PRINCE URUSSOFF’S SPEECH
ST. PETERSBURG, _June 22nd_.
The speech made by Prince Urussoff last Friday in reply to the Minister
of the Interior is generally considered here to be the most important
utterance which has as yet been made within the walls of the Duma.
Prince Urussoff occupied for a short period a post in the Ministry of
the Interior during the late Ministry. His speech is not only important
from the fact of its being authoritative, and because it throws a
startlingly interesting light on some of the causes of the Jewish
massacres, but also because it reveals the evil which is practically at
the root of all the trouble in Russia.
“REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE,—I rise to submit to your consideration a
few observations regarding the question put to the Ministry by the Duma
and the answer to that question which we have just heard. I presume that
we are considering the information respecting a printing-press concealed
in the recesses of the Police Department, by which proclamations to the
people are printed inciting them to civil war, not so much in the light
of a fact which belongs to the past and interests us only so far as the
responsibility of certain individuals is concerned, but rather in the
light of an alarming question as to a possibility of the further
participation of Government officials in the preparation of those
sanguinary tragedies for which we have been notorious during a dismal
epoch, and which, as the events of the last few days have shown,
continue to occur, to the indignation of all those to whom human life
and the fair fame of the Russian Empire are precious. Let me state at
the outset that I do not for a moment doubt of the sincerity of the
declaration made by the Minister of the Interior, and that the words
which I wish to say to you are not directed against the Ministry.
“On the contrary, the whole significance, the whole interest, the whole
importance of the question at issue lie precisely in the fact that
massacres and civil strife, owing to the circumstances now obtaining,
continue and will continue, quite independently of the action taken with
regard to them by one Minister of the Interior or another, or by one
Ministry or another. With regard to this point the declaration of the
Minister of the Interior does not seem to me convincing, and I will now
try to explain why, with this end in view, I must deal with the question
of the massacres, and try to unravel and explain the part played in them
by the printing-press which was the subject of our question.
“By a careful investigation of the massacres the enquirer is brought
face to face with certain definite and isolated phenomena. First, the
massacre is always preceded by reports of its preparation, accompanied
by the issue of inflammatory proclamations, which are uniform both as
regards subject-matter and style. Secondly, when the massacre occurs,
the facts which are officially stated to be its cause invariably prove
to be false. Thirdly, the action of those who take part in the massacre
reveals a certain organisation, which deprives it of all accidental and
elemental characteristics. Those who take part in the massacre act in
the consciousness of some right, in the consciousness of impunity, and
they only continue acting till this consciousness is shaken; when that
moment arrives the massacre ceases swiftly and easily. Further, in the
action of the police there is never any uniformity, and while certain
police districts are devastated by the massacres under the eyes of a
considerable constabulary force, others remain almost untouched owing to
the protection of the police, who perform their duties conscientiously
and energetically. Finally, when the massacre is over, arrests are made,
and the authorities who examine the culprits cannot help having the
impression that those who have been brought before them are less like
criminals than ignorant people who have been deceived by some definite
thing. Thus we feel that some kind of uniform and widely-planned
organisation exists. Those who affirm that it is simply the doing of the
Government, and think that the question is thereby settled, are
mistaken, but they are not wholly mistaken; and the events of the past
winter, which form the subject of our question, will help us to throw
some light on these dark proceedings. In January, 1905, a great quantity
of well-printed proclamations, which had been widely circulated in the
chief centres of Southern and Western Russia, together with alarming
complaints regarding the preparation of massacres in Vilna, Bielostok,
Kieff, &c., came into the hands of some one who occupied a subordinate
position in the Ministry of the Interior, and who was well known as an
enemy of massacres (I am not speaking of myself).
“The massacre at Homel in January confirmed the fears which had been
expressed, and spurred the above-mentioned individual to spare no
efforts to prevent further massacres, which he succeeded in doing owing
to the steps taken by the Prime Minister (Count Witte), who gradually
succeeded in discovering the working of the hidden organisation. It was
then that the following facts concerning the action of the
massacre-mongers came to light. A group of persons, forming the active
militia of our own ‘patriotic’ societies, working together with people
closely related to a certain newspaper (_The Moscow Gazette_) started an
active anti-revolutionary movement. Being ‘patriots’ in the sense
recently defined by the member for Tver and ‘full Russians,’ they
discovered the cause of the revolution to lie in the non-Russian races,
in the inhabitants of the outlying districts, and among the Jews. They
called on the Russian people, and especially the Russian soldiers, to
grapple with the rebels, in ten thousands of proclamations of the most
repulsive character. These proclamations were transmitted by members of
the society to the place of action, and handed over there to their local
allies, who in their turn distributed them with careful interpretations.
The consequences, judged from the point of view of those who were trying
to maintain central authority intact, were curious. The assistant of the
Chief of Police (I take an ordinary example) distributes the
proclamation without informing his chief. Or, for instance, the head of
the first police station would be confided in, but not the head of the
second. Special sums of money came into the possession of some of the
subordinates of the Gendarmerie; certain obscure persons began to visit
them; rumours circulated in the town of certain preparations; frightened
people sought the Governor. The Governor reassured them, feeling,
however, that the situation was far from reassuring. From the Ministry
came telegrams about measures to be taken, and measures were often
taken, but measures taken in this sense were far from inspiring
universal confidence.
“It happened that members of the police supposed in all good faith that
such measures were taken for show, for decency’s sake; but that they
knew the real object of the Government, they read between the lines, and
above the orders of the Governor they heard a voice from afar in which
they placed greater faith. In a word the result was incredible
confusion, utter disorganisation, and the complete demoralisation of
authority. In the meantime in St. Petersburg, so far back as the autumn
of 1905 (and it appears up to the time when the October Ministry took
office), in No. 16, Fontanka, in an out-of-the-way room of the
Department of Police, a printing-press was at work, bought at the
expense of the Department. An officer of the gendarmerie in mufti,
Komissaroff, worked the press, and with the help of a few assistants
prepared the proclamation. The secret of the existence of this
printing-press was so well kept, and the doings of its manager were so
cleverly concealed, that not only in the Ministry but even in the
Department of the Police, there were few people who knew of its
existence. In the meantime the work of the organisation, of which the
press was the instrument, was evidently successful; since Komissaroff,
in answer to some one who stumbled on it by chance and asked him a
question about the work, said: ‘We can arrange any massacre you like; a
massacre of ten or a massacre of ten thousand.’ Sir, this phrase is
historical (Sensation.) I can add that in Kiev a massacre of ten
thousand had been arranged to take place on February 3rd, but it was
successfully averted. (Great sensation.)
“The Prime Minister (Count Witte) had, it is said, a serious fit of
nervous asthma when these facts were communicated to him. He sent for
Komissaroff, who reported as to his actions and the authority which had
been given him, and in a few hours neither printing-press nor
proclamations were to be found in the Department, and that is why
nobody, not even the Minister of the Interior, will be able to satisfy
the wish of the Duma to learn the names of the men who created the
organisation, assured its members of immunity, acted like magic on the
police and other officials, and even managed to obtain promotion and
reward for the most active among them. I will now proceed to my
conclusions. My first is this: That the declaration of the Minister of
the Interior affords us no serious guarantee with regard to the
cessation of organisations which take part in the preparation of huge
massacres and draw Government officials into their sphere of action. It
is clear that the chief organisers and inspirers are outside the sphere
of the Government, and as far as their business is concerned it is
equally indifferent to them whether the Minister of the Interior will
observe a benevolent neutrality towards them or take a line of
opposition. Further, I affirm that no Ministry, even if it were chosen
from the Duma, could restore order in the country so long as certain
unknown persons who stand outside, behind an impassable barrier,
continue to lay their brutal fingers on certain parts of the machine of
State, disturbing its political balance with experiments on living
organisations, and performing a kind of political vivisection. My second
conclusion is still more melancholy—it concerns the Duma.
“Sirs, from all parts of Russia we have come hither not only with
complaints and indignation, but with a keen thirst for action, for
self-sacrifice and truth, with true patriotism. There are many among us
here whose income depends on their property, and have we heard from them
one word against compulsory expropriation of the land in the interests
of the working man? And is it not this very ‘revolutionary Duma’ which
from the first day of its activity up to the last few days has attempted
to raise the authority of the Crown, to place it above party strife and
above our errors, and to preserve it from the responsibility for those
errors? What sort of a Duma is necessary now that the hour of inevitable
reform has struck, if not such a one in which party interests and the
class-division have given way to the triumph of the union of the welfare
of the people and the welfare of the State? Nevertheless, we feel that
those dark forces are arming against us, and dividing us from the Crown,
and are preventing the Crown from having confidence in us. They will not
allow us to accomplish that union with the Crown which, according to the
law granting us a new order of things, is the indispensable condition
and the only pledge of the peaceful development of the life of our
country. Herein lies a great danger, and this danger will not disappear
so long as in the direction of affairs and in the fortunes of our
country we continue to feel the influence of men who have the education
of policemen and sergeants, and are massacre-mongers on principle.”