23 December 1917. George Buchanan

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

George Buchanan

4, Dvortsovaya embankment, Petrograd, Russian Republic (British Embassy)

Roudneff, the Mayor of Moscow, Goltz, who belongs to the left wing of the social revolutionaries, and the Mayor of Petrograd, sent me a message the other day saying that they wanted to see me and suggesting that I should meet them in the Summer Garden so as not to attract attention.

I declined to give them a clandestine meeting of this kind but said that if they would come to the Embassy I should be happy to see them. Roudneff and Goltz came late this evening, having apparently taken every precaution not to be followed.

It is symptomatic of the times we live in that a Socialist of Goltz' extreme views has to come to the Embassy secretly for fear of being arrested as a counter-revolutionary. They had, they said, come to ask me what would be our attitude were the Constituent Assembly to appeal to us to convert the present nego- tiations for a separate peace into negotiations for a general one. They next inquired whether, if Russia, who could not go on wth the war, were to conclude a separate peace, we could do anything to help her from being forced to accept terms prejudicial to the interests of the Allies. Finally, they wanted to know whether Mr. Lloyd George's statement that we were going to fight out the war to a finish was meant seriously or intended as a bluff for the Germans. I returned non- committal answers to all their questions, and, on my explaining the reasons which forced us to go on with the war, they assured me that the social revolutionaries did not hold us, but the Germans, responsible for its continuation. As they were leaving, Roudneff told me that my chair in the municipal council chamber was always at my disposal as the Moscow Duma was not Bolshevik. I am not, however, tempted to occupy it in present circumstances.

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Bertrand Russell

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The materialistic conception of history is all very well, but some care for the higher things of civilization is a relief. The Bolsheviks are sometimes said to have done great things for art, but I could not discover that they had done more than preserve something of what existed before.

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Alfred Knox

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Nicholas Roerich

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Grand Duchess Anastasia Anna Vyrubova

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My darling and dear: Thank you tenderly for your little gift. It was so nice to have it, reminding me especially of you. We remember and speak of you often, and in our prayers, we are always together. The little dog you gave is always with us and is very nice. We have arranged our rooms comfortably and all four live together. See more

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22 December

Preventative censorship for newspapers and martial law introduced in Moscow

Peace talks begin between Germany and Russia

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in Petrograd

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in Moscow