A BRAVE OFFICER—MY MILITARY SERVICE—THE TRIAL—FURTHER EXAMINATIONS
On one of the first days of my imprisonment in Odessa I had a small
passage-at-arms. I was pacing my cell, when I suddenly heard voices
raised outside the door. I went and looked through the peephole. It was
the officer of the day on his rounds of inspection, and he seemed to be
questioning one of the soldiers about his duties. I was going to draw
back again, when the words, “Get away from there, you scoundrel!” struck
my ears; and only after a moment did I realise they were addressed to
me. I was extremely surprised, for the officers generally behaved quite
politely to the “politicals.”
I instantly withdrew from the door without a word, but I resolved to
teach this gentleman a lesson in manners. So that evening, when the
deputy-governor paid his usual visit to my cell, accompanied by the
officer, without appearing to notice the latter I asked if prisoners
were forbidden to look through the peephole.
“No, of course not,” said the deputy-governor. “How could anyone prevent
you?”
“Then, will you please tell me if a prisoner should be abused by an
officer for doing so?”
“Certainly not.”
I then related what had occurred, and requested the official to give me
particulars in writing next morning as to this officer’s name and
position, so that I should know how to state my complaint about him.
Next day my gendarme told me this promising young lieutenant had been
round more than once during the night, telling him and the policeman
what they were to say if there were any inquiry. Evidently the young
fellow was in some trepidation, as he had thus humbled himself before
his inferiors. I felt rather sorry for him, and thinking he had a
sufficient warning, I took no further steps in the matter.
My case, meanwhile, was running its course. About the middle of
September the examining magistrate read me the document that was the
outcome of his labours. According to paragraph so-and-so of the
statute-book, it set forth, he must hand me over to the Prosecutor of
the Military Court. I at once entered a protest, calling attention to
the extradition treaty, which enjoined my being tried by the ordinary
civil law, not by any special tribunal. Whereupon the magistrate showed
me a paper, in which the Minister of Justice informed him that after the
conclusion of the examination he must act according to such and such a
paragraph, which enacted that crimes committed by any person belonging
to the army must be dealt with by a court-martial.
“When the crime of which you are accused was committed,” said the
magistrate, “you were serving in the army.”
This makes another retrospective digression necessary, that I may tell
the reader something about my youth and my brief military career.
* * * * *
Led by the spirit of the times and my own convictions, I had donned
peasant’s dress and gone “among the people,” to return home in the
autumn of 1875 disenchanted and discouraged after my propagandist
efforts. Like many youths of those days, I was filled with impetuous
longings. I wanted to use my young strength, and yearned after great
deeds; but what I should begin upon I hardly knew.
When I returned from my campaign I found very few of my old companions
in Kiëv. Some were in prison, others were scattered to the four winds.
It was just at this time that insurrections had broken out in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. Numbers of young men, among whom were many Socialists, had
joined the volunteer corps, and I found a very warlike spirit abroad.
The fight for freedom on the heights of the Balkans was the topic of the
day. A youth of twenty was naturally carried away by this tide; and I
was preparing to go off to the war and fight in the struggle to release
an oppressed people from the Turkish yoke, but I was too late, the waves
were retreating. Volunteers wrote from the scene of action letters that
were only disheartening. The situation was of such a nature that young
people—for the most part not inured to the hardships of guerrilla
warfare—were not only useless, but an encumbrance to the fighters; and
our friends advised that no more such should be sent out. So I had to
give up my project.
However, I had got the war fever, and was altogether at a loose end; so
I resolved to serve my time in the Russian Army as a volunteer, although
it was a year sooner than was necessary. Doubtless I was moved to this
partly by the consideration that as a soldier I should have
opportunities of continuing my propagandist work, and also by the
thought that military training might be of use to me hereafter.
According to the then existing regulations I had only six months to
serve as a volunteer of the second class. Thus it came about that in the
end of October, 1875, I became a private soldier in the 130th regiment
of infantry at Kiëv. But it also happened that only four months later I
had to leave the service, as I will now explain. One of my friends, a
student named Semen Luryè, implicated in the “Case of the 193,”[38] was
at this time imprisoned at Kiëv. The all-powerful adjutant of
gendarmerie, Baron Gèhkin, had borrowed large sums of money from the
parents of Luryè, and thanks to this circumstance the prisoner was
allowed opportunities for escaping. I rendered him some assistance in
his flight, and suspicion falling upon me, my dwelling was searched by
the gendarmes. My arrest seemed imminent; and being a soldier, I should
have been brought before a court-martial, which in those days of heavy
sentences would have sealed my fate, so I went into hiding until the
intentions of the gendarmerie should become clear. In a few days it was
evident that Baron Gèhkin (who might come in for a good deal of blame,
as he had allowed the fugitive many favours) would be sure to hush the
thing up, so far as possible. It therefore seemed my simplest plan to
report myself again on duty, when I should be punished for five days’
absence without leave, but at worst not very severely. Things, however,
turned out differently. My regiment belonged to the 33rd division, at
the head of which was Vannòvsky, later Minister of War, and subsequently
of Education. He hated the volunteers; and I, who by no means took
kindly to subordination and discipline, was not in his good books. As
ill-luck would have it, just at the time of my absence the General had
ordered up my battalion of volunteers; so when I now reported myself I
was taken straight to him, and he sent me off at once to headquarters
for trial. I was accused of desertion; and over and above that I had
brought upon myself a charge of insulting an officer on duty, because I
had objected to being called “thou” and roughly handled by the officer
on guard. The affair looked rather bad for me, and flight seemed the
only remedy. I succeeded in making good my escape with the help of two
of my comrades, who brought me civilian’s clothes into the bath-house. I
dressed myself in them, and passed the sentry at the door unrecognised.
This was in February, 1876, from which time until the autumn of 1877 I
was free, but an “illegal,” as I have already said. In the autumn of
1877 I was again arrested, as related in chapter i., and in the
following spring I once more escaped.
Footnote 38:
One of the monster trials of revolutionists undertaken by the Russian
Government at that period. More than 1,000 persons were implicated in
it.—_Trans._
* * * * *
To return to my present narrative. I made two protests against the
magistrate’s decision to send me before a court-martial: one directed to
the president of the Military Court in Odessa, and one to Nabòkov, the
Minister of Justice. I called Bogdanòvitch to witness that the
Government of Baden had only surrendered me on condition that I should
be brought before an ordinary court, and tried by civil, not martial
law. If a military court were to try me for desertion and insulting an
officer, that would be against the conditions of the treaty, which laid
down that I should only be answerable on the Gorinòvitch count.
As was to be foreseen, my petitions were set aside without further
parley; and soon after, my indictment, signed by the Public Prosecutor
of the Courts-martial, was put before me. This indictment left me in no
doubt as to what kind of trial I was to have. Certainly the facts
relating to the assault on Gorinòvitch were given; but nothing whatever
was said as to the motives, nor as to the circumstances that led to it.
Of course, the prosecutor had not failed to make use of the most
stringent articles in the Russian Criminal Code. The heaviest punishment
authorised therein (for parricide and such-like crimes) is penal
servitude for life, and it was the very article dealing with that
sentence which was cited in my case. According to the law this penalty
is capable of various degrees of mitigation under certain extenuating
circumstances: _e.g._ it may be reduced to twenty years’ penal servitude
when the victim of the assault survives, even though against the
intention of his assailant; and further, the term of years is to be
shortened by a third if the perpetrator be under age at the date of the
crime. In accordance with this, the Public Prosecutor asked for thirteen
years and four months as my sentence, that being the maximum penalty to
which I could be liable under the terms of the extradition treaty. Even
then, the proclamation made at the time of Alexander III.’s accession
might come into consideration; by it judges were authorised to remit the
punishments for any crime committed before the date of the proclamation.
In my case there was no hope of this permission being used; and I looked
upon this whole travesty of justice as a formality which had to be gone
through, but otherwise of no significance. I therefore declined the
assistance of the advocate assigned to me (some candidate for a military
post), and prepared to endure the unpleasant ordeal as best I could.
The day of the trial came. A great van with barred windows rumbled into
the prison yard. I was put into it, a sergeant of police took his seat
beside me, and the door was fastened outside with a mighty padlock. The
gendarme who had been so long my companion in captivity mounted the box;
a company of infantry escorted us, and the cortège was finally
surrounded by Cossacks on horseback. The Chief of Police led the van,
and a commissary of police formed the rearguard. It might have been
supposed that at least a dozen robber chiefs, each with his horde of
banditti, were being transported through the town. As we passed along
the streets this unusual procession aroused the attention of the public,
and I saw people crowding to the windows. Meanwhile I chatted quietly
with the police-sergeant. It seemed that he had been on duty in Kiëv
twenty years before, and knew my family.
“Who would have thought that little Deutsch I often used to see would
ever come to this!” said he, and began following up old recollections,
talking of my father and our house. My thoughts flew back over the
years, and scenes of my childhood rose before me.
The court was filled with a carefully selected “public,” consisting of
officers and their womenfolk, people connected with the law, and other
representatives of the official world. The examination of the witnesses
produced nothing of any interest. Most of those originally called were
either dead or had disappeared, and those few who did attend made
inconclusive statements, their memories being vague after the lapse of
eight years—some, indeed, refused to answer on that account. The
principal witness, Gorinòvitch himself, for some reason did not appear,
but his deposition was read. I on my side took little part in the
proceedings, and had renounced my right to call witnesses for the
defence. But I was moved and excited; the large audience, mostly
hostile, that gazed on me worked on my feelings. I sought for a familiar
face, but saw nobody I knew except the Public Prosecutor of the Civil
Courts, who had conducted my examination in prison.
After the hearing of witnesses the Military Prosecutor took up his
parable. His speech was a verbal reiteration of the formal indictment
which I had already seen. All my interest was to hear what motives he
would assign. As he could impute to me neither “selfish ends” nor
“personal hatred,” he gave “revenge” as the reason of the assault; but
of course he had to abstain carefully from suggesting any motive for
this “revenge,” as he dared not mention the word “political.” The order
to keep dark at all costs the political character of the case led to
perfectly irreconcilable accounts of what happened. The Public
Prosecutor informed the court that I had been arrested in 1877, and had
made such and such admissions in the course of examination, but that I
had subsequently “withdrawn” from justice. He dared not say that I had
escaped from prison at Kiëv; and it was still funnier when he had to
explain that I had “withdrawn” from my military service.
I began my defence by the declaration that I had no desire to plead for
any mitigation of sentence, as was proved by my not denying that I had
fully intended to kill Gorinòvitch, though there was no proof of this
save my own avowal.[39] I was ready to face the consequences, and my
only wish was that the story should be truthfully told, that things
might appear in their true light. With that in view I would put clearly
before the court the reasons why my comrades and I had come to the
resolution of putting Gorinòvitch to death. Scarcely, however, had I
uttered the words, “We had formed a ‘circle’ in Elisavetgrad,” than the
presiding general, Grodèkov, interrupted me with the observation that
under the conditions of the trial I must refrain from any allusion to
political offences.
Footnote 39:
Grave bodily injury without intent to kill was only punishable with
four or five years’ hard labour, to be diminished by one-third in the
case of minors.
Of course, under such terms a true exposition of the real character of
the affair could not possibly be made, the events could not even be
narrated with any coherence. For instance, when I began again, “While
Gorinòvitch was in prison in Kiëv,” the president stopped me instantly,
and said that was out of order; and though I then carefully avoided
mentioning names of persons or places, or any political occurrence, I
was continually interrupted by the president, and threatened with being
silenced altogether or removed from court. I really did not see how to
put things so as to make out the simplest statement; and I soon
concluded this so-called speech of defence, in which I was not allowed
to defend myself, and scarcely to speak. Even then the Military
Prosecutor carried the comedy so far as to wax indignant over my
“contradictory statements.” I answered him briefly, and declined to make
any concluding remarks.
The deliberation of the court was very short, and the sentence was of
course in accordance with the Public Prosecutor’s demand—thirteen years
and four months’ penal servitude.
I was then escorted back to prison; and although I had always expected
this sentence, I felt in a certain sense relieved as if a weight had
fallen from my shoulders. Everything was now settled once for all.
Uncertainty, as I have said, is a prisoner’s hardest trial; and I had
only now to wonder whither I should be sent. As I had been tried as an
ordinary criminal, I might be despatched to Kara, in Siberia, where were
old friends and acquaintances of mine, and where the prison life was
comparatively bearable. Or they could send me to the island of
Saghalien, where—as all Russia knows—the conditions are horrible. But
what frightened me most of all was the thought that the Government (who
by having to stick more or less to the extradition treaty had been
prevented from sentencing me to such a severe punishment as they would
have liked) might still find some excuse for aggravating my penalty, and
send me to be buried alive in the Schlüsselburg fortress. The building
of that prison had just been finished, and everyone was saying that as
it was intended for the most dangerous of the “politicals,” a
murderously cruel régime was to be enforced there.
A week after the trial the president of the court-martial came to inform
me officially of the sentence. I was taken into the office, where
General Grodèkov had entrenched himself behind a wide table, so that he
was well separated from me; but even so he commanded the sentries to
stand between us with fixed bayonets, and seemed terribly apprehensive
of what I might do to him. I was much amused, and my guards were very
contemptuous, as I gathered from their subsequent comments while I was
being taken back to my cell. Indeed, I have never seen any civilian take
so many precautions when speaking with a convict as this seasoned
warrior thought necessary.
Although the proceedings against me were concluded, I still had to
undergo further examinations, but in the character of a witness. First
there appeared one day a captain of gendarmerie, accompanied by the
Public Prosecutor. He addressed the following question to me:—
“A letter was found in your cell at Freiburg; it contained an address.
You were to arrange for the despatch of books from this address. Can you
tell me what the books were, and who was the writer of the letter? And
remember,” he continued, “that through our possession of this address a
number of persons in Vilna have been arrested. If you will tell us who
was the actual writer, the others will be set at liberty.”
I knew this trick well enough, and replied calmly—
“You seem to think it not dishonourable to reveal the names of one’s
correspondents. I cannot agree with you.”
The young man looked embarrassed, and hastily brought our interview to
an end.
It was true that the authorities in Baden had consented to give up all
my papers to the Russian Government; an excess of zeal they might well
have spared, for in consequence many absolutely innocent people were
molested by the secret police. I myself was to blame, having
unfortunately omitted to destroy this address when I was sorting my
papers with Professor Thun.
Another time I was called up by an examining magistrate, who showed me a
letter from the Ministry of Justice, instructing him to examine me
concerning some events connected with the murder of General Mezentzev.
He read me the deposition of a certain Goldenberg; according to which I
had met Goldenberg one day in the horse-market of Kharkov, and had
mentioned to him that it was S. Kravtchìnsky[40] who had stabbed the
chief of gendarmerie.
Footnote 40:
Well known to English readers by his assumed name of Stepniak. See
later, chap. xxv.—_Trans._
I did indeed recollect walking in the horse-market with Goldenberg, and
that he had told me how he himself had in that very place killed the
governor of Kharkov, Prince Kropotkin. Whether I had said anything about
the part played by Kravtchìnsky in the assault on Mezentzev I could not
remember. The thought shot through my mind that Kravtchìnsky had perhaps
been captured abroad like myself, and that the Russian Government were
wanting to get him extradited too. The statement of Goldenberg, which
only repeated the words of another, was not sufficient evidence for
that, and they desired my testimony in addition. I therefore did not
refuse to speak on this occasion, but made a statement tending to
counteract that of Goldenberg. I told them I had certainly talked to
Goldenberg about the assassination; but that I had merely mentioned
rumours which ascribed the deed sometimes to me, sometimes to
Kravtchìnsky. Fortunately my alarm was unnecessary: Kravtchìnsky was
already in London and out of danger.