Petrograd Telegraph Agency, Official Reports. Fall 1917

These Petrograd Telegraph Agency dispatches from autumn 1917 chronicle the Provisional Government's collapsing authority over food supply. Reports from Zhitomir, Kharkov, Astrakhan, Tashkent, and elsewhere describe bread riots over rising prices, looted wine cellars, anti-Jewish pogrom agitation, and the killing of food-administration officials by hungry mobs of peasants and soldiers.

Original Source: A. L. Popov, Oktiabrskii perevorot: fakty i dokumenty (Petrograd, 1918), pp. 72-79.

Zhitomir, September 15. As a result of the rise in the price of bread a tumult has arisen among the women, In view of the prevailing agitation, troops and a detachment of Cossacks were called out.

Kharkov, September 24. Information has been received about disorders in Bakhmut. On the evening of September 22 a wine storehouse was broken into and a large amount of liquor seized. The drunken crowds who took part in the destruction of the wine storehouse started to march through the streets singing and creating a disturbance. The population of the city is alarmed. The Jews have left the city. All stores are closed and the residents do not venture on the streets. Soldiers from the local garrison took part in the disturbance. A detachment of troops was sent from Kharkov to establish order and cadets were summoned from Chuguev ...

Kharkov, October 11. During the past few days pillaging has been going on in the city. As a result of the shortage of staple goods and manufactured articles, rumors are abroad concerning the hiding of goods, and unauthorized searches aye being conducted. Brigands plunder the goods and handle the proprietors roughly. It is in this way that ... an innocent artisan, the Jew, Morein, was killed.

During the night, the agitation for a pogrom has become stronger and the uprising has assumed a threatening character, being concentrated in the center of the city, on Pavlovskii Square. An instigation against Jews is being carried on in the city; on the fences are hung proclamations using monarchist slogans and calling for a pogrom and for a massacre of the Jews; a dry goods shop has been wrecked; many of the pogrom-makers wear soldiers' uniforms ...

Simferopol, October 13. From a number of rural communities of Melitopolskii and Dneprovskii uyezds comes information that shops are being wrecked and unauthorized searches are in progress. The uyezd and guberniia commissars have been sent there and troops will be dispatched ...

Rostov-on-Don, October 10. In Azov, as a result of the dissatisfaction of the population with the rise in the price of bread and flour, disorder broke out. A crowd of residents marched to the city hall, broke into the food department, and attacked the government employees, who fled. When a member of the municipal government, Makarovskii, attempted to quiet the crowd, be was thrown down the stairs from the second floor, after which books, orders, and papers which were found in the department were flung about. Members of the Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies who arrived at the place succeeded in pacifying the disorderly crowd ...

Astrakhan, September 25. As a result of the reduction of the bread ration, a large crowd went to the opposite bank of the Volga where the guberniia food committee is located, and demanded an explanation from the chairman of the committee. They then broke into the commissariat, fell upon Sklabinskii, the guberniia commissar, and threw him into the street. Sklabinskii was wounded. With the arrival of the Cossacks and militia the crowd was quieted and dispersed ...

Saratov, October 18. In Petrovsk, prisoners in jails and detention houses were released by the crowds.

Samara, October 26. In Bugulma, of Samara Guberniia, the wine storehouse, apothecary shops, and stores were demolished. The uyezd commissar appealed to Samara and Simbirsk for help.

Kazan, September 27. As a result of the agitation against the grain monopoly, in the village of Bolshoi Sundur, Zapolskii, the chairman of the volost food administration, was tortured and then killed ...

Ekaterinburg, October 21. In the village of Korabelskii, on account of the dissatisfaction with the grain monopoly, a crowd of peasants wrought havoc in the premises of the volost food committee and seized a member of the food administration ...

Tiflis, October 17. According to information from Kutais, disorder began on October 15 with the destruction of one of the wine cellars, where eight barrels of wine were broken open and emptied. The drunken rioters, joined by ever increasing crowds, began to break into grocery and other shops and also into private quarters; in many places they started fires; the local chemical plant was burned and the freight station was robbed. On October 16 the riot was renewed, but upon the arrival of a military detachment sent from Tiflis, order was restored in the city ...

Omsk, October 19. A military detachment has arrived from Petropavlovsk to put down the riot in the city. Before the arrival of the troops several shops and private homes were destroyed. Dimitriev, the chairman of the city food administration, was killed ...

Tashkent, September 27. In connection with the aggravation of the provisions question, a number of soldiers decided to arrest the food manager ... and his two assistants. It -was decided to transfer the business of provisions into the hands of the workers and soldiers and not to permit the shipment of manufactured goods to Bukhara. For this purpose a special guard was sent to the station. At the same time it was decided to conduct a general search through the entire city. On September 25, at a meeting attended by thousands of soldiers and workers, the resignation of the executive committee of the Soviet of Deputies was demanded. Speakers proclaimed Bolshevik slogans. A provisional revolutionary committee of fourteen was elected ...

Source: James Bunyan and H.H. Fisher, ed., Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1918; Documents and Materials (Stanford: Stanford University Press; H. Milford, Oxford University Press, 1934), pp. 29-31.