These two chapters from In a Women's Death Battalion: A Russian Nurse in Revolution and Civil War, 1917-1918 (Maria Bocharnikova; translation from the Russian by Kimball Worcester, 2021) are a participant's account, along with her battalion, of the "defense" of the Winter Palace during the October 1917 Bolshevik coup that solidified their lock on power and ushered in the Soviet 20th century. Women volunteers came from all over the country and various societal and professional positions, hoping to serve their homeland in wartime, and were caught up in the throes of the Eastern Front and the Russian Revolution and Civil War.
Chapter 7: Parade in Palace Square
We were supposed to parade in front of the Winter Palace on 24 October. Lieutenant Somov decided we should excel and secretly drilled the company with bayonets upright.
We tidied up, washed, and wrote farewell letters home. Over the few days left before deployment, the battalion commander verified our knowledge. The battalion was drawn up in a field, and Company 1 performed all the maneuvers, fanned out in formation, made field runs covering each other, and went on the attack. Our commander was satisfied with the results of his preparations.
The 24th of October arrived. We loaded up in a train, with the scouts going on horseback, and moved out to Petrograd singing.
One of the wagons sang “Hey, You Lads!” with the spirited refrain “A, ha ha, a ha ha!” Another chose “Dust Rolls Along the Road,” a sad story of a Cossack orphan coming back from raiding. And from the third came the lively “O, the River Flows Along the Sand!” We shouted like roosters at dawn. At every stop passengers and personnel came out onto the platform to hear our singing. The lead singer Yatsullo had the voice of a nightingale. Once we got to Petrograd, we moved through the streets singing. “Oh, they sing well,” commented a soldier as we passed.
And now Palace Square. Some regimental orchestra turned up, and the top brass were soon welcomed: a general (whose surname I don’t remember) with his staff and the war minister, Kerensky. We formed up in our platoon columns. The orchestra thundered out. Our 3rd platoon marched.
I stepped out from the middle of the platoon, and it lined up a little way with a point soldier up front, the brigade’s colors on her bayonet. “Eyes front!” I commanded. Bodies taut like wire. I stared straight ahead, afraid of losing our formation. I stomped in marching with such force that I was afraid that after the parade my feet would be like two pork chops. With a glance I measured the distance to the brass: five paces… A sharp turn with eyes right. According to regulations, I “devoured” them in my line of sight, although in my agitation I couldn’t see either their faces or even make out the figures. How not to be worked up! Till now the platoon was just drilling in a familiar place under the gaze of cats passing by on the roof! Here, though—we’re in front of our commanders and a thousand spectators.
On the eve of the parade, we received a message that the “comrades” (the Bolsheviks) wanted to come mess us up. We went to the parade fully loaded and safeties off, just in case. We had our pockets and pouches full of cartridges. The lieutenants ordered: “In the event of an attack first shoot into the air, then—at the attackers.”
We made our second pass. The lieutenant commanded: “Present arms!” The company marched, bayonets bristling upward. What can I say? It was an awesome sight! How could our enemies not take to their heels in fear to save their lives!
And then? The 1st Company was sent right to the train station, and ours was led right shoulders forward back to the square. We saw that the whole battalion, walking in ceremonial march, had also followed the 1st Company to the station. The square had emptied. They ordered us to stack our rifles. A rumor was about that at a factory, (Nobel, it seems) the workers were rioting, and we were being sent there to requisition gasoline. Dissatisfied voices could be heard: “Our job is at the front, not messing around with civil disorder.” A command rang out: “Shoulder arms!” We took up our rifles and were led to the palace gates.
Chapter 8: Fighting in the Winter Palace
The Cossacks refused to defend the Winter Palace and they left on 25 October, passing on their machine guns to the Junkers [officer candidates] . Passing through a courtyard, I saw a Junker walking with his sabre drawn, near the arsenal, the Mikhailovsky Artillery School.
The company was sent to some luxurious apartments with windows overlooking Palace Square. They said these were Catherine the Great’s rooms. Cartridges were distributed; the new casings shone like gold. Almost everyone tucked away one or two—for a memento.
We sat ourselves on the floor, clutching our rifles. No one wanted to sit on the furniture, fearing we would stain them with our greatcoats. Later we were indignant when we found out that soldiers who had sliced up the silk and velvet upholstery blamed it on us.
On my way to supper, I saw Junkers standing around and sitting on the floor. For now, it was quiet, but we knew we were stationed there to defend the Winter Palace.
Night brought no changes at all. The Volunteers sat up, rifles at hand ready for the first order into battle. Several times I went and crouched by the glass, straining to see anything. Not one movement was visible. The lieutenant warned us: “After the order to open fire, put something soft on the glass and push it out!”
The Mikhailovsky Artillery School had been taken over in deception by a commissar who had gone over to the Bolsheviks. On the 25th, Commissar Abram Gundovsky had snuck into the palace, having persuaded the Junkers to leave. He was arrested but then released.
On the night of the 24th–25th, the armored cars abandoned the Winter Palace. Only one was left behind, whose magneto the soldiers had thrown away. Some shock workers stole into the palace from the train station. We heard that amongst them was a female warrant officer.
On the evening of the 24th, headquarters summoned units from the front, but the Smolny (Bolshevik headquarters) summoned the Kronstadt sailors. The entire fleet entered the Neva (several thousand sailors). The sailors landed near the Nikolaevsky Bridge and from there led the attack on the Winter Palace. Headquarters ordered the bridges (Liteyny, Troitsky, Nikolaevsky) disengaged in order to cut off the workers’ regions from the city center. This was done, but at three o’clock the workers and Red army soldiers took them back. At night the cruiser Aurora was ordered to the Nikolaevsky Bridge (still in the Junkers’ hands) to seize it, which it accomplished.
I heard all these accounts three years later from Mr. Zurov, who wrote A History of the Russian Revolution, to which I contributed some accounts of the Women’s Battalion. Now I return to my personal memories.
At nine in the evening of 25 October 1917, we received the order to go out to the barricades the Junkers had erected in front of the Winter Palace. At the gates a streetlight burned high above the ground. “Junkers, put out that light!” Stones flew, and the glass shattered with a crash. Another stone extinguished the light. Total darkness. It was difficult even to see one’s neighbor. We spread out to the right behind the barricade, mixing in with the Junkers. As we later found out, Kerensky had secretly left looking for the bicycle brigades, leaving behind the minister Konovalov and Dr Kishkin, but the bicycle brigades had already “turned red” and participated in the attack on the palace. Between eight and nine o’clock, the Bolsheviks presented an ultimatum for surrender, which was refused.
At nine o’clock, a huge shout of “Urraah!” broke out in front, and the Bolsheviks attacked. In one minute, there was tumult everywhere. Rifle and machine gun fire traded off. The Aurora’s guns thundered. We and the Junkers, standing behind the barricade, answered with rapid fire. I glanced right and left. Continuous bursts of light broke out, just like the flickering of hundreds of fireflies. Sometimes the silhouette of a head could be made out. The attack stalled. The enemy hit the ground. The firing quieted, then flashed up with a new strength.
Taking advantage of the quiet, I raised my voice a bit and asked:
“4th Platoon, any cartridges left?”
“Yes, enough!” came the voices from the dark.
“There’s life in the old dog yet! Cossacks remain strong!” rang out the merry voice of some Junker.
They were shooting at us from the General Staff Building, the Pavlovsky Barracks, and the palace gardens. The district headquarters surrendered. A group of sailors made their way through Hermitage into the Winter Palace, where there was more shooting. At eleven o’clock, artillery started up. The Junkers had some wounded, and we had one killed.
Having served subsequently for two-and-a-half years as company sergeant in the 1st Kuban Rifle Regiment, I’ve seen a lot of fighting that left indelible impressions on my entire life, but this first battle, which we fought in complete darkness, not knowing the layout and our enemies invisible, didn’t leave me with the appropriate impression. There was no retreat—we were surrounded. It didn’t enter our heads that the leaders could order us to lay down our weapons. Was there any fear? I would say, as before, in our maneuvers for hours in the forest, our awareness of our duty killed it off. From time to time, a sharp apprehension seized us. It was easier during the shooting. In moments of quiet, when I imagined the final hand-to-hand fighting and someone’s bayonet stuck in my stomach splicing it like a watermelon—that, I confess, makes my spine run cold. I hoped that the cup would pass me by and that I deserved an easy death—from a bullet. Death didn’t frighten us. We all considered it happy to give our lives for our Motherland.
“Women’s Battalion—get back to the building!” came down the line. We went into the courtyard, and the huge gates were shut with a chain. I was sure that the entire company was inside. But from Mr Zurov’s letters I found out from [other] participants in the fighting that the 2nd Company was defending the door. Even when the Junkers had lain down their weapons at the barricade, the women Volunteers were holding fast. How the Reds broke through and what happened, I don’t know.
We were brought to an empty room on the second floor. “I’m going to find out our next orders,” said the company commander, heading for the door. He didn’t come back for a long time. The shooting quieted down. A lieutenant appeared in the doorway, his face gloomy. “The palace has fallen. Our orders are to lay down arms.” The funereal ring of his words intoned in our souls…
See https://roadstothegreatwar-ww1.blogspot.com/search?q=Bocharnikova for Michael Kihntopf's review of the book.
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