17 June 1917. Alfred Knox

Non-fiction

Project 1917 is a series of events that took place a hundred years ago as described by those involved. It is composed only of diaries, letters, memoirs, newspapers and other documents

Alfred Knox

Kerenski had appointed “ commissaries ” to each army to assist in the maintenance of discipline. These men were all hall-marked revolutionaries, and most of them had spent several years in penal servitude. The commissary of the nth Army had been six years an exile in Siberia ; the commissary of the 7th Army, Boris Savinkov, had been the chief organiser of the murder of the Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Since then he had lived in exile as a journalist. Under the pseudonym of “ Ropshin ” he had written a weird tale, “ The Pale Horse.” In principle, the appointment of commissaries was, of course, wrong, as it diminished the prestige of the officers, but both of these men were working with courage and in complete harmony with the Command to re-establish order”

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Nadezhda Udaltsova

82 apartment, 65, Smolenskiy blvd, Moscow, Russian Empire

I have grown horribly thin, but will soon get better. Moscow is a total dump, the yard cleaners are on strike and are preventing others from cleaning the streets. And, of course, it is those who are poorer who suffer. The bourgeoisie have taken their children to Crimea while those of others are playing in manure. This is not good. And the revolution is assuming a singularly economic character.

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Vsevolod Meyerhold

Moscow, Russian Empire

I hate Moscow, but am sitting here. As if in exile. Am putting on Sologub. I have a good stage artist: Tatlin. But I would have run away, like Maupassant, who ran away from the Eiffel Tower.

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Leon Trotsky

Tauride Palace

At the Congress of the Soviets the Bolshevik fraction has publicly announced a declaration that I proposed regarding the anticipated Kerensky’s offensive on the front. We were pointing out that the offensive is a misadventure, threatening the existence of the army.

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Nikolai Wrangel

Petrograd, Russian Empire

The Bolsheviks, who were before called “communists,” have been dispatched to Russia from Germany to incite rebellion, and it was also the Germans who gave them money; the Provisional Government knew that communists were emissaries of a state that was at war with us, but still not only granted them permission to enter, but also pompously met them. “Treason,” you will say? No, just stupidity.

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Nikolai Berdyaev

Bol'shoy Vlasyevskiy Lane, 4, Moscow, Russian Empire

Russia's isolation in the world cannot be allowed. It needs to have allies in Europe, and those allies could only be England and France. It needs to stay true to allies and to follow common goals. Only then will it really, and not dreamily, enter humanity, world culture, the extent of the world. Dreamy internationalism only pushes us into Asia and isolates us.

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Alexander Kerensky

speaking at the First Congress

Petrograd, Russian Empire

You are suggesting a way towards further destruction. From this chaos, as a phoenix from the ashes, a dictator will emerge—not me, whom you are trying to portray as a dictator—but when you, with an unconscious, crazy union with reactionary forces will destroy our government, you will open the road to a true dictator.

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Alexandra Kollontai with Georgi Plekhanov

Petrograd, Russian Empire

The first All-Russian Conference of Soviets in the Cadet School of the Vasilyevsky District. We, the Bolshevik-Internationalists, made our presence known with a firm line of speeches… In the first rows of the auditorium I noticed Plekhanov. His hair has turned grey. He is not with us, he is an Oboronets. See more

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