After the peace treaty, stories began to spread in Tobolsk about the extent of German and Japanese military penetration.1 The Menshevik press continued to function in the town, maintaining a barrage of criticism of Bolshevik social and economic policies;2 it also denounced the treaty as being contrary to the interests of the working class.3 This happened at a time when people were re-electing their soviets and overturning Bolshevik majorities. Tobolsk was one of those small towns which would have given no special concern to the Soviet government if only it had not been hosting the former emperor.4 The troops who guarded him were consumed with anger at being neglected by Sovnarkom while the situation in west Siberia continued to deteriorate. Tobolsk had been in chaos throughout the month and the detachment at Freedom House decided to dispatch two of its men, Pavel Matveev and a delegate named Lukin, to Moscow to make representations on their behalf. Matveev and Lukin hastened to Tyumen, where they caught the next train bound for the new capital.5
On 1 April 1918 Lukin was able to make an opening report at the offices of Sovnarkom, detailing the recent disturbances at and near Freedom House. He testified that many of his own comrades had already run off from the detachment and that the remainder were aggrieved about the non-payment of their wages. Lukin talked with the passion of a serving soldier. If the central Soviet authorities wished to keep the Romanovs securely confined, he made clear, they had to transform the set-up at Freedom House. Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, Lenin’s chief of staff, heard enough to convince him that urgent action was required. Contacting officials at the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets, he was emphatic in saying: ‘It’s a serious matter.’ Under the informal division of duties between Lenin and Sverdlov, it was Sverdlov as chairman of the Central Executive Committee who dealt with Romanov business. Sverdlov immediately called for Lukin to come and see him because he wanted to hear his report in person.6
The Central Executive Committee Presidium met on the same day with Sverdlov in the chair. As well as Bolsheviks, the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries Spiridonova and Proshyan were in attendance. Everyone approved of the case for reforms in Tobolsk. Moscow would appoint its own commissar who would take an entirely fresh detachment to Tobolsk consisting of 200 men – including thirty from the Central Executive Committee’s own Partisan Detachment and twenty from the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries. The regime at Freedom House was to be changed in such a way that all residents, including Dolgorukov, Tatishchev and Gendrikova, would be treated as prisoners like Nicholas and his family, while Gibbes would be allowed to choose between living there on the same terms and staying outside and having no contact with the Romanovs. Sverdlov offered a guarantee of the necessary finance. These arrangements would be merely temporary, for Sverdlov stressed that the plan was to transfer the entire arrested group to Moscow as soon as it became a practical possibility. A ban was placed on any publicity. Having heard about the troubles in west Siberia, Sverdlov wanted to deal with the Romanov question in the strictest secrecy.7
This nonetheless failed to stop the rumours. For some time there had been stories that Trotsky himself would be coming to Tobolsk as commissar, and the fact that some members of the Romanov entourage took them seriously shows how little they understood the workings of the Bolshevik Central Committee.8 Trotsky might just as well have resigned from the leadership if he had gone to distant Tobolsk. Instead he focused his energies on his new post as People’s Commissar for Military Affairs. Perhaps the Freedom House occupants could be forgiven for getting this so wrong. They did not read newspapers like Pravda. They knew nobody who had close acquaintance with Sovnarkom discussions. They themselves heard the emperor talking about his hope of returning one day to the Russian throne. From this it was but a short step to exaggerate the importance of the fate of the Romanovs to Bolshevik leaders in Moscow.
The Presidium returned to Tobolsk matters on 6 April and made a further revision to the plan for dealing with the Romanovs. After changing the guards at Freedom House, the new commissar, who had yet to be appointed, should make speedy arrangements for the family’s transfer to the Urals. Tobolsk had ceased to be trusted as a site of detention and Ekaterinburg replaced Omsk as the favoured locus of authority until such time as Nicholas was put on trial in Moscow. Sverdlov undertook to inform the Soviet regional authorities in Ekaterinburg and Omsk; he wanted no repetition of the confusion that had marked proceedings since the end of January. He indicated that he was waiting only for Sovnarkom to grant approval – evidently he needed Lenin to sanction the intended course of action.9
By 9 April 1918 Sverdlov had obtained the necessary endorsement from Lenin about next steps to be taken, and Sverdlov could send a telegram to Beloborodov as chairman of the Urals Regional Soviet Executive Committee about the details. Ekaterinburg was told to ready itself to take possession of the Romanovs. Sverdlov indicated that this would be a provisional arrangement. He omitted any mention of the longer-term plan, which remained to bring Nicholas to Moscow for public trial. But Beloborodov would become his chief temporary custodian. Sverdlov appointed the Bolshevik Vasili Yakovlev as the commissar who would oversee the transfer to the Urals. Nicholas and his family would be delivered for safekeeping to either Alexander Beloborodov, chairman of the Regional Soviet Executive Committee, or its military commissar Filipp Goloshchëkin. Sverdlov left it to the Urals Regional Soviet to decide whether they should be held in the prison or in some specially adapted residence. Once the Romanovs reached Ekaterinburg, they were on no account to be moved elsewhere without Moscow’s permission, and Sverdlov stressed the priority of guaranteeing their physical security.10
Beloborodov and Goloshchëkin were a formidable pairing. Both were Bolshevik veterans. It took Beloborodov no time at all – he had arrived in Ekaterinburg only in January 1918 – to impress the rest of the leadership and become elected chairman of the Urals Regional Soviet Executive Committee.11 He was of average height, thin, pale and with a trim moustache and beard.12 Born the son of a worker in 1891 in the Urals mining settlement of Solikamsk, he trained as an electrician. Beloborodov joined the Bolshevik faction as a youth and experienced lengthy terms of imprisonment. Unlike his better-off comrades, he never emigrated and his rootedness in the region around Perm gave him a sharp awareness of practical conditions. His friend Goloshchëkin was ‘about forty, above average in height, portly, curly haired and with a short moustache’.13 His alias in the revolutionary underground was Filipp, and this was how he was generally known in Ekaterinburg. He never sat down if he had the choice. This was a result of his prison experience: he tried to keep fit by staying on the move. On his travels, he became the main link between the Urals and the capital after the October Revolution and twice went on missions to liaise with Lenin and Sverdlov in early 1918. His trips took place in late February and in the first half of March. He was the Urals delegate at the party congress in March.14
Whoever conducted Nicholas from Tobolsk had to be able to gain the confidence of the Freedom House detachment. The Ekaterinburg men had already shown their complete ‘tactlessness’. The troops from Omsk were no better. In fact they were much worse. There was a need for ‘a neutral person’ to cope with the tasks of transfer.15 In addition, it would seem, Sverdlov sent a telegram to the Tobolsk Soviet putting it in charge of Freedom House until such time as Yakovlev arrived. If he did not entirely trust the Urals leaders, he also had concerns about the guard detachment.16 But the detachment would nevertheless have to remain in charge for several days, and on 11 April 1918, after Matveev and Lukin returned from Moscow, an emergency meeting of the soldiers’ committee was called to hear their news. They themselves had received military promotion in Moscow in recognition of their timely alert about what was happening in west Siberia.17
Lukin reported on the forthcoming arrival of a new commissar and passed on the news that troops would soon be replaced by an entirely fresh detachment from outside Tobolsk. The detachment vigorously enforced the orders from the capital and set about putting Freedom House into the same quarantine as had been imposed on the Alexander Palace at Tsarskoe Selo.18 Matveev chaired the discussion, to which he had invited Dutsman, Demyanov and Zaslavski. A fiery discussion followed as the outsiders from Ekaterinburg and Omsk demanded the transfer of the Romanovs to their custody: they had never trusted Kobylinski or the Freedom House detachment, and they wanted to take full control before Yakovlev reached Tobolsk. Matveev was having none of this. He and the detachment had guarded the family safely since the previous summer and had seen off every threat; they were offended at this latest external challenge to their authority. Dutsman, Demyanov and Zaslavski were furious. As they left, they uttered dire threats about what would happen if Matveev had not reversed the decision within thirty-six hours. If he continued to defy them, there would be violence.19 Matveev and the detachment held their collective nerve. Knowing what Moscow wanted, they got ready to face whatever the Ekaterinburg or Omsk troops tried to do against them. Threats had been common throughout March. Matveev and Lukin put Kobylinski in the picture about the intended changes so as to organize a united front at Freedom House.
Next day Kobylinski acquainted Nicholas with Moscow’s written orders. Rooms were prepared so that the designated retainers could be transferred from the Kornilov house.20 Furniture and suitcases were moved across the street.21 With seven newcomers to accommodate, the house soon felt overcrowded, at least by the standards of a ruling monarchy. Nicholas speculated that the guard detachment hoped to impress the new commissar, who had yet to arrive, with their firmness.22
The orders, however, did not go down at all well with the Urals Soviet leadership, and on 13 April 1918 Boris Didkovski sent a telegram to Lenin and Sverdlov warning of a continuing and growing danger that the Romanovs might escape by sea or land – it could not be discounted that they could reach China. He argued for Khokhryakov, assisted by Zaslavski and Avdeev, to receive supreme authority in Tobolsk, where the situation was running out of control because the Omsk Red Guards refused to submit to the town soviet. Didkovski warned of the imminent possibility of an armed clash involving troops from Ekaterinburg, the Omsk units and the Freedom House detachment. He offered the services of his men to transport the Romanovs to wherever Sverdlov might require.23 There was only one way to interpret his telegram: Didkovski did not like the idea of an outsider such as Yakovlev being imposed on the Urals comrades. But he was not rebelling. He was asking Sverdlov to alter Moscow’s plan in the light of what he reported about Tobolsk.
Meanwhile there were further restrictions at Freedom House, where the guard detachment carried out a search on 15 April. Nicholas was wearing his cherkesska, a traditional Caucasian belted overgarment, at the time. When the guards spotted that he was also carrying the traditional dagger, they demanded to search the entire family for weapons. Kobylinski, as usual, had to calm everybody down. Nicholas was upset and angry but handed over his dagger, and Dolgorukov and Gilliard gave up their ceremonial swords after Kobylinski assured everyone that this was the only way to calm the troops down.24
Although Kobylinski kept the peace at moments of disturbance, his own nerves were later shaken when his detachment tore off his epaulettes. Deprived of the last visual sign of his authority, he went straight to the emperor with the intention of resigning. Nicholas, with tears in his eyes, put an arm round his back and said: ‘Evgeni Stepanovich, I beg you on behalf of myself, my wife and the children to stay. You can see that we are being patient. You need to be patient too.’25 They embraced and kissed in the Russian manner, and Kobylinski stayed on, but his troubles with the soldiers worsened. Nicholas liked to wear his military uniform, and when their committee announced the intention of stripping the emperor of his epaulettes in the same fashion, Kobylinski warned that Nicholas might put up physical resistance and that there could be consequences if his British cousin George V learned of any violence. He advised the committee to seek Moscow’s opinion. This bought time for Kobylinski to discuss the situation with Nicholas. The upshot was that Nicholas decided to wear his black short-coat when walking in the grounds outside. He did, though, continue to don his full military tunic inside the house.26
Things elsewhere in the town were also on the boil. The Urals Red Guards were failing to keep control despite the fact that Khokhryakov had become chairman of the Tobolsk Soviet. On 20 April, Khokhryakov reported on his difficulties to Didkovski in Ekaterinburg, and next day, when Goloshchëkin heard about this, he telegrammed a stern rebuke. Khokhryakov in his view had fallen down in his duties. Goloshchëkin said that he would send a further three units under Pëtr Guzakov to strengthen the force from Ekaterinburg. In the meantime he ordered Khokhryakov to make a public announcement that if there was even the slightest resistance to Yakovlev, artillery would be used to crush ‘the nest of counter-revolution’.27 Although the Urals leaders resented Moscow’s recent orders, they would brook no trouble from anyone in Omsk or Tobolsk. But there were also tensions between the leadership in Ekaterinburg and their emissaries in Tobolsk. It was a volatile situation that would test the capability of the much-awaited commissar.