Alexis Babine, A Russian Civil War Diary: Saratov, 1917-1922. January 10-13, 1918

Alexis Babine kept one of the few diaries of the revolution published in diary form as it was written, not reconstructed later. From lower middle-class small-town origins, he lived several years in the United States, returned to Russia in 1910, and taught at the new Saratov University in 1917. Largely nonpolitical, though hostile to the Bolsheviks, he recorded daily life in provincial Russia: food, housing, safety, and the random violence of revolution and civil war. His entry on guard duty shows neighborhood self-policing amid a flood of notices and decrees.

December 28, 1917. 11:30 A.M. Constant burglaries and murders and the inadequacy of police protection under the new demoralized anarchical regime compelled citizens to organize civil vigilance companies with compulsory attendance on the part of all able-bodied males. Last night I performed my duty as a guardsman for the first time. Aside from a big fire somewhere beyond the city limits, nothing of notice happened during the night. Relieved of my duties at 7 A.M., I hurried to the bakery with the intention of taking advantage of my guardsman's privilege and of getting my loaf ahead of the bread line, but found a notice on the door to the effect that there would be no bread before 9 A.M.

On returning home I took Boss [his dog] out for a walk, went to bed and did not get up until nearly eleven o'clock. When my maid failed to answer several of my bells I went to the kitchen, but found it empty. The landlady, whom I approached on the matter, explained to me that the maid had gone to see a lynching. It turned out that at about 10 A.M. three robbers got into a house nearly opposite ours. The inmates managed to raise an alarm, one of the robbers was killed outright, one ran away, and one was caught by soldiers. The crowd that had assembled in front of the house roared for the last named-and our maid hastened there to see the execution. Our servant soon returned with her story. When she got to the scene, soldiers were killing the second man with their bayonets. The body was put on a sleigh, and the face covered with a piece of fiber matting. But the matting would slip off and expose the blood-covered head and the face pierced with bayonets. That victim was a young man, almost a boy.

The robbers wounded their man in the hand, but his wife flung herself into the backyard through a window-glass and all-cutting herself considerably. Both of them were taken to a hospital.

At this point in the maid's story our janitor was let into the kitchen and reported the capture of the third malefactor.

The crowds are said to become perfectly frantic on such occasions and invariably demand immediate execution. A pious and charitable old lady who happened to be present at the lynching of a housebreaker goaded on the crowd, though under ordinary circumstances she would not hurt a fly. "Everybody is so tired of them," our old janitor explained. He, too, saw no other way out of it.

December 29, 1917. Yesterday's execution of the housebreakers was the work of women, exclusively, who surrounded the building after the alarm had been raised. They got hold of heavy sticks of wood and pounded the captives on their heads, even after they, dead, had been placed on a sleigh.,

December 31, 1917. This morning I read a Bolshevik notice on a board fence (the usual way in which the Bolshevik rulers announce their will in Saratov ever since the involuntary death of local newspapers) to the effect that searches of private residences will be made all over the city for concealed stores of provisions. The searches are to be conducted under certain regulations between the hours of 9 A.M. and 5 P.M.

The demonstration, which had been planned for December 17, and which so ignominiously failed, was announced again for today-to fail again. But crowds gathered on some street crossings and listened to speeches condemning the existing misrule. The meetings and the speeches were evidently not to the Bolsheviks' taste, and the crowds were encouraged to disband by the firing of muskets in the air and by strong armed patrols.

I overheard a workman murmur to his companion on the street: "Soldiers are worse than dogs nowadays."

Source: A Russian Civil War Diary: Alexis Babine in Saratov, 1917-1922, Donald Raleigh, ed. (Durham: Duke University Press, 1988), pp. 38-40. All rights reserved. This material may be saved or photocopied for personal use but may not be otherwise reproduced, stored or transmitted by any medium without explicit permission. Any alteration to or republication of this material is expressly forbidden. Please direct permissions inquiries to: Permissions officer, Box 90660, Durham, NC 27708; or fax 919.688.3524.