Russka - Edward Rutherfurd [521]
And perhaps hardship had given him something of Savva’s temperament, too. For now the man for whom all things were always possible had become rather silent and cautious. And determined.
He watched events closely. Since the spring, two important developments had taken place. First, the capital was transferred from Petrograd to Moscow. Second, under Lenin’s direct instructions a peace had been signed with Germany at Brest Litovsk. It gave way to all Germany’s demands. Finland, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia all became independent. So, under German control, did the Ukraine. The loss was devastating in terms of agriculture and mineral resources. But as Russia was then in no position to fight, it may have saved the Bolshevik régime. Since Russia was no longer their active ally, however, the peace also caused the western powers to look carefully at the new Socialist government whose leaders had long and actively espoused the cause of world revolution. By summer, a British force had already established a beachhead in the far north, officially to guard allied ammunition supplies; and soon a Japanese force, encouraged by the United States, had landed upon the Pacific shore in distant Vladivostok. Other forces were also at work. In the far south, the Don Cossacks were preparing to resist the Bolsheviks; other opposition was gathering in the east beyond the Volga. Lenin, clearly anxious, was busily recruiting a new Red Army. Trotsky was in personal charge. In Moscow, they had been offering steadily higher salaries all spring to get recruits. ‘There’s going to be a civil war,’ Vladimir told Nadezhda. ‘Though God knows who’ll win it.’
Quietly, carefully, Vladimir watched. June passed, then July. And then, in the last part of July, the news came which decided him.
They had shot the Tsar.
Dimitri looked thoughtfully at his Uncle Vladimir and then his father. It was the first time he had seen a tension between them. Still stranger was it to hear his father, standing in the dining room, say in almost cutting tones to the great man: ‘I am surprised you should even ask me to desert my country.’
They had been talking for half an hour and reached only an impasse. Patiently Vladimir had explained his reasoning. The increasing terror from the Cheka, the danger from outside. ‘Only one thing can result when a régime is in this kind of position,’ he argued. ‘Either it falls, or it imposes a tyranny. I’m sure now that the Bolsheviks will hold on to power. And the killing of the Tsar signals their intentions. They’ll stand and fight. And I for one will certainly be destroyed.’
‘The Tsar was killed by the local Siberian Soviet anyway,’ Peter objected.
‘I don’t believe it. And history will prove me right.’
But Professor Peter Suvorin wasn’t very interested in the Tsar.
There was no doubt, Vladimir considered, as he looked at his brother, that Peter could be irritating. He thought sadly of Rosa; then, with a grim smile, of his old grandfather. What, he wondered, had poor old Savva made of Peter? Not much, it seemed. To Vladimir’s deep and wide-ranging mind, accustomed to weigh causes and intentions as well as to appreciate the beautiful, his brother’s intelligence, however fine in its way, was superficial. Carefully he had questioned him about the events of recent months: the Bolshevik seizure of power, the ousting of moderate Socialists like the professor himself. All these things, Peter agreed, had disturbed him greatly. ‘But in the long run, don’t you see, Vladimir, it may have to be this way. We have the revolution. That’s the point, die revolution.’ And he had smiled with that sweet, clear look in his eyes which made Vladimir shake his head and remark grumpily: ‘I may be wrong, but I think you see what you want to.’
Yet why, Dimitri wondered, despite my father’s refusal, should Uncle Vladimir still be putting such pressure upon me to go? For I haven’t the least desire to.
Indeed, the last few months had been thrilling. In the ferment of the revolution, the artists