While the situation continued to deteriorate, Bolshevik policy was still focused on a public trial of Nicholas in Moscow as soon as circumstances permitted. The immediate source of anxiety for Lenin and Sverdlov was that the Urals leaders might pre-empt such an outcome by finding a pretext to kill him, and in early July the rumour was sprouting yet again that the Bolsheviks had indeed killed Nicholas in Ekaterinburg, and Trotsky was asked whether it was true. The People’s Commissar for Military Affairs dealt insouciantly with the question. As a German diplomat at the Moscow embassy noted, Trotsky simply said, ‘I don’t know; this is of completely no interest to me. I cannot take interest in the life of an individual Russian citizen.’1 When he wanted, Trotsky could be as prim as a vicar and impassive as a judge. He liked to stun Germany’s ambassadorial personnel, especially those of noble birth, with his nonchalance.
It was all an act. The reality was that behind the scenes there was much discussion on the subject at the top of the Bolshevik Party, and Trotsky had been vociferous about holding a show trial for Nicholas. But events were running too fast and dangerously for Sovnarkom to handle with the necessary stagecraft. At some time earlier in summer 1918 Sverdlov had spoken at a closed meeting of fifty to sixty leaders of the Moscow party organization, where he reported that the Urals Bolsheviks had enquired about how the central authorities would react if they decided to execute the entire imperial family. By his own account, he allowed himself a smile when replying: ‘I think I’ll reflect our general mood if I reply that this is not a matter of direct concern to us. [We stand for] “All Power to the Localities”, and if local comrades find this step necessary for local reasons, they are in their rights to take it; we’re not going to protest!’2 This was the start of efforts by the supreme leadership to distance itself from anything untoward that might happen to the Romanovs. The Soviet government sought to free itself from all potential blame. But as yet the official policy remained intact: Nicholas was to be brought to the capital for judicial proceedings.
On 4 July 1918, when Goloshchëkin arrived in Moscow for the Congress of Soviets and for consultations with the central authorities, he had no presentiment about this. This is what Bolsheviks in Ekaterinburg called ‘sending the heavy artillery’.3 His mission was to discuss future arrangements with Sverdlov and Lenin. Bolshevik leaders in both centres could see the necessity of a proper plan of action. The Czechoslovak offensive against Ekaterinburg was expected within a matter of days, and the Urals Bolsheviks needed to know what help they could expect from the capital. They also had to discuss what was to be done about the Romanov detainees. With Ekaterinburg likely to fall to the Czechoslovaks in the near future, a prolonged stay at the Ipatev house was clearly unsuitable.
Goloshchëkin, Lenin and Sverdlov had no presentiment that the factors underpinning security policy were about to undergo drastic disruption – nor that the transforming events would take place in Moscow and the rest of central Russia rather than in the Urals. The Congress of Soviets opened in a predictable fashion in the capital’s Bolshoi Theatre. It was a noisy affair which the foreign missions watched from the height of the best boxes. On one side was Mirbach with his Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian and Turkish colleagues – and the head of German intelligence, Rudolph Bauer, was also present. They faced the Allied representatives on the other side of the hall.4 Lenin spoke for the Brest-Litovsk peace, Trotsky for the Red Army’s preparedness. No sliver of disagreement appeared between one Bolshevik commissar and another. Maria Spiridonova and the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, still operating openly under the regime, denounced Sovnarkom – Boris Kamkov screamed that they were inhuman scoundrels and as he looked up at Mirbach’s party the cry went up: ‘Down with the assassins!’5
This spirit was also reflected behind the scenes. Their Central Committee was secretly plotting nothing less than a campaign of terrorism in Moscow. The idea was not to kill Lenin or Trotsky but to organize a ‘provocation’ that would wreck the Brest-Litovsk treaty and bring the Bolsheviks back to the path of ‘revolutionary war’. They were going to do this by assassinating Ambassador Mirbach, which they believed would force Berlin to break with Moscow.
On 6 July Yakov Blyumkin, an eighteen-year-old Left Socialist-Revolutionary still working for the Cheka, tricked his way into the German embassy and shot Mirbach. Sovnarkom immediately outlawed the entire party and arrested several of its leaders. Dzierzynski raced off to their party headquarters to impose control. Instead the Left Socialist Revolutionaries took him into custody, and he was freed only when the Latvian Riflemen intervened with superior forces. Lenin and Karl Radek – one of the party’s leading experts on German questions – hastened to the embassy to deliver their formal condolences, hoping to avert a German military occupation of Moscow.6 They wanted to preserve the peace signed at Brest-Litovsk. This was difficult for Radek, who had been known as a vociferous opponent of the treaty. Lenin was using him as physical proof that the Soviet leadership was determined to stand by what had been agreed between Russia and Germany. The Germans called for the arrest and punishment of the killers and their ‘ideological inspirers’; they also demanded the right to dispatch their own forces into Russia.7 Frantic to oblige, the Soviet government ordered the execution of V. A. Alexandrovich, the Left Socialist-Revolutionary in post as deputy chairman of the Cheka.
Things calmed down and the Germans quietly indicated that they appreciated the Bolshevik official reaction. Radek joked that jobs had become vacant for Nicholas II’s generals to join the volunteer detachments that would publicly shed crocodile tears in Mirbach’s funeral cortège.8 Anatoli Lunacharski, the People’s Commissar of Enlightenment, assured British and French diplomats that the emergency was drawing to a close. Like other Bolsheviks, he had concerns that the Allies might begin a preventive war to save Russia from German occupation.9
This was not mere paranoia in the light of efforts made by the Allies to get rid of the Bolsheviks. The British and French diplomats and intelligence services encouraged Boris Savinkov with his plans for an uprising by his Union for the Defence of the Fatherland and Freedom in Yaroslavl, 155 miles north-east of Moscow.10 The idea was to foment the resistance to Bolshevism in the cities of northern and central Russia, and Savinkov hoped for support from the so-called White Army that General Alexeev was raising in the south.11 The French in particular gave the impression to Savinkov that the Allies were about to undertake a full invasion.12 On 6 July, when the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries shot Mirbach, Savinkov’s armed groups went ahead with their uprising and occupied Yaroslavl and nearby towns.13 Savinkov had been deceived by the Allies; he quickly discovered that no Allied assistance was being made available when the Reds moved against the rebel force.14
These events turned politics in Moscow upside down. Nothing was predictable any longer, even though the Germans expressed themselves content with the Bolshevik reaction to the killing. Nobody in Sovnarkom yet felt they could trust them. It was conceivable that Berlin might secretly be planning to overrun Russia and set up a puppet administration as it had done in Ukraine. The rest of that summer had to be devoted to placating the German authorities. When Goloshchëkin had arrived for the congress, it was still the Bolshevik leadership’s intention to ship the former emperor to the capital for a show trial. But if there was one further thing that would undoubtedly agitate official opinion in Germany, it was such a trial. The assassination put an end to the plan.
On 9 July the Urals Regional Soviet leadership met in joint session with the Bolshevik Party Regional Committee leaders to review the Mirbach shooting and the Left Socialist-Revolutionary revolt. By fifteen votes to zero with five abstentions, they sent a message of solidarity to Moscow declaring that the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had placed themselves ‘outside of the Revolution’s ranks’. The meeting left the door open for individual Left Socialist-Revolutionaries in Ekaterinburg to leave their party and join the Bolsheviks.15 The two parties in the Urals had once been united in their opposition to the peace treaty. They had worked in coalition together, and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries had held responsible jobs at the regional level even after the Brest-Litovsk treaty was signed. While Lenin ordered the execution of some of their leaders in Moscow, Beloborodov was still prepared to greet them with warmth so long as they recognized Sovnarkom’s authority. The evidence of divisions between Moscow and Ekaterinburg lingered on.
Central leaders maintained a watch over events in the Urals. Lenin was more directly involved in Moscow–Ekaterinburg exchanges in the week from 6 July than in previous months. He wanted to finalize arrangements about three Finns in custody in Ekaterinburg. On 13 July Safarov assured him that their case was settled.16 Lenin also received telegrams in response to his enquiries about his cousins Alexander and Vladimir Ardashev, who were based in Ekaterinburg, and on 17 July the Urals Cheka was to inform him that Alexander Ardashev, a Constitutional Democrat, had escaped after organizing a revolt at the Upper Iset Works – two of his nephews had been taken hostage in reprisal.17 The telegraph system worked efficiently but slowly: it usually took three whole days for a message leaving Moscow to reach Ekaterinburg.18 On 7 July 1918, before Goloshchëkin left Moscow, Lenin gave the order for Beloborodov to be put in direct-line contact with the Kremlin.19 His own recent experience had convinced him that he and Beloborodov had to have a smoother means to exchange information. Knowing how bad the military situation was in both Moscow and Ekaterinburg, he foresaw that decisions would have to be taken about the Ipatev house detainees. Neither Lenin nor Sverdlov was willing to allow the Urals leaders to take such decisions by themselves.