had disappeared from the streets and no one remained to protect the city. But Tarla had announced from the dais that his military division had sent out patrols to guard the city, and to his knowledge all was quiet and calm. There were no signs that anyone in the city was proceeding against the new order. In the middle of Tarla's speech, a large military division entered the hall led by an officer, and Tarla had the possibility of greeting the soldiers who had come to defend the revolution in the name of the first gathering of free citizens.

After the political speeches, people began to establish the committee. About a hundred different organizations called out the names of their representatives to be on the committee. After that, the meeting was closed, and then the first planning meeting of the committee began. They had chosen a 22-person

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executive committee. The meeting of the executive committee began at around 2 in the morning. They had many urgent issues to consider.

As chair of the security committee, they chose A. Volkovitch. The vice-chairs were: for the labor group – the writer of these lines; for the soldiers – A. Tarla; for the officers, M. Gniloribov; for the group of Zemsk and city activists, the lawyers A.Rosznovsky, a Pole. Yesaul Gniloribov was given the job of creating a city militia, and a few days later he was elected as commandant of the city. Volkovitch had to unite immediately with the central government in Petersburg.

Thus did we in Vitebsk enter the second day of the Revolution of 1917.

In the first days of March, the elections to the labor council were held. About 300 deputies were elected, and they created an executive committee (oysfirkom) of a score of people. For its part, the executive committee chose a president. According to our constitution, all socialist parties had their representatives on the council and on the executive committee. I was chosen as chair of the presidium; as deputy – Kvasman; as members – Bar-Levav Ginzburg and an ironworker, a machinist; as secretary of the presidium, Emil Zeitlin was chosen. I, Ginzburg, and Zeitlin were Bundists. Kvasman and the ironworker were Mensheviks. Kvasman did not stay with the council for long. When he came to Vitebsk he was a Plekhanovist. In the time of the revolution, he moved to the left, and in 1919 he went over to the communists. He was a good and passionate speaker; but his passion often betrayed him, and he lost the posts, both on the council and with the Mensheviks, who replaced him with Tarla. He was dismissed from the presidium because on his own responsibility he had made a speech to a gathering of merchants and manufacturers that was interpreted as saying that the labor council had decided to confiscate soon all manufacturing. A couple of merchants soon came to me, which led to Kvasman's, as they say, being “left out in the cold.”

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Soon the well-known socialist-revolutionary Michael Zeitlin came to Vitebsk. He had been elected vice-chair of the council. We lacked Russian men in the labor council, but what could we do? Invent them? We proposed that the chair of the printer's union, Doropai Filatov, should join the presidium of the council, but he refused…

The issue arose for us of creating a council of workers and soldiers. We conscientiously took our plan and met with united meetings of both councils or with united meetings of both presidiums. The situation that dictated our involvement in this question was complicated. The deputies of the labor council were well-schooled, politically qualified activists who belonged to a particular party or new how to deal with political issues. On the contrary, the military crowd consisted mostly of a swarm of peasant elements. We saw this later on. If in March almost all of the councils and regiments went along with the Socialist Revolutionaries, that is, with Kerensky, the same councils in October and November marched with the Bolsheviks for Lenin and Trotsky. At the meeting of the military council people constantly gave speeches of agitation or handled various conflicts between officers and soldiers and the like.

The meetings of the labor council in Vitebsk were less often at the same level as those in Petersburg and in other cities. Suffice it to say that because of the ideological battle between the Self-Defensers and the Internationlists, it was impossible to involve the soldier-deputies in these disputes. The leaders of the military council – A. Tarla, A. Lichnitzky, Tiomkkin (editor of the Vitebsk “News”), and others – agreed with our tactics.

The difference between the Jewish and non-Jewish workers we also felt from the beginning. So, for example, we had to appear in the early days at a gathering in a train station. This was not a typical political meeting. There the workers' rage bubbled over in a primitive form, so that it was impossible to get one's bearings. The mass of three thousand people was divided into two groups of workers – between machinists and locomotive firemen. There were mysterious anonymous leaflets that proclaimed in the name of the machinists, “Death to the firemen.” – Tshchnekeli, Gvozdiev, Abramovitch. For the local activists

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we had to wait an hour or more until the chaotic, heated speeches from both sides stirred up an engineer to quiet the ruckus and to give us politicians the floor. The gathering quieted down and ended with passed resolutions.

On the same day, I had to conduct several meetings of Jewish workers – tailors, shoemakers, and retail workers – in order to organize professional unions. I remember that I felt the shadow of the workers' rage clearly in a large gathering of shoemakers and tanners. On political issues these workers, who followed the “Bund,” knew wha they were doing. But when we came to the economic situation of the workers, the mood changed. When we considered the demand to raise wages and shorten the work day and clearly described exploitation and bad working conditions, they began to make speeches about small conflicts with minor bosses. Then we saw the danger of sinking into the mud and not being able to extricate ourselves. The leaders of this mass, who were educated, experienced men, gave a clear report saying that the strength to carry out the economic demands lay in self-awareness and organization and that a democratic revolution was the only road to success.

In those days, when the revolution was tumultuous, many difficult issues came to the labor council. Everyone wanted, and elected, representatives to the labor council. The army sent its deputies, as did the employees of the courts and the tax offices. But when the guards from the Vitebsk prison sent their deputies, we could not allow them in, and we closed the doors of the council.

I remember well that the “Bund” was the first among the parties that publicized its readiness to serve the revolution. The Bundist organization had a couple of hundred organized members. On the committee were a number of old and new Bundists: M. Notkin (chair – He died in August, 1917, of a heart attack.), Karavkin, Yosef Khaikin, M. Tshiszevsky, the teacher Rozovskaya, Bar-Levav Ginzburg, Rivkin, Hendl Ratshkovsky, Khanin, and others.

The Mensheviks also created their organization and included in their ranks several soldiers. Among the Mensheviks were two old, experienced activists: the engineer Zalman Guevitch (known in

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Paris as Negoyov) and Aaron Ginzburg, a former “Romanovist” (who had, in 1904, participated in the Yakutsk uprising that happened in the house of a peasant named Romanov). Ginzburg was a follower of Plekhanov.

With the arrival of Michael Zeitlin, a whole broad organization of Socialist-Revolutionaries was trained. A few officers created an organization of moderate socialists – Folk-Socialists (M. Bogdanov, Baziliev, etc.). The Latvians had their Socialist-Democratic club that included Latvian refugees and soldiers. Among the Jewish workers, those who were united had a certain influence. In Vitebsk there was a circle of traditionalists who were tied up with Socialist-Zionism. Aside from Matz, a teacher who later went over to the communists, and the known Territorialist Mendelsberg, I cannot remember the names of others.

Poalei-Tzion had a small influence in the city. Their leader was Kiv. But I believe that he was in Vitebsk only for a short time and became occupied with work for the central party.

As we see, party life in the socialist circle was quite impulsive.

The bourgeois sector showed no great activity. It was a division of the Cadet Party that particularly developed agitation at the time of the election for the city council. Its chair was Adolph Levinson, an owner of a brewery. Until the revolution he was the chair of the military-industrial committee. Dr. Bruk also belonged to the Cadets when he returned from the front. Among the Jewish bourgeoisie was also a group of Vinaverists led by Yakov Yudin, a lawyer. The Folk-Party, led by Sh. Pisarevsky and Yevgeny Luria, had few followers.

There was a large Zionist organization in the city led by Dr. Bruk, Solovey, Volfson, the young writer Sh. Levman (later a communist), the Koziana Rabbi Melamed, and others. But in public life the Zionist organization hardly made itself felt although in the elections they got many votes and were quantitatively in first place.

It is interesting to note that aside from the “News” of the council, no other newspaper existed in the city. I put out

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over the course of several months, the “Social-Democratic Newspaper.” Neither the Socialist-Revolutionaries nor the Cadets put out anything.

It is important to say something about antisemitism. From mouth to mouth, rumors came to us that in the council of soldier deputies there were certain antisemitic voices and that there was agitation against Tarla under the veil of antisemitism. People also said that among the military divisions that went through Vitebsk, antisemitic voices were heard. When they were at the Vitebsk train station, there was panic among the Jews. The fact is that in Vitebsk we did not encounter an outbreak of open antisemitism.

But that did not hinder the spread of rumors, which even reached Petersburg, about a pogrom in Vitebsk. In the minutes of the Petersburg labor council of March 6, 1917, which were published in the Bolshevik journal “The Proletarian Revolution” (1923, no. 1), it is noted that the executive committee, receiving news about a pogrom in Vitebsk, decided immediately to send to Vitebsk its member Fyodor Linda. Indeed, the next day the soldier Linda came to me in my home with my old friend Konstantin Kliatshka, who had lived in Vitebsk in 1915-1916, when he had been sent from Petersburg. Linda has a place in the history of the revolution as the organizer of a demonstration in Petersburg in April of 1917 that demanded the dismissal of Milyukov and Guchkov. Linda was not a Bolshevik. One can be convinced of this by the fact that in June, as the war commissar at the front, he had helped to lead the offensive of Kerensky on the Germans, and the Red defectors then tore him to pieces, in the literal sense of the word…On March 11, Linda returned to Petersburg and reported that all was quiet in Vitebsk and “the army was firmly for freedom and republic.”

To end this chapter on antisemitism, I will just present a fact: around the eighth of March, the first peasant conference was called in Vitebsk. When they were choosing their leadership and A. Tarla was nominated, an old peasant with glasses held together by string publicly asked Tarla if he was a Jew. “Obviously, it is all one – a Russian or a Jew,” the peasant said. “I just want to know.”

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Tarla responded: “I am a Jew.” However, his being Jewish did not prevent his being chosen as president.

I can only repeat my impression from our meeting with representatives from the village in Vitebsk gubernia. It is interesting that the peasants did not want to stay in the city's hotels and demanded that they should be housed in the same building where the conference meetings would be held. So we gave them a large hall in the gymnasium. They brought in hay and straw from their wagons and made “comfortable” resting places on the floor. At the conference itself, the peasants insisted that the meetings should begin at 6 in the morning, and they would in no way agree to a compromise that the meetings should begin at 10. Some of the peasants were categorically opposed to an eight-hour work day for the workers. They held that people should work according to the sun: from sunrise until sunset. Peasants knew nothing and wanted to know nothing about an eight-hour work day. Consequently, the city workers were demoralized and refused to work.

According to a decision from the gubernia's security committee, Volkovitsch and I travelled on March 8 to Petersburg to make direct ties with the provisional government. Just as we arrived, we were invited to the Winter Palace and there we met the people who represented the new Russia. Some of the ministers we knew from earlier. During the war, Milyukov, Shingaryov, Nobokov, and Kerensky had been in Vitebsk. We knew Prince Lvov, Nekrosov, Guchkov. I was sitting in a corner speaking with Kerensky… We considered him the “hostage of democracy.” Kerensky leaned on a cane and could hardly move his legs thanks to long nights without sleep. He looked worn out, but his face was happy. Volkovitch had agreed that morning to visit the offices of the ministries. I almost did not go with him. I was at a meeting of the Petersburg labor council, meeting with Tshcheidzen, having a discussion with the members of the central committee of the “Bund,” – Lieber, Ehrlich, Raffes. A couple of days later we returned to Vitebsk.

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Already in the first days of the revolution a political street was born in the city. The young people, in a celebratory mood, went out on Smolensk and Zamkov Streets. One could see soldiers everywhere. The center of the revolution was the city council, and people went to the new government for all sorts of things. We, the members of the security committee, wore red and white ribbons on our coats, which was embarrassing. People had prevented the governor Khitrovo and the vice-governor Baron Rosen from leaving Vitebsk. It is interesting to note – not a single voice was raised to say that we should arrest anyone from the former government. People felt that they were harmless. Only one Schultz, an officer of the gendarmes, was arrested.

A large number of former policemen, officers, constables, and the like came to the city council, dressed in civilian clothing. They asked what would happen to them. We advised them to stay at home and not go about the city. This was important, because there were cases when the crowd in the street had beaten up some policemen and spies who were associated with atrocities. In the city council we had to set off a room for detainees. Next to the door stood a soldier. To the security committee came the high official Voinsky, who took bribes. He was told that he was being replaced by someone new. He few days later he killed himself.

In the first days of the revolution there was special interest in the issue of the commissar of the gubernia, who was supposed to be the representative in the gubernia of the central government. At that time, the provisional government had already been created in Petersburg, and Prince Lvov, the prime minister, had named all the chairs of the zemstvo-board gubernia commissars. [Zemstvos were the governing bodies of the gubernias.]

In general, this method was seen as perfectly fine, because the zemstvos on the eve of the revolution were mostly liberal, and Lvov, the chair of the zemstvo-association, was in close contact with them. What was perhaps good for central Russia did not at all suit northern and western gubernias, where the zemstvos had been created by Stolypin against the Poles and totally without Jews. The leaders of the zemstvos

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in these gubernias consisted of antisemites and reactionaries, of people quite distant from democratic circles.

When we in Vitebsk had read the telegram from Prince Lvov, we believed that there would be a another telegram from Petersburg with an exception, because Vollkovitch had already telegraphed about the creation of a security committee.

The provisional government was in no hurry, but the chair of the Vitebsk zemstvo, Mikhail Kartashev, did rush. As soon as he held the telegram from Prince Lvov, he assumed the full power of a gubernia commissar and issued an announcement. When we learned about this, we summoned Kartashev to our committee.

I should say a bit about Kartashev. Aside from being the chair of the zemstvo, he held several other important posts. We often had to take up various issues with him. He was also the chair of the gubernia's aid committee for refugees. But Kartashev was often drawn into pragmatic-speculative business. Not long before the revolution, an ugly story went around about Kartashev and a member of the work council in Petersburg, Afrosimov. They had formed a company and established a. monopoly on the hides of horses that had fallen at the front. They had done so thanks to the antisemitic arguments that they had presented in their memoranda to the military powers. They accused the Jews, who had always been in this business, of working for the Germans.

When this story reached us, I published it in the Petersburg press and especially interested the Cadet deputy Shingaryov when he came to Vitebsk. The issue was considered in the national Duma and the name of Kartashev became remembered as “the hero of patriotic speculation.” And now this very man was supposed to be first and highest representative of the Provisional Government!

Mikhail Kartashev was a clever, smart person. He quickly grasped what was going on,. But he remained formal and counted on the telegram that he had received from Prince Lvov. Kartashev told us that he was prepared at that time to hand over his powers to whomever the Provisional Government would name, but since there was no new decision,

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he would fulfill his duties. We unceremoniously reminded him of his patriotic speculations about which people were talking in the Duma, and we also added that on receiving the telegram from Lvov, he should immediately have come to the security committee. Kartashev answered with chutzpah that he had now come to discuss it…It was no use having anything ese to do with him. We simply told him that we did not recognize him as gubernia commissar and that we would immediately inform the Provisional Government.

It is interesting that no one responded to Volkovitch's many telegrams to Petersburg about this issue. The reason was simple: in none of our telegrams did we mention our candidate for gubernia commissar. Volkovitch, who wrote the telegrams, categorically refused to propose his candidacy in these conditions. This created a perplexing crisis. So Tarla and I, on behalf of the council of workers and soldier-deputies, decided to take the issue of gubernia commissar into our own hands. This was on March 6. There was a large meeting in the city theater. While Volkovitch was giving a speech, we held a small consultation behind the scenes and decided: 1) immediately to arrest Kartashev; 2) as soon as Volkovitch was finished, to take his place and to designate Colonel Semevsky for this post; 3) to telegraph the Provisional Government about this and ask for their confirmation. We showed Volkovitch the telegram. He turned a litte red and said that he opposed Kartashev's arrest. But in general he agreed with the plan and signed the telegram this way: “I join in the decisions of the council chairs.”

Kartashev's arrest was carried out by A. Lichnitzky, a Folk-Socialist, the vice-chair of the soldier's council. Together with two soldiers, he went to Kartashev's place, warned him to remain at home under house arrest, and left a guard in the kitchen until a final decision would come from Petersburg. A couple of days later, the decision came from on high. Gradually they understood the situation. Volkovitch was named as gubernia commissar, and Semevsky was not mentioned at all.

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A short time later, when the revolution was more organized, the functions of the security committee went over to the gubernia commissar and to other commissars of the Provisional Government. A. Volkovitsch created a committee on which were: the Polish lawyer Witold Bomas (aid-commissar) and Shmuel Pisarevsky (secretary). Occasionally, in complicated cases, Volkovitch included Tarla and me in a consultation or he came to us in the council. The Revolutionary Democrats were in constant contact with Volkovitch.

Actually, the commission that dealt with the secret police archives and with the interrogation of the detained gendarme colonel Schultz prepared a list of 14 provacateurs. But they were all simple Gentiles who had not participated in community life. It appears that they were simple police agents. But among them was one very suspicious detainee named Fradkin, though this person had no connection to politics (his father was involved in matters of military exemptions and was close to the high official Voinsky). This Fradkin spent a couple of months in prison and was later released.

There were two serious provacateurs: one was a Social Revolutionary, Leyzer Freydson, and the other – Dvorkin, who had once “illuminated” the activities of the “Bund.” It is worthwhile speaking about both of them. There were rumors about a third provocateur, who was active in the ranks of the “Bund,” but in the archives of the gendarmerie there was no trace of this Bundist secret agent.

If I am not mistaken, around the third of March we were informed that there was unrest at the military guard, a “rebellion.” There were soldiers who had broken military discipline. Now, when the revolution had arrived, they demanded to be released. We sent a delegate who brought back a report as well as a special note for me. Leyzer Freydson, who was among the detainees, had written this note to me. He wrote that in 1916 he was arrested in Samara and brought to Vitebsk. He asked that he and the other detainees be freed and assured us that we

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would “win 150 dedicated revolutionaries to the fight for freedom.” My friends and I knew Freydson well and we did all we could to free him quickly.

A couple of years earlier, when together with Dr. Bruk, Yevgeny Luria, Shemaryahu Mekler, and others we had organized in Vitebsk an association for labor relief (a kind of local ORT), we invited Leyzer Freydson to be the association's secretary. We knew that he had a wife and children and had to support his blind father. And what was even more important, we saw in him an energetic person, a modest community worker on whom one could always rely. We also knew that he had always been a Socialist-Revolutionary, and although in recent times he had kept a distance from politics, he worked faithfully for us. He also seemed polite and sympathetic, quiet, civil, objective in his dealings with people, not haughty. He was blond, with a small blond beard. He impressed one as a typical intelligent Jewish employee. I often met with him and stayed in constant contact about the business of the association for labor relief. And I remember one fact that would produce a certain suspicion in regard to his alleged “idealism.” Our association received from military circles contracts to sew undergarments for the military in Jewish workshops. But in order to win such contracts, we had to bribe a number of important people. To my great surprise I learned that it was no other than Leyzer Freydson was the one who had negotiated this “operation.” I was astonished, but it had no special significance to me that such an alleged idealist could make such a deal…

But now it was clear: Freydson, who had quickly taken to revolutionary work and immediately formed in the labor council an Socialist-Revolutionary fraction, had been named as a provocateur. A special commission had arrested and questioned him, and he had admitted everything. He justified his provocations by saying he had been compelled. But gradually – so he said – he refused to be a provocateur, and he was therefore forced to be a soldier and then also arrested. He begged to be allowed to explain everything in a talk with Shmuel Pisarevksy and me. We decided

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that the whole difficult matter should be turned over to the newly arrived Socialist-Revolutionary leader in Vitebsk, Mikhail Zeitlin. We knew that Mikhail Zeitlin had for many years been associated with Freydson in Socialist-Revolutionary projects and that they were personal friends. He would be able to make order out of this story.

What happened between them I do not know because I was hardly in Vitebsk in those days. Together with Volkovitch I was delegated to Petersburg to the Provisional Government. When I returned to Vitebsk a few days later, Mikhail Zeitlin told me that he had taken Leyzer Freydson home and passed the whole night face to face. What they talked about and what Freydson told his old friend whom he had betrayed I do not know. I know only that in the morning Mikhail Zeitlin, on his own responsibility, let Freydson go, with the proviso that he should leave Vitebsk. And so it was. I never again heard the name of Leyzer Freydson.

I was dragged into the story of the second provocateur, Leybe Dvorkin, a little later in a totally unexpected way. Let me be specific. I knew Dvorkin since 1913, when I was invited to Vitebsk to edit a daily Russian community newspaper. Dvorkin's father had a publishing concern, and his son, who was himself a typesetter, managed the concern in which my paper was published. I had to deal with him every day. I did not trust him very much, but I was not suspicious of him. I remember that there were instances that I wanted to let him know about certain matters, but he showed no great desire to know about them. When the revolution came and his name surfaced as one of the provacateurs, we also learned that Dvorkin had fled.

But it happened that a year and a half later, under Bolshevik rule, I came to be a witness at Dvorkin's end and I even played a certain role in it.

It was June of 1918. I had come to Vitebsk for a short time. By chance, I was reading the official Bolshevik newspaper

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and I happened on an announcement from the People's Court that called me to court as a witness. So I went to court. A couple of court functionaries recognized me, and before the hearing began, they gave me a thick folder with various documents about the Dvorkin matter. I was wondering what relationship I had to this matter. I read that Dvorkin was an agent of the gendarmerie. Back in 1910, he had revealed an illegal printer for the railroad workers. He had also revealed a group of important labor leaders in Vitebsk. Among them was the worker Mottel Tchiszevsky, a leader of the famous strike of the purse makers in Vilna in 1908. Mottel Tchiszevsky I did not know. After several years at hard labor in terrible conditions, Tchiszevsky was freed by the revolution, and in 1917 he was in Vitebsk. Despite his ill health, he was an important leader of the “Bund.”

In that folder I found a letter in an envelope addressed to me. I took out the letter, read it, and I saw that Dvorkin had written a confession and addressed it to me with the request that I would take up his defense. This “mentshlich document” had a special significance for his fate. The police had found his confession in Luga, near Petersburg, where he had lived quietly after fleeing Vitebsk in March of 1917. From that, it was clear that Dvorkin was a former secret agent. He was arrested and brought to Vitebsk, and his case was turned over to the Bolshevik court.

I read all the details about Dvorkin and I asked myself what I could do for him. It was clear that the Bolshevik court would pronounce a death sentence. I took my pen and wrote an official notice saying that I knew nothing about all these accusations that were made against him, because I was not then in Vitebsk and I had not even heard about them. In connection with my acquaintance with Dvorkin when he managed the print shop, I must say that that at that time his behavior toward me and my friends had not roused the least suspicion. Furthermore, he had consciously maintained a distance from us and did not want to know what we were doing in our legal and illegal political community activities. It is possible that he did not want to have any materials against us for the gendarmes, and perhaps he wanted to get away from them himself. My notice, however, had no effect. The

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Bolshevik tribunal sentenced him to the “highest punishment,” and the sentence was soon carried out by the Vitebsk Cheka.

At the end of August, 1917, all of Russia was shocked at the conspiracy of General Kornilov, the high commander of the Russian army.

As soon as Vitebsk got the news of Kornilov's rebellion, a meeting of the labor council was called for 7 o'clock in the morning. According to our proposal, the labor council chose a military bureau. On the bureau were two Bundists – Vulf Drabkin and me; two Mensheviks – A. Tarla and Yakovlev (a soldier); two Socialist-Revolutionaries: Mikhail Zeitlin and Moiseyev (a soldier); and one Folk Socialist – A. Lichnitzky. Because in the city council there existed a Bolshevik faction, we asked the Bolsheviks to authorize their two representatives to stay in contact with us. They delegated two representatives – an officer and a soldier – complete unknowns both in community and political life. The Bolshevik representatives only appeared a couple of times at our consultations.

The universal feeling was like a panic. Many members maintained that our revolution had come to an end and that the reactionaries would soon triumph. We were given revolvers that for a time we carried with us. The Bundist Khaikin thought that we perhaps we shojld again go underground, and he told me that he had already prepared a secret apartment that would be needed for an illegal print shop. Another Bundist, Mottel Tshiszevsky, proposed the creation of a “combat squad.” Some member of the council had printed a poster that had proposed that officers should stay at home after 8 in the evening. (We confiscated the posters, but we could not determine who had made them.). An editor from a non-affiliated newspaper came to jme and asked me to assume the function of a censor. He did not know what could be published and what could not.

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Politically our position was clear: we stood by the Provisional Government. But practical questions also arose. The “Stavka” [military command] was prepared to attack Petersburg and to send the army, which would have to go through Vitebsk. If we should, for our part, prepare resistance, we adopted a broad program: conduct a mobilization of various military units in Vitebsk, Smolensk, Nevel, Horodok, and 15-20 other spots. These military units should be abe to go, if necessary, to Mohilov and help the government to stamp out Kornilov's uprising. We sent a commissar to the headquarters of the Dvinsk military barracks, and we soon heard back from General Baykov. The soldier Yakovlev quickly went there. People also chose to seize with their own men the train station, the post office, and the telegraph, that is, the direct lines to Petersburg.

Our patrols captured on the road three of Kornilov's agents, among them an old member of the czarist royal council, the Black Hundred – Rimsky-Korsakov, and former co-worker in the antisemitic “Novoya Vremiya” [New Time]. They had with them packets of calls to arms from General Kornilov.

The mood of the garrison was favorable. Even the army in Nevel, that was composed of former policemen and gendarmes, demanded in a resolution “the head of General Kornilov.” A court was created to investigate the affairs of several arrested officers who were suspected of encouraging the uprising.

At that time our gubernia commissar Volkovitch went through an interesting political evolution. After the July uprising of the Bolsheviks, as is known, the Cadets, the liberals, were expelled from the coalition government. For Volkovitch, who was himself a Cadet, the question arose whether he could remain in his post under the leadership of Minister for Internal Affairs Tzereteli. Shortly before Kornilovs uprising, Volkovitch came to me with a proposal to meet and have a frank conversation. Taking part in that meeting, as much as I can recall, were also Mikhail Zeitlin and Tarla. Volkovitch said to us: “In hindsight, I do not agree with the council. I am especially opposed to Chernov's politics. Tseretel's program, however, I totally accept. As gubernia commissar, I can peacefully work together with

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him. But on the other hand, my party colleagues, the Cadets, are leaving the government, which means that the Cadets must resign. But I hold,” he continued, “that the politics of the Cadets are harmful and I have decided to leave my old party. I am too old to change my beliefs and go over to the socialists. As long as I can work together with the revolutionary democracy, I will remain in my position and fulfill my duties…”

In the days of Kornilov's uprising, with which many Cadets sympathized and in which a few even actively participated, Volkovitch remained wholeheartedly with us.

Our military bureau was in constant contact with the Petersburg council and with the Provisional Government. We also sent reports to Petersburg. And we were in a very complicated situation. It was not clear to us what the government chose to do in order to liquidate the followers of Kornilov. Were people considering a “worthless compromise”?

During the day of August 31, news arrived that Kerensky had become the high commander and General Alexeyev was named as his military commander. We were all astonished. General Alexeyev had been a follower of Kornilov, was very close to him, and had been politically close to him in his intentions and plans. If Alexeyev's return to power in the army and his cooperation with Kerensky at that moment was proof, Kerensky would lead a peaceful policy of compromise with Kornilov instead of a clear and consistent battle against Kornilov's secession. Why were the central labor and soldier councils silent? How did they allow this measure by the Provisional Government?

We immediately stood together and sent a protest to Petersburg against having Alexeyev named as commander and against compromising with Kornilov. In the evening we got news that General Alexeyev would be traveling through Vitebsk. We were in a predicament. First, we had not long before demanded his dismissal, and second, Alexeyev as now the de facto military commander, the leader of the army in the world war. All of his orders to the army must be carried out. On the one hand, Alexeyev was now going to make a compromise with Kornilov instead of arresting him. We thought this was a dangerous step. On the other hand,

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he was authorized to make this political move by the Provisional Government, which we had to support. How should we handle this? Our military bureau of the Vitebsk labor- and soldier-councils decided: 1) to make known to Alexeyev our opinion that Kornilov was a political criminal and should immediately be arrested; 2) to share with the general that we had conducted in about 20 cities and towns a mobilization of army units and sent from Vitebsk a large army unit to quash the rebellion in the Mohilev headquarters.

Our Vitebsk military bureau authorized Tarla, who was the chair of our soldiers committee, and me to meet with Alexeyev. This was the situation at one in the morning, when we received by direct telegraph a new order from Kerensky addressed to Lieutenant Colonel Korotkov in Orsha. In the telegram, Kerensky ordered an immediate assault on Mohilev and the arrest of Kornilov and all other participants in the unsuccessful plot. From this order, we understood that the Provisional Government had come to a conclusion that we believed to be correct and that Alexeyev's mission was now terminated. We awaited Alexeyev's arrival impatiently so that we could share Kerensky's new order with him.

At two in the morning, General Alexeyev's train arrived. His adjutants, Virubov and Filanenko, wanted to know first what our task was so late at night. We demanded to speak directly with the general. Virubov led us into the salon-car. We met there a sleepy man of about 65 years, of average size, his face full of wrinkles, with the grey mustache of an old officer, and with a thoughtful and clear look. Alexeyev was amazed that we had come to him so late at night. We told him that we knew of his coming and that we thought it was our duty to include him in the military operation that we were conducting in order to help in putting down the rebellion, and we told him the opinion of the local workers and soldiers that there could be no compromise with Kornilov and that he should immediately be arrested. We also let him know that in Orsha there would be a concentration of soldiers prepared for an assault on Mohilev.

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General Alexeyev was excited at our news and said in a quiet but uneasy voice:

“Gentlemen, this is all a result of deep misunderstanding, yes, a complicated skein of mutual misunderstandings. Before leaving Petrograd, I discussed all the details with Alexander Feodorovitch (Kerensky). Together we chose the peaceful path to settle all of the painful issues. I am certain that the conflict is artificially exaggerated and that it will be resolved. This, what you are doing, gentlemen, is uncalled for in this situation. It will demoralize our army and bury the authority of our commanders. I have taken my place with the full agreement of the Provisional Government, and I hope that we will find a peaceful way to come to an agreement with General Kornilov.”

As he spoke these last words, I handed him telegram with his order that we had just received: “Here is Kerensky's last order for us to besiege Mohilev.”

Alexeyev folded the telegram and read the order to Lieutenant Colonel Korotkov in Orsha.

“Ach, Alexander Feodorovitch, ach, Alexander Feodorovitch,” Alexeyev repeated several times. “Ach, Alexander Feodorovitch, we spoke together about all this in Petrograd. I told him that I could take upon myself the mission to the headquarters only on the condition that the conflict could be ended peacefully…”

Alexeyev, who was very upset, wanted immediately to get a direct telegraphic connection to Kerensky. But the telegraph took a long time. We reminded him that in the headquarters of the Dvinsk military circle (which from the beginning had been in Vitebsk) there was also a direct telegraph line. We went there by car together with Alexeyev. There, in a private room, Alexeyev got in touch with the Mohilev high command and spoke for almost an hour with Kornilov's deputy, General Lukomsky.

When Alexeyev came out to us, he looked especially old and tired. When we asked what was happening, he answered shortly:

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“I don't know what will be. I'm going now to Orsha. We'll see what will happen. I will do all I can to find a peaceful exit from this conflict.”

“Herr General, should we continue to prepare for an assault on Mohilev?”

“These operations are unnecessary. But do what you think is necessary.” And he gave a wave of his hand.

He came closer to us and spoke to us in a friendly way about a number of difficult issues in the current political scene:

“We are different people, gentlemen, and it is hard for us to understand each other. As an older man, let me just say: Russia is ill, deathly ill is the Russian army. Those who on their responsibility form organizations within the army signify its crumbling, and its last revival is artificial. We older people, who dreamed that in free Russia we would have a powerful army, must see how our terrible enemy brings a final plague to our fatherland. The whole internal mishmash and chaos in the country and the whole separatist movement – all of it is the result of the intrigues of our strong and cunning enemy. The German military headquarters has subsidized since 1897 with large, secret sums from a special fund the Ukrainians and other separate national movements in the country. Now come the dangerous workings of the soldier councils, the “brotherhood” at the front, the systematic intervention of the command…”

If at the start we saw near us a general, a political man, who took his responsibilities seriously to heart and internalized the interests of Russia, at his last words we had to keep silent no longer. We had to respond to the old general:

“In our opinion, only the soldiers councils and committees can rescue the Russian army from falling apart. It is now time to see and appreciate this. In one moment this could all fall apart if not for the help of the revolutionary democracy.”

But before us stood an old, tired man. He gave another wave of his hand and said, “You are now too young, gentlemen! Listen to the speech and opinion of older people who love Russia and her army…”

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We brought General Alexeyev back to the train station and parted from him. It was six in the morning…

Everyone knows what happened then. Under Kerensky's influence, General Alexeyev arrested Kornilov and other conspirators. This was not easy for him. A couple of weeks later he resigned from his position and – until later on – returned to private life.

August ended with an assault on the democratic revolution from the right – from Kornilov. September was suffused with a premonition of new dangers that lay in wait for Russia. October was the month of a storm from the left – from the Bolsheviks.

As a delegate from Vitebsk, I attended the all-Russian governmental consultation in Moscow, where before our eyes on the eve of Kornilov's rebellion the reactionary forces mobilized. For about three weeks in September I took part in Petersburg in the so-called democratic consultation. In the air there were already clear signs of the inevitable breakdown of the March Revolution that the Bolshevik thieves had prepared in order to strangle it and to begin immediately a new chapter of their rule in Russia. After the democratic consultation and after a very short visit to Vitebsk, I had to go to Moscow for a conference of the All-Russia City Association. So it happened that on October 24 I saw how the Moscow Bolsheviks set loose in the streets wild, armed hoards of Red guards. They seemed like devils from Gehenna and they threw fright and terror on the peaceful citizens. I soon went home to Vitebsk.

I arrived in Vitebsk soon after Petersburg was taken over by Bolsheviks. It was not clear what would happen, but it was known that the Bolsheviks had taken over the Winter Palace and that the ministers of the Provisional Government had been arrested. Kerensky had fled or prepared for a military rebellion. The Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, the “Bund” and other Jewish parties had left the second conference. The conference had turned over power to the Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin and

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Trotsky. People believed that the fate of the democratic revolution hung on the action of the army at the front, and there the Bolsheviks did not have the upper hand, only the followers of the Provisional Government…

In Vitebsk itself there was a strengthening of the Bolshevik element, where a certain role was played by a score of officers and soldiers who had deserted or participated in the “Brotherhood Acts.” They were arrested and not long after were released from prison. However, the leading Bolsheviks were not secure. They knew well that in Vitebsk's labor environment, in the council of the workers' deputies and in the professional unions they had a negligible following and little influence. They had even fewer followers in the military divisions. They did not even have any direct connections with their comrades in Petrograd and could not use the direct telegraph, which lay in other hands. They had no leader, no people with authority and prestige in the city. All of this paralyzed them and prevented them from making an attempt to try to seize power by force in Vitebsk. They decided to wait. Actually we, the leaders of the revolutionary democracy, made the same decision. We also did not know what to do, so we had to wait. We could not have imagined that from the Bolshevik attempt to seize power and gain the upper hand in Russia anything serious and lasting could result.

Once again, as in the days of Kornilov's rebellion, a meeting of the workers and soldiers councils was called, and again a military bureau with unlimited authority was selected. On this bureau were: from the Mensheviks – A. Tarla; from the Socialist-Revolutionaries – Mikhail Zeitlin; from the “Bund” – Mottel Tshiszevski, Vulf Drapkin, Bar-Levav Ginzburg, and my humble self; from the Folk-Socialists – A. Lichnitzki. Our political position was paradoxical. We demanded the issuance of a slogan to create in Petrograd a unified socialist government “from the Bolsheviks to the Folk-Socialists.” But this position was paradoxical because before the October overthrow, this slogan was supported only by the Mensheviks and International Bundists, and in their name Drabkin and I spoke. And now, when the Bolsheviks seized power, we, the internationalists, accepted the

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Bolshevik overthrow as a direct beginning of a citizens' war in the country, and we lost the hope of collaborating with them. In short, when, in the name of our bureau, I made the proposal of a united government “from the Bolsheviks to the Folk-Socialists,” I was the only one who did not believe in the correctness of that position. On the contrary, the other members of the bureau, who, during the democratic revolution were considered like ragdolls and considered the politics of the Menshevik-Socialist-Revolutionary bloc in Petrograd to be correct and supported the idea of a coalition with the bourgeois groups, with the Cadets, now accepted our former viewpoint and thought it opportune that we should openly, in negotiations with the Bolsheviks and in open meetings of workers and soldiers, defend the slogan of peace and unity in the ranks of the revolutionary democracy and support the idea of a socialist government “from Bolsheviks to the Folk-Socialists.”

The Bolsheviks then organized themselves. The formed a revolutionary committee according to a directive from their center. But aside from their appearance in the barracks, they had to be very careful and see what would happen. They had to accept the proposal to negotiate with us. The initiative for such negotiations was assumed by the leaders of the railroad workers (Vikszedor) ^[1] and of the postal association. They gave the Bolsheviks and ultimatum: Either they go to mediation with the councils or they, the railroad people and postal employees, will begin a political strike. One of the arguments of the railroad people was: “You Bolsheviks issue a proclamation that the whole government should listen to the councils. If so, you dare not appear to be against the Vitebsk councils of workers and soldiers. Indeed, you have the right to conduct an ideological fight against socialist movements and to struggle to achieve a majority in the councils. But since the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries have the majority there, you have only one course – to conduct negotiations and seek a compromise.” The Bolsheviks, who themselves hardly believed in their victory, could not resist such pressure. And thus began in Vitebsk a…”discussion” between us and the Bolsheviks. The discussion lasted two weeks and drew the attention

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of the whole city and was tied to many dramatic moments.

From the beginning, the chair of Vikszedor, a lawyer, a “Plekhnovist,” called on both sides – our military bureau from the councils and the military revolutionary committee of the Bolsheviks, and appeared himself and with his colleagues as arbiters. Later we sat eye to eye with the Bolsheviks. On their behalf spoke Pinson, the oldest Bolshevik in Vitebsk, who had returned from exile at the beginning of the revolution, and three officers – one Sarkasyantz, An Armenian from a chapter in Nevel, and two young lieutenants, Kasterin and Krilov who had recently been released from prison.

At the meetings, difficult situations often arose. We asked them, “How do you have the nerve to make a workers' revolution in Vitebsk at the time when you don't have a single worker in your organization? How do you have the chutzpah to march with the slogan “power to the councils” when you see that the council unanimously opposes you and your politics? If you really are for the councils, you must immediately abandon your military revolutionary committee.” We demanded a unified socialist regime. What could the Bolsheviks say to us? They did not trust the Mensheviks or the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and therefore the most important positions in the regime should be divided among the Bolsheviks. We threatened that as a result of their activity, anarchy would grow in the city and the mob would pillage Jewish businesses and also carry out pogroms against Jews. They, we said, would summon a civil war that would ruin and destroy everything. Finally we unmasked them by saying that one of the leaders in their center was Kuhlman, who worked in counter-espionage…

The Bolsheviks felt that we would put them on the hot seat. They hit back with demagogic cliches, that we had sold out to the bourgeoisie and were agents of militarism and imperialism, that we were traitors to socialism and to the working class. We often had scenes of hysteria.

We had contact with Petrograd through the telegraph. Once it happened that in Petrograd, Tzik^[2] found near the telegraph R. Abramovitch. He told us that

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while we were negotiating, it appeared that all was lost. There was no prospect of peace in the socialist ranks.

The meeting with the Bolsheviks gradually disgusted us because they seemed completely absurd. We organized large meetings for workers, soldiers, and citizens and asked the Bolsheviks to send their speakers. On their behalf, the officer Sarkasiantz actually appeared. I was the speaker for the socialist bloc. In the debates, our best speakers participated – among them Karavkin, Kurasman, Tiomkin, aside from our experienced political activists, like Mikhail Zeitlin, Lichnitzky, Drobkin, and others. Sometimes certain pro-Bolshevik signs appeared. A soldier, a Socialist-Revolutionary, Kotlarevsky, sometimes began to chirp a Bolshevik tune. He soon declared himself to be a leftist Socialist-Revolutionary. At that time in the hall, there were increasing appearances by left-leaning soldiers, who yelled at us Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries “You have drunk enough of our blood!. Head for the front!”

I recall that one time after my speech, exiting from the hall, a soldier came up to me and with an expression of indescribable hatred threw himself in front of my face: “Sing well,my nightingale! And how much have you received from the bourgeoisie?”

At that time the Bolshevik Revcom began to show its teeth. At night a division of Red guards and their leader broke into the printing house where the workers' council' “News” was printed to censor the council's newspaper. We could do nothing. Some days later we began to distribute the “News” of the council illegally, published in an illegal print shop.

The Bolsheviks could do nothing with the council of our labor deputies. It existed until about January 10, 1918 under my supervision, and the Revcom had to tolerate it. Gradually they held elections in the military divisions and created their “Council of the Vitebsk Garrison.” One nice morning they broke into the home of the council of soldier-deputies, removed the furniture, the papers, the seals, and replaced us. All we could do was protest. They also tried to interfere in the business of the city board of directors

[Page 576]

and their chair, a Latvian soldier, tried to install his own director. The city council at a meeting announced a vigorous protest against the interference of the Bolsheviks.

A division of sailors from Kronstadt appeared on the streets of Vitebsk. When I, the chair of the labor council, confronted them and asked why they were making so much noise in the city, their leader responded, “We are Petersburg proletarians…we were sent here to establish a revolutionary order in the city.”

The Revcom quickly established a close connection with the Bolshevik central government. At one of our meetings, an unknown person appeared, declaring to us that he had been named “Gubernia Commissar in Vitebsk.” We knew that his name was Solomko and that he was an anarchist. He had taken over Volklovitch's post as well as his dwelling. The Revcom had on a particular day called for a large military parade on Soborna Place. But when one division after another appeared with their weapons, the Bolsheviks were terrified. They came to us for advice for what they should do. They were quite scared lest there be an unwanted demonstration (or a Jewish pogrom?). Then there was a curious thing: our Tarla, the chair of the soldiers' council, together with the Bolshevik military commissar, went to the parade and bid everyone peacefully return to the barracks.

In the Minsk “Awakener” from that day the following article from Vitebsk appeared:

“On October 31, we had a meeting of the city council. They considered the issue of the political moment in general and the violent acts of the Vitebsk military revolutionary committee against the press and the autonomy of the city's self-management. As a representative of the military bureau of the labor and soldiers' council, member Aaronson (“Bund”) came forward. He presented the false and lawbreaking tactics of the Bolsheviks in general in the country and also their shameful conduct in Vitebsk. He said that a government should depend on the whole democracy, and if the Bolsheviks split the ranks of the revolutionary democracy, they are aiding the thereby the power of the counter-revolution. Then Aaronson produced a whole array of violent deeds that the Bolsheviks had carried out

[Page 577]

in Vitebsk regarding the press and the city's self-management, and he urged the council to adopt a protest resolution against them. The resolution was adopted finally by the meeting. All the speakers, aside from the Bolsheviks, spoke sharply against the Bolshevik uprising and protested their actions. By voice vote an amendment to the resolution as adopted. It said that the city council had full confidence in the military bureau of the council…On November 1 there was a general meeting of the members of the “Bund” and the R.S.D.A.P. All of the speakers were sharply opposed to the Bolshevik upheaval, which was leading the revolution to failure…”

As is known, in November there was an election to the founding-gathering. The Bolsheviks had not decided to drive it apart. On the contrary, in their battle against the Provisional Government, they constantly blamed Kerensky because in his government he had consciously avoided the calling together of the founding-gathering. So, formally everything was quiet and peaceful in the elections after the October upheaval. But there was no hope that now certain order would be established. Particularly in Vitebsk no one believed that there would be any action that would have an important significance for the future fate of Russia. Formally everything seemed to be in order. There were meetings. All the parties put for the their candidates. There was a functioning committee, probably already under the control of the Bolsheviks. In Vitebsk there were 15 candidate lists. But people felt that the chief contest, the great challenges, would be between the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks. The “Bund” went with the Mensheviks, but their list had no chance of electing their candidates. It is important to note that all the lists represented the principle of their chief candidates. The local people who were named in the lists could only be chosen when the central candidates would go to another area.

On the Bolshevik list, the first candidate was Kovenev. For the Socialist-Revolutionaries, Bulat and Gizetti. For the Mensheviks and “Bund,” Tchchenkeli, Gvosdyev, Abramovitch. From the local activists, people nominated Mikhail Zeitlin for the Socialist-Revolutionaries and me for the “Bund” and the Mensheviks. The Socialist-Revolutionaries considered the matter to be quite important and from the very start of the October upheaval their candidates

[Page 578]

came to Vitebsk: Bulat, always busy, a member of the 4th Duma, Professor Gizetti, a learned man, and Yehudah Novakovsky, a uniter, who later went over to the communists. Together with him, I lead the fight against the Bolsheviks. I remember how he stubbornly ordered that our call should say, “Down with the autocracy of Lenin.” From our party list, R. Abramovitch came to Vitebsk. I cannot forget that in my speech at his rally, speaking against other candidate lists, I sharply attacked…the Socialist-Revolutionaries for their election program. That was some time, one could say! I do not have at hand the figures from the election to the founding-gathering. But the results were: of the nine deputies, five were Socialist-Revolutionaries and four were Bolsheviks.

I had to leave Vitebsk for several weeks. I went to Pskov on the northern front and there took part in several undertakings and negotiations. I was also at a party conference of Mensheviks and the “Bund” in Petersburg. From there I went to accompany an old friend, Mottel Tchiszevky, in a sanatorium in Kuntzevo, near Moscow to my friends. At the beginning of January, 1918, when I was traveling back to Vitebsk, I was delayed for several days by a terrible snowstorm. Thus I arrived in Vitebsk after everyone else: the Bolsheviks had already dispersed the founding-conference in Petrograd. A demonstration for the founding-conference in Vitebsk on January 4 had also been dispersed. And after a separatee gathering of the “Bund” and the Mensheviks, the Bolsheviks had made the first arrests of the socialists. Ten members sere held in the Vitebsk prison. The whole city, and especially the working class, was stirred up. A friend who met me at the train station warned me not to go home because Red guards had been waiting me for several days. So I became illegal. The communist historian Sh. Agursky, whom I cited before, has in his book several lines from an article from Vitebsk in the Bundist Minsk publication “The Awakener” from January 12, 1918:

“Hunger rules in the city. There is no bread. All reserves have been requisitioned. No one is seen in the streets after 8 in the evening. Only drunken Bolsheviks wander around…the leaders of the 'Bund' are in Vitebsk, but illegally…”

[Page 579]

Together with a group of leading members of the “Bund,” Mensheviks, and Socialist-Revolutionaries, we began our illegal existence in a home that had earlier been a children's school, and the teachers associated us with the city. From our “underground” we issued several proclamations. From there we organized and led and illegal meeting of the dispersed city council. But we were not in hiding. On the contrary, day in and day out we appeared at meetings and at professional unions, and thousands of people heard us and sympathized with us, especially after they learned that the Bolsheviks were searching for us in order to arrest us. Our chutzpah was so extensive that on behalf of the professional unions (I was the chair) we began to issue legally a newspaper, “The Vitebsk Worker” (in Russian). The Bolsheviks went all out, but they could not decide on closing an official impartial workers' journal. Eventually they so strongly oppressed the printer that the newspaper had to be shut down.

After that the situation became even more intense. Those arrested on January 4 were released. Meetings ceased. We were faced with making a choice: either to become legal or to leave Vitebsk.

At the beginning of February I received an urgent telegram from Minsk, where the bureau of the Bund's central committee was located, that I should immediately come to a consultation and participate in the work of a couple of commissions. I understood this invitation as a piece of advice to leave Vitebsk, so I followed our companions.

In the first days of March, 1917, at the very beginning of the democratic revolution, the city's self-government, the city council, tried to involve itself in the flow of events and to be represented in the new order in the city. In the new circumstances, however, when other organizations became dominant in the revolutionary democracy – the security committee, the council of labor deputies, and so on – the leaders of the old city administration quickly gave way. In the city, people pretty much forgot about them. People waited for the Provisional Government in Petersburg to publish a new law

[Page 580]

about general democratic elections in the city administration, but in those turbulent days this plan languished for a couple of months. But eventually it appeared necessary to consider this issue, because the old city administration had itself taken up the issue of a “reform,” chosen a special commission to this end, invited representatives from the government to the meetings, and so on. The end was that the council of labor deputies had put the issue on its agenda, made certain decisions, and put an end to the existence of the old city council.

The matter developed in this way: during May, two chairs, one from the labor council and the second from the soldiers' council, went to the gubernia commissar of the Provisional Government, Alexei Volkovitch, with a proposal to create a new, provisional democratic city council to replace the old one. This proposal, in the form of a letter to the commissar, was published in the Vitebsk newspaper, “The News.” The motivation for this proposal was simple and clear. In Vitebsk, as was the case in all other cities in the northwest, the revolution had found an archaic institution called the city council. Of the 7,000 homeowners in the city, most of them Jews, a total of 400 had the right to vote in elections for the council, most of them Christians. Of those, the majority belonged to the Black Hundred, right, conservative elements. Such a situation was unbearable from a revolutionary standpoint. Therefore the councils ordered the representatives from the central government in Vitebsk to approve the proposal to reorganize the city council on democratic foundations without waiting for Petersburg to work out the general reform law.

The project of a provisional reform in the city council that was published was highlighted by the following: establish in Vitebsk a provisional city council of 100 councilmen; 25 – to be sent by the security committee (which at that time exempted the representatives of the workers and the soldiers), which included the representatives of the bourgeoisie and democratic groups of all movements and peoples; 15 – sent by the old city council from among its members; and 60 – to be divided among the workers' and soldiers' deputies, professional labor unions, and socialist parties. The project had foreseen that the revolutionary

[Page 581]

democracy should be represented in the planned city council by 60 positions while the bourgeoisie would have 40. Almost no one appeared against this plan. A. Volkovitch found it possible to adopt this plan. When the first meeting of this new city parliament was called, Volkovitch greeted the improvised reform of the new city council on behalf of the Provisional Government.

It was really a proud gathering of the new deliberative body. For the first time, representatives of the democratic intelligentsia, workers, soldiers, and officers took the place of a handful of Russian homeowners and functionaries. Instead of “big government” Russians, there were also Poles, Jews, Latvians, Lithuanians; instead of only Black Hundreds and their accomplices there were socialists from different parties, Cadets, Zionists, Jewish and Polish democrats. For the first time under the banner of the Vitebsk city council there were speeches not only in Russian but also in other languages. A proud speech in Yiddish on behalf of the “Bund” was delivered by a worker, a shoemaker, M. Ratshkovsky. His speech moved everyone…

But it would not be correct to think “that no one came out against the plan” to democratize the city council. The old Black Hundred city council had not only promised to adopt the proposal and delegate its fifteen representatives, but it had also rebelled and sent a protest against the plan to Petersburg. It is interesting that in the upper echelons in Petersburg people did not understand the developing situation or the demands of the revolution. The administration over communal matters at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Avinov, did not consult even the gubernia commissar Volkovitch in Vitebsk, and in a telegram addressed to the chair of the old city council, Dr. Grigorovitch, he ordered an immediate suppression of “the revolution” in Vitebsk and the immediate restoration of the old city council.

One can understand what a mood this created in Vitebsk. When the scandal with Avinov became known, Volkovitch immediately telegraphed the Provisional Government. The labor- and soldiers-councils sent telegrams to Kerensky, Tseretelin, and Tchernov. Eventually, on behalf of our provisional city council, Shmuel Pisorevsky went to Petersburg and brought back from there a sanction for our rebellion. The central government

[Page 582]

had apparently understood what an injustice had been perpetrated when they wanted to restore in Vitebsk the Black Hundred city council.

The new provisional city council got organized and took over the leadership of all city matters. A directorship of new members was chosen. But there were certain difficulties in choosing the mayor. A substitute was chosen temporarily. He was the Menshevik V. Zarembo, a medical man. One must admit that in the couple of months during which this revolutionary institution existed, it did not arouse great interest in community and political life in the city. The center of the revolution was not there. The city administration appeared quite different later on when the new law appeared and as a result of general elections, a true democratic city government was born. That requires a detailed explanation.

The law regarding the democratic city government came out in Petersburg apparently in August. In any case, the elections in Vitebsk happened on August 30 and coincided with a very important date in the 1917 Revolution, when General Kornilov hatched his conspiracy against the Provisional Government. The election campaign in Vitebsk was quite lively. Among the socialist parties there were negotiations, and they formed a common socialist bloc, consisting of: the “Bund,” Mensheviks, Socialist-Revolutionaries, and Folk-Socialists. The united parties of the S.S. and the Y.S. also wanted to be included in this bloc, but the “Bund” did not allow this, so the two parties, as well as the Poalei Tzion, had their own list. The couple of Bolsheviks, who had centered around the Latvian Social Democratic organization and had ties with the military circles, formed their own list. All other circles of the Vitebsk population were also involved in the election battle. There were several national lists: Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Russian. Political interest was shown by the Cadets (liberals) and the Polish bloc. Among the Jewish parties there were two groupings: United Israel (Zionist) and the Folk-Party, which was a refuge for former socialists. The right – among whom were several council members from the old city council – suddenly organized

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in a “Union of White Russians.” There were also organized a whole series of local, unpartied, apolitical groups that figured in the election – Old Believers, Small Shopkeepers, Property Owners, Business Owners, Homeowners, the Association of Merchants and Industrialists, and others. Suffice it to say that for 102 seats in the new city government, there 20 lists with 481 candidates.

The following chart shows us the results of the competition in Vitebsk on August 30, 1917 in the elections for the democratic city government.

It is worth noting the following figures, because the first occasion (and until now the last) for such an election in Vitebsk.

List	Name of the group	# Candidates	# Votes	# Elected
1	Socialist Bloc	102	9612	38
2	Old Believers	10	509	2
3	Small Shopkeepers	55	52	0
4	Lithuanian Folk-Socialists	5	220	1
5	Union of Property Owners	36	683	2
6	Bolshevik & Latvian Social-Democrats	21	4212	17
7	Polish Workers, Soldiers, and P.P.S	6	341	1
8	The “United”	20	1220	5
9	United Israel	21	2054	8
10	Polish Bloc	15	1476	6
11	Latvian Radical Democrats	8	362	1
12	Cadets (Constitutional Democratic Party)	55	2041	8
13	Association of Merchants and Industrialists	15	620	2
14	Association of Business Owners	5	183	0
15	Jewish Folk-Party	10	299	1
16	Poalei Tzion	10	186	0
17	District of Piskevatshik and Slobodka	10	26	0
18	Employees of the City Council	13	108	0
19	Knesset Yisroel	9	302	1
20	Association of White Russians	55	1836	7

[Page 584]

Together with the other socialists (1 from the Poles, 5 from United, 1 Lithuanian, and 1 Folk-Party) list number 1 had 46 votes in the council. The Bolshevik-Latvian votes cannot be counted, because from the first moment their opposition to everything and everyone appeared in the city council. One must conclude that their victory in the election was even for themselves, for the Bolsheviks in Vitebsk, totally unexpected. One can attribute their victory to the Latvians, who had in Vitebsk a large organization of refugees and the support of the Latvian military circles. Among the Bolshevik-Latvian councilman were a score of young soldiers who had little familiarity with the Russian language. As for their loyalty to Vitebsk, one cannot speak: they were strangers, accidental “guests.” It is interesting that the Latvians apparently did not then consider themselves Bolsheviks. The declaration that was read on behalf of the council faction “Bolsheviks and Latvian Social-Democrats” began with the words, “Our party is called the R.S.D.A.P. – Internationalists”…

The bourgeois party, which was mostly interested in city matters, was quite modest. The “kernel” of the citizens' group consisted of: 8 Cadets, 8 Zionists, and 6 from the Polish bloc. To these votes were added 2 from the Merchants Association, 1 from Knesses-Yisroel (Orthodox), 2 Property Owners – altogether they had 27 votes. The Right – the 7 “White Russians” and 2 Old Believers – played no role in the council.

It is appropriate to note the of the 20 lists, 5 had not a single candidate in the city council. These were: the Small Shopkeepers, the Craftsmen, the Inhabitants of Piskevatchik and Slobodka, the Employees of the Old City Council, and one political group that had not a single councilman – that was the Poalei Tzion.

In the democratic council were represented in almost every faction. Among the Cadets and in the Socialist Bloc there were more than a few Jews. One cannot say exactly how many Jews there were, for example, in the Socialist Bloc, but the “Bund” certainly had the largest number of Jews in the council.

As for the composition of the democratic council, according to my

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memory I can offer the following picture: in the Socialist Bloc, the first on the list was the writer of these lines, after which came the leader of the Mensheviks, Alexander Tarla and the leader of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Mikhail Zeitlin; the Cadets were led y Adolf Levinson, an industrialist, and Yesaul Gniloribov; leading the Zionists was Dr. G. Bruk; the Polish group had among its leaders several lawyers, led by A Rosznovsky; Matz led the United group.

The chief work in shaping the council was in the hands of the Socialists. According to the new city council, it was decided that the mayor would be a Bundist and the chair of the city administration and his assistant would be a Menshevik and a Socialist-Revolutionary. But because it was impossible to get agreement from the Citizen element on a Bundist candidate, the issue of the mayor remained open (and remained so until the end of the council's existence).

Chosen to chair the city council was A. Turla (Menshevik). His assistants were M. Zeitlin (Socialist-Revolutionary) and A. Rosznovsky (Polish Bloc). In the city administration were: Dr. Zaremba (Menshevik), engineer Zalmen Guevitch (Menshevik), Medviedev (Socialist Revolutionary), Sh. Rivkin (“Bund”), Emil Zeitlin (“Bund”) – secretary of the administration – and Ilya Zax (a lawyer, unpartied but close to the Cadets).

Like everything else in that year, the Vitebsk city council was “polarized.” As the council was constructed, it was in a constant state of political collision. People were barely interested in the day-to-day issues. These matters were turned over to the authority of the directors.

It is perhaps appropriate to recall two projects that the council cared about and that had a certain community interest. The first project was to create a school board with national school sections. The “Bund” undertook and worked out this project. The second project, regarding unemployment, was undertaken by the Socialist Bloc. A special city committee was set aside to fight unemployment. Later, after the Bolsheviks dispersed the city council, that committee went over to the council of the professional unions and for two and a half years it led an independent existence and played an important role

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in the economic life of the city, because the Bolsheviks did not disperse them until the spring of 1920. The issue was even taken up in Moscow in the Sovnarkom [Council of People's Commissars]. Neither Lenin nor Rikov thought it expedient to liquidate the committee.

Meanwhile, immediately after Kornilov's rebellion, there were daily conflicts and confrontations with the Bolsheviks. The leading role in the council was played by the socialist bloc. Its proposals and projects were adopted in the council with a large majority against the votes of the Bolshevik faction. In all the intense moments of political life (and almost every day brought news, in hindsight), the majority trusted in the decisions of both leaderships of the labor and soldiers' councils, led by the “Bund,” the Mensheviks, and the Socialist-Revolutionaries. And actually there was a coalition formed in the council of the socialist and bourgeois elements.

In early November, the Bolsheviks began to sabotage the council's meetings. They used a young soldier, a Latvian, as their “eye” in the composition of the duma leadership. And until the end, they showed little interest in the fate of the democratic council.

The end came quickly. On January 4, 1918, probably from an order from their headquarters, their revolutionary military committee declared that the council was dissolved. Their pretext was that the council had organized a political demonstration in order to defend the founding-gathering that was called in Petersburg on that same day – January 4. And just as in Petersburg they had dispersed the founding-gathering and shot at a street demonstration, so did the Bolsheviks in Vitebsk.

Soon after that came the last phase in the council's existence. A general, illegal meeting of the council had been called at which were taken up two protests – one against the dispersal of the founding-gathering in Petersburg, the second against the dispersal of the Vitebsk council. This was the final appeal to the populace from the people who had been chosen in the general election. The protests and appeals were published illegally and were grasped in the city.

Thus ended the short history of the Vitebsk

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city government that was created at the time of the democratic revolution in 1917 and was unfortunately liquidated by the Bolsheviks.

The question has not only a local but a general interest, though it will now sound foolish to many: whether there were Bolsheviks in Vitebsk in the first year of the 1917 Revolution and whether they had an organization and what kind of role they played in community life.

At the end of 1917, after the October Revolution in Petersburg, they pretended to be in charge in Vitebsk, and during the early months of 1918 they felt like the unacknowledged power wielders in the city. But during the democratic February Revolution, when unlimited political freedom ruled in the country, when all possible governments and all shades of political life were formed in the city, were there Bolsheviks in the Vitebsk and how did they appear? We will answer this question based not on our recollections but on their only existing evidence, which was published by the Bolsheviks themselves.

In 1923, the Vitebsk “Istpart”^[3] put out a book, “Krasnaya Bil” (about the Bolsheviks in Vitebsk), and there is a detailed description of the course of the February Revolution in Vitebsk, written by B. Pinson. This Pinson, telling about many hardships that the Bolsheviks had in Vitebsk, presents the important fact that the first gubernia conference was called by the Bolsheviks on October 1, 1917. He writes, “At that time the organization was called the R.S.D.A.P.-Bolsheviks.” In other words, until October 1, there was no Bolshevik organization in Vitebsk. How is that possible? But it is a fact that has to be maintained.

B. Pinson was not in Vitebsk at the beginning of the revolution. He first came in April of 1917. Until then there was no Bolshevik organization in Vitebsk – there was not even a single Bolshevik. Pinson was the first and only. He writes: “There were organizations of Mensheviks, Bundists,

[Page 588]

Socialist-Revolutionaries, National-Socialists, national liberal groups, Cadets, Zionists, and so on and so on. But there was no Bolshevik organization.” He went to the Latvian Democrats, who had a large organization of refugees in Vitebsk. They favored the left. But “the Latvian Social-Democrat committee,” he writes, “had coordinated its activities with the Mensheviks.” And Pinson continues, “The month of June arrived and still there was no Bolshevik organization.” What to do? On June 20, Pinson called a meeting at the Latvian club. As he relates, it turns out that at the meeting there were a lot of Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries who immediately, on the spot, abandoned there “opportunistic organizations.” Did they declare for the Bolsheviks? No! It appears that the new organization gave itself a name: “Provisional Committee of Social-Democrats and Internationalists.” Even on July 2, they decided “immediately to join the All-Russian Bolshevik Center,” their name remained “The Vitebsk Organization R.S.D.A.P.-Internationalists.”

When, on September 10, at the meeting of the newly elected city council a fraction of 17 delegates appeared who were chosen under the rubric “Bolsheviks and Latvian Social-Democrats,” people could figure that there was now in the city a Bolshevik organization. But they also announced in their declaration that they belonged to a party that called itself R.S.D.A.P.-Internationalists. But in Russia there was no such party. There were R.S.D.A.P.-Bolsheviks and R.S.D.A.P.-United (Mensheviks), but R.S.D.A.P.-Internationalists was nothing more than a local, made-up creation.

We know that first on October 1 – a month before the October Revolution – the Bolshevik organization appeared in Vitebsk. One can say that perhaps the “legalization” of the Bolsheviks was somewhat disrupted by the police, but Pinson remembers nothing about this. The real reason there was no Bolshevik organization in Vitebsk was because among the radical activists there was then not a single Bolshevik, and Pinson himself with a couple of Latvian Social-Democrats played no political role, and, most importantly, the Bolsheviks had almost no ties to the Vitebsk

[Page 589]

labor movement. They had no representatives in the professional unions, took no part in the work of the labor council, and so on. It seems that they snuck into certain military organizations and spread propaganda. But it so happened that in the political openness, that went unnoticed. It is interesting that in 1917, Stalin's famous later aide in the terrors of 1936,1938, Nikolai Yeszov, was in a military division, but in Vitebsk, no one even knew his name.

The monopoly on the workers' environment in Vitebsk – whether among Jewish or non-Jewish workers – was held by the “Bund,” the Mensheviks, and sometimes by the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Suffice it to say that until January of 1918, that is, 2-3 months after the October Revolution, the leadership of the council of labor deputies lay in the hands of these anti-Bolshevik parties. When we consider the second most important representative of the labor movement, the council of professional unions, where there were representatives of all the leaders of the individual unions, the “Bund” and the Mensheviks maintained their leadership. The Bolsheviks gradually won influence in the military divisions, but the labor movement in the city – in the unions and workshops, in the factories and on the railroad – remained “free of Bolsheviks” even several months after October. In short, during the democratic revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks took no part in the labor movement. And although Pinson says that during 1917 the Bolsheviks had influence with the tanners, he admits that the “Menshevik directors maintained the tanners' union until the October Revolution and even a bit later.” As for the tailors, business employees, and printers, Pinson himself writes that they long remained the “support” of the Mensheviks. And as for the brushmakers, he says that “long after the consolidation of the Red government,” they remained under the influence of the “Bund.”

It is clear that the Bolshevik ties to the workers were nearly nil in the February Revolution. Other Bolsheviks who took part in the political events after the October Revolution have made it clearer than Pinson. The conveyed their impressions in the aforementioned

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book “Krasnaya Bil.” An older Bolshevik, Breslav, a former shoemaker in Vitebsk, was sent by order of the central committee of the Bolshevik party to Vitebsk in November. He tells clearly and forthrightly what he found in the city: no “ties with local workers, with their organizations, with the local economic community, and no political life in the council (the soldiers' council – G.A), nor with the party organization, nor with the two powers on which and the council and the party were based (soldiers and Latvians).” In his article, Breslav continues: “ Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries had a conflict-free and absolute influence on the working masses…The professional unions were Menshevik and Socialist-Revolutionary.” A third Bolshevik, Ivan Menitzky, who also came to Vitebsk after the October Revolution, states in his article that “the council of labor deputies remained a fortress for the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries.” A fourth Bolshevik, S. Shedlin, a former member of Poalei Tzion, recalls in an article that until spring of 1918 “the working mass was hostile” to t he Bolsheviks. The aforementioned Menitzky states categorically that “we carried out the October overthrows in Vitebsk without workers.”

Pinson tells that on the labor council, which had 300 deputies, there was a Bolshevik faction (he cites about 10-15 people) and one of them was on the presidium. This is simply a made-up figure. There was no Bolshevik faction in the council and there was certainly no Bolshevik on the presidium, which consisted exclusively of representatives from the “Bund,” the Mensheviks, the Socialist-Revolutionaries, and non-aligned parties.

Pinson states further about the Kornilov days in Vitebsk that the Bolsheviks then stirred up the world and developed “frenzied activities,” took part in the negotiations with General Alexeyev, who had come from Petersburg, and so on. The truth is that the Bolsheviks played no role in the events until the October overthrow. They began to play their unfortunate role about the victory of the Bolsheviks in the important centers of the country.

Finally we will use the book “Krasnaya Bil,” which tells the story of the Bolsheviks in Vitebsk. We do so in order to fix some details that show clearly how the victor –

[Page 591]

the Bolsheviks in the first couple of months in Vitebsk – appeared. We have already shown that this victor had no influence or ties with the labor movement. It is also, perhaps, important to say that from among the ranks of the local Vitebsk democratic intelligentsia, not a single person joined the Bolsheviks. The highest representatives in the city from the Bolsheviks were two non-Vitebskers. One of them was the representative of the “Revkom,” from the revolutionary military committee, Sarkansiantz. He was the official spokesperson for the Bolsheviks at many meetings called by the socialist bloc. He was on the Bolshevik list at the founding assembly. Pinson has only one line about him in his historical article: “In those days of October. Sarkansiantz was removed [from his post] for severe Bonapartist tendencies.”

The second important representative was on Solomko, who was selected from Petersburg as the first Bolshevik gubernia commissar. Pinson says about him: “He was close to the anarchist-communists and only later joined the Bolsheviks.” Menitzky writes about this Bolshevik: “We were very fearful of various surprises from this unknown anarchist.” And Breslav, who was the most earnest of all the historians, says in his article that when he came to Vitebsk, he saw that the “gubernia government was represented and brought about by an unknown person, Solomko,” who used arrests and conducted himself in such a way that the Vitebsk Bolshevik committee “took upon itself all sorts of moral atrocities” as its business. So he was the first representative of the Bolshevik government in Vitebsk and in the gubernia.

Among the other Bolshevik personalities who played an important role in the upheaval, Menitzky mentions one Vasilenko: “A former priest who joined with the peasantry and the revolution. Later he fell on the southern front.” Breslav writes in the same collection about this Bolshevik hero: “Among the people who called themselves Bolsheviks there were open adventurists and counter-revolutionaries, like, for example, Pope Vasilenko.”

Among Jews who, aside from Pinson, played a certain role among the Bolsheviks one can cite only Breslav. He was an older

[Page 592]

Bolshevik, a worker, a shoemaker, who once lived in Vitebsk. He had been sent to Siberia, escaped, lived as an emigrant, and in 1911 returned illegally to Russia as one of Lenin's agents. When he came to Vitebsk after the October Revolution, he was delegated temporarily to the zemstvo leadership. Here is what is this old Bolshevik, Lenin's agent, said: “I felt myself worse than in the forest. I did not know what to do. I did not know how the zemstvo existed and what its existence meant.” Thus did an old Bolshevik write about the zemstvo that had existed since 1864 and had played a large role in community life of the old agrarian country. What could one demand from the other, much less experienced Bolsheviks who took upon themselves to make the whole Russian government Bolshevik, if a political activist from Lenin's coterie was so helpless and primitive?

Footnotes

1. All-Russian Executive Committee of Railroad Workers and Employees. return
2. Central Executive Committee of Councils. return
3. Shortened name of the institute that was formed to study the history of the Bolshevik Party. return

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