25 August 1917. Ilya Ehrenburg

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

Ilya Ehrenburg

Moscow, Russian Empire

All of Moscow was living like a passenger at a railway station, waiting for the third bell. Round-ups of deserters were organised. There was swearing and shouting everywhere particularly on the trams, which crawled along, plastered with people. Desperate liberals drank champagne in the Metropol Hotel, paying with large packs of uncut “Kerenki” banknotes.

Out of habit, they mumbled that they had to save Russia. Perhaps they were hoping to save themselves, too, but they no longer believed in anything. In the “Bom” Cafe, newly-minted publishers assured us that they would publish the “Gavriliad”, Rasputin’s memoirs, or the collected works of any one of us. Some of these quickly lost enthusiasm for publishing and went in for dry goods and sugar instead. In the tea-houses on Shabolovka, people waited gloomily for things to come to a head.

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Alexander Blok

57, Ofitserskaya street, Petrograd, Russian Empire

There is so much to do that I have lost motivation and haven’t been working with particular efficiency. I am preparing a report, however, and Lyuba has been helping me with the stenography along with a few other hired hands. Our chairman and the others have left for the Conference, and I have been taking advantage of it—I swim ever more intensively and only work for half the day.

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Peter Kropotkin

The Bolshoi Theatre, 1, Teatral'naya ploshchad', Moscow, Russian Empire

at a State meeting

Also attending: Kerensky, Catherine Breshkovsky, KornilovCommander in Chief of the Petrograd command - from 18 March 1917, Nekrasov, Lvov, Rodzianko, Tsereteli, Guchkov, Plekhanov, Trubetskoy and others

Woodrow Wilson President of the Russian National Council Assembly

Washington, D.C., United States

I venture to take the liberty to send to the members of the great council now meeting in Moscow the cordial greetings of their friends the people of the United States, to express their confidence in the ultimate triumph of ideals of democracy and self-government against all enemies within and without, and to give their renewed assurance of every material and moral assistance they can extend to the Government of Russia in the promotion of the common cause in which the two nations are unselfishly united.

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Nadezhda Krupskaya with Vladimir Lenin

apt. 22, 1, Hagonskaya pl., Helsingfors, Finland

I was in Helsinki for a couple of days. Ilyich wanted to see me all the way to the station, right up to the last corner. We agreed that I’d come again.

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Georgi Plekhanov

Moscow, Russian Empire

You see, to this day I have always thought that most of Russia was populated by Russians – Slavs. I had thought that the dominant type here was Slavic, the “Novgorod” type, roughly speaking. That is to say – tall, mainly long-headed, (dolichocephalic), with fair hair. But what do I see when I look at all the workers, peasants and soldiers’ deputies in all the Russian, Petersburg and other Soviets? See more

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