23 March 1917. Maurice Paleologue

10, Kutuzov embankment, Petrograd, Russian Empire

This morning Buchanan has announced that King George, with the advice and approval of his ministers, offers the Emperor and Empress the hospitality of British territory; but he refuses to guarantee their safety and confines himself to a hope that they will remain in England until the end of the war.

Miliukov is obviously greatly touched by this announcement, but he added sadly:

"But I fear it comes too late!"

It is certainly true that from day to day---I could almost say from hour to hour---the tyranny of the Soviet, the despotism of the extreme parties and the domination of Utopians and anarchists are becoming increasingly evident.

And so., as the latest press telegrams show me that people in Paris are cherishing curious illusions about the Russian revolution, I have telegraphed to Ribot in the following terms:

Notwithstanding the importance of all that has happened in the last twelve days, it is my opinion that the events we are witnessing are only a prelude. The forces which are destined to be the determining factor in the final result of the revolution (I mean the rural masses, the priests, the Jews, the subject nationalities, the bankruptcy of the State, the economic débâcle, etc.), have not even entered the field. So at the moment it is impossible to give any logical and practical forecast of the future of Russia. The best proof of this lies in the hopelessly contradictory prophecies offered me by people in whose judgment and open-mindedness I have the greatest confidence. Some regard the proclamation of a republic as a certainty. Others think the restoration of the Empire, under constitutional forms, is inevitable.

But if your Excellency will be good enough to rest content for the time being with my impressions, which are wholly dominated by the thought of the war, I see the course of events in the following light:

1. When will the forces to which I have just referred begin to make themselves felt?---Hitherto, the Russian nation has attacked the dynasty and the administrative caste, nothing else. We shall now be faced with economic, social, religious and ethnical problems. These problems are very formidable, from the point of view of the war; for the Slav imagination, far from being constructive like that of the Latin or Anglo-Saxon, is essentially anarchical and dispersive. Until these problems are solved the public mind will be wholly taken up with them. Yet we cannot want the solution to be precipitate, for it cannot be realized without severe upheavals. We must therefore expect that for a considerable time to come Russia's effort will be weakened and uncertain.

2. Is the Russian nation determined to continue the war to final victory? Russia implies so many different races, and ethnical antagonisms are so acute in certain regions, that the national idea is far from being universal. The conflict of social classes has a similar effect on patriotism. The working masses, the Jews and the inhabitants of the Baltic provinces, for instance, merely regard the war as senseless butchery. On the other hand,, the fighting armies and the genuinely Russian populations have in no way abandoned their hope of m victory and their determination to achieve it. If I wanted to express my idea somewhat extravagantly to make it more intelligible, I should be tempted to say that "In the present phase of the revolution Russia cannot make peace or war."

In yesterday's Petrograd Gazette the Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovitch has had a long interview published in which he attacks the fallen sovereigns:

I have often wondered, he says, whether the ex-Empress were not in league with William II; but each time I have forced myself to dismiss so horrible a suspicion.

Who can tell whether this treacherous insinuation will not before long provide the foundation for a terrible charge against the unfortunate Tsarina? The Grand Duke Cyril should know or be reminded that the most infamous calumnies which Marie Antoinette had to meet when she faced the Revolutionary Tribunal first took wing at the elegant suppers of the Comte d'Artois.

About five o'clock I went to call on Sazonov at the Hôtel de l'Europe where he has been suffering from a stubborn attack of bronchitis for the last three weeks. I found him in a very melancholy frame of mind, though not despairing. As I expected, he sees the hand of Providence in the present misfortunes of Russia:

"We deserved chastisement. I did not think it would be so severe . . . But God cannot mean Russia to perish . . . . A purified Russia will emerge from this trial."

Then he spoke in strong terms of the conduct of the Emperor:

"I needn't tell you of my love for the Emperor, and with what devotion I have served him. But as long as I live I shall never forgive him for abdicating for his son. He had no shadow of right to do so! . . . Is there a body of law in the world which allows the rights of a minor to be abandoned? And what's to be said when those rights are the most sacred and august on earth? Fancy destroying a three-hundred-year-old dynasty and the stupendous work of Peter the Great , Catherine II and Alexander I! What a tragedy! What a disaster!"

His eyes were full of tears.

I asked him if his health would allow him to leave for London in the near future as I had no doubt that he would consider it his duty to take up his ambassadorial post.

"I'm horribly perplexed," he said. "What line of policy can I follow in London? I shall certainly not refuse my help to honest men like Lvov and Miliukov. But will they stay in power? . . . In any case, my doctor doesn't think I shall be fit to travel for at least three weeks."

I was certainly struck by his deathly pallor, his haggard features and all the signs of physical and mental suffering he betrayed.

Last night Rasputin's coffin was secretly exhumed from its resting-place in the chapel at Tsarskoïe-Selo and taken away to the Forest of Pargolovo, fifteen versts north of Petrograd.

In the midst of a clearing there, a number of soldiers, commanded by an engineer officer, had piled up a large quantity of pine logs. After forcing off the coffin lid they drew the corpse out with sticks; 'they dare not touch it with their hands, owing to its putrefying condition, and they hoisted it, not without difficulty, on to the heap of logs. Then they drenched it in petrol and set it on fire. The process of cremation lasted until dawn, more than six hours.

In spite of the icy wind, the appalling length of the operation and the clouds of pungent and fetid smoke which rose from the pyre, several hundred moujiks crowded round the fire all night; silent and motionless, they gazed in horror-stricken stupor at the sacrilegious holocaust which was slowly devouring the martyred staretz, friend of the Tsar and Tsarina, the Bojy tchelloviek, "Man of God."

When the flames had done their work, the soldiers collected the ashes of the corpse and buried them under the snow.

The authors of this gruesome epilogue were anticipated by Italy in the Middle Ages; the human imagination cannot go on indefinitely renewing the forms in which its passions and visions find expression.

In the year 1266 Manfred (bastard of the Emperor Frederick II, usurper-King of the Two Sicilies) murderer, perjurer, simoniac, heretic, with every crime on his soul and excommunicated by the Church, perished while warring with Charles of Anjou on the banks of the Calore, near Beneventum.

His captains and soldiers, who worshipped him for his youth, beauty, open-heartedness and charm, buried him with touching affection on the very spot where he fell.

But a year later, Pope Clement IV decreed that the pontifical process of execration and excommunication should be continued against a monster unworthy to rest in consecrated ground. On his orders,, the Archbishop of Cosenza had the body exhumed and over the unrecognizable remains pronounced the pitiless sentences which consign the outcast to Hell: In ignem æturnum judicamus. . . . The ceremony took place at night, by the light of torches which were extinguished one by one until darkness was complete, when what was left of Manfred was cut in pieces and scattered far and wide.

This tragic and picturesque scene deeply moved contemporary Italy and in fact gave Dante the inspiration for one of the finest passages in the Divina Commedia. Ascending the steep mountain of. Purgatory, the poet sees the phantom of the young prince approaching him. It calls to him and says: "I am Manfred. My sins were horrible. But the infinite goodness of God has arms long enough to clasp all who turn towards it. If the spiritual father of Cosenza who was sent by Clement to scatter my bones had seen God's face of pity, my bones would be still at the end of the bridge near Beneventum, guarded by a heavy stone. And now the rains soak them and the winds play with them on the banks of the river where the Archbishop and his priests had them tossed after the torches were extinguished. But their denunciations make no man so lost that the divine love cannot restore him, so long as hope retains a single green branch within him."

I should like to offer that quotation to the poor captive Tsarina.

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Maxim Gorky

23, Kronversky ave., Petrograd, Russian Empire

The revolution has just begun, it will last for years, counter-revolution is possible, and reactionary ideas and moods inevitably rise. We won not because we are a force, but because the government was weak. What is happening here is facing great dangers. We have committed a political revolution and mist consolidate our gain - that is the meaning of the event and that is the task of the moment.

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Maria Feodorovna

Kiev, Russian Empire

Arrived in Kiev at 1o’clock. How things have changed! At the station there is no one, only on the platform civilians with red bows. Disgusting!

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Nikolai Berdyaev

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

The autocratic tsarist power, which distorted our church life, fell, and the Church was freed from this idol. But the “kingdom of Caesar” continues to exist in new forms. An idol can be created from democracy, from socialism, from the people themselves, and the church life can fall into slavery to these new idols. The free Church must be free not only from the old state, the kingdom of the autocracy. but also from the new state, from the kingdom of democracy.

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George Buchanan Pavel Milyukov

Petrograd, Russian Empire

The king and His Majesty's government would be happy to oblige the request of the Provisional Government and to offer the emperor and his family asylum in England, of which they hope, their majesties will make use for the duration of the war. In case this offer is accepted the Russian government of course will be obliged to allocate the necessary funds for their living expenses.

We believe that the Russian government will do everything necessary to provide for the protection of the imperial family. If something terrible were to happen to the family, then the government would be discredited in the eyes of the civilised world.

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Paul Klee

is working on his painting "With blue blotches"

Summer school, Gersthofen, Bavaria, German Empire

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John Hanbury-Williams

Mogilev, Stavka, Russian Empire

Last night Alexeieff sent for me and we had a long talk. He is gravely anxious as to what may happen to the Emperor and Empress, who are now, he tells me, under close arrest at Tsarskoye Selo.

He is most anxious that both should be got out of the country to some haven of refuge.

Janin, de Ryckel and I have done what we can to help, having talked it all over, though our efforts to accompany the Emperor to Tsarskoye Selo were snubbed.

Major-General John Headlam, who had been on an ‘artillery adviser’ trip, turned up, and gave me a most interesting account of what he had seen of the feeling among the troops he saw.

Many of the officers had the unfortunate and totally false impression that the Court from the top to bottom was pro-German. At the same time no anti-dynastic sentiment was expressed. The Grand Duke Michael’s appointment was welcomed, and a prospect of the Tsarevitch eventually succeeding was welcomed. The appointment of the Grand Duke Nicholas as C.-in-C. was very popular. The impression was that German intrigues would be effectually checked, and that the change might lead to representative government.

Over and over again he heard the expression: ‘Now we shall have responsible ministers’.

Kieff, through which he had passed, was a mixture of quiet and hysteria.

A Russian officer whom he knew and had just arrived from Petrograd gave him his impressions as follows: -

‘The real danger of the situation lies in the extreme wing of the Labour party, who are nothing but anarchists and terrorists. They are only a small percentage, perhaps 15 per cent., but they exert great influence. These men care nothing for consequences so long as they can spread their own doctrines. They are ready to end the war for this.

The cry is already to kill Rodzianko, who, the anarchists say, is now only thinking of making himself first President of the Republic, and Kerenski, their own socialist representative in the Government, because he is too moderate, and now that he has become a minister does not want to do more.

The Government dare not tackle this anarchist element because they have succeeded in obtaining the support of the soldiers, and the Union is now called the Union of Workers and Soldiers.

The soldiers in question are those in the depots at Petrograd, not 2 per cent. of whom are old soldiers and have been service – mostly youth of 18 to 19. During the first two or three days they looted the food and drink shops, going to sleep on the spot when they got drunk. Now when spoken to they don’t know what they are out for. They are already saying they have done their work in dethroning the Emperor, and demand to be given pensions and let go.

It is very important to avoid letting the anarchist wing get hold of the real army. The delegates who have been sent from the Government will do no harm - they have gone officially and work through the commanders. The danger lies in secret emissaries from the extremists inciting mutiny.

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Nicholas II

Tsarskoye Selo, Russian Empire

I slept well. Bonda, Romei, Marcengo, Lontkevich and I took a walk for about an hour. The weather was mild, but all day it had been snowing. After tea I began unpacking things. I had dinner with Alix and played bezik with her.

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22 March

Prokofiev on a new national anthem

Pasternak meets Mayakovsky

The US wanted to be the first state to admit the new Russian government