Russian Monarchists disband

Telegram from the former Chairman of the Russian Monarchist Union, S. Kel'tsev, to representatives of the Moscow city authorities on his complete support for the revolutionary events

4 March 1917

To the Commissar of the State Duma for Moscow, the Mayor Mikhail Vasil'evich Chelnok. To the Commander of Troops for the Moscow okrug Aleksandr Evgrafovich Gruzinov.

Moscow.

May the Lord bless the new government, may He assist it in repairing the internal breakdown of the state, caused by the previous government, which was unanimously condemned on the eve of the current great days of the people in the final discussions in February of the Russian Monarchist Union. The Union's eyes were opened by the force of circumstances, having given most of its active membership to the army and the Unions of Zemstvos and Towns. It has now directed the remnants of its membership to serve honestly, not from fear but from conscience, the interests of the Motherland and the new government, which have destroyed the dark forces and ignorance of Russia. Hurrah for the heads of the new government! Illness has prevented me from paying my respects to you, as the representative of the new authorities in the white stone [centre of Moscow] before now in person, but I shall do so very soon, if the doctor permits. I shall try to serve the new government to the best of my ability, diligently, as we did in the old days of the Moscow zemstvo in the struggle against cholera and the year of famine which accompanied poor harvests.

Your devoted servant, councillor of State Sergei Kel'tsev, former Chairman of the leadership of the Monarchist Union.

[Translator's note: The Russian Monarchist Union (or Party) was one of the various "Black Hundred" organisations founded in and around 1905. It defended autocracy, Orthodoxy, order, and Russian nationalism. It opposed revolutionaries, foreigners and particularly Jews. Its founder and first chairman, V A Gringmut, a Russified German, was the publisher of the influential reactionary newspaper Moskovskie vedomosti from 1896 until his death in 1907.

This grovelling declaration of loyalty to the Provisional Government from S A Kel'tsev, the Russian Monarchist Union's fourth and final chairman, was intended for the press, but never published. It typifies the disorientation and political bankruptcy of the Russian conservative and monarchist forces in the early days of the revolution. - Dr Francis King.

Source: O A Shashkova, compiler, Fevral'skaya revolyutsiya 1917. Sbornik dokumentov i materialov. Rossiyskiy gosudarstvennyy gumanitarnyy universitet, Moscow, 1996, p. 303.]