FIRST DAYS AT KARA—FRIENDS OLD AND NEW
We entered a long, dimly-lighted corridor. Close to the door stood a man
in convict dress beside a mighty chest. “Good day, Martinòvsky!” said I;
for although I had never seen him before, I knew from our comrades’
descriptions that he, being _stàrosta_, remained on duty from early
morning till late evening by this big chest, which was the prisoners’
larder. He looked a little surprised at the greeting, but on our
announcing our names a pleasant smile lighted up his grave features, and
he shook hands with us warmly.
“Deutsch goes to No. 2 and Tchuikòv to No. 4!” The gendarme’s
announcement interrupted us. A door was opened, and I stepped into my
room. It was a large apartment; a long table and benches stood in the
middle; round three walls ran the bed-shelves; there was a huge stove,
and three great windows admitted plenty of light.
My new companions welcomed me warmly. There were fifteen men in the
room, two of them—Sundelèvitch and Paul Orlov—being already known to me
from of old. The first question to be settled was where my
sleeping-place should be, and it was decided that I should lie next to
Sundelèvitch, which meant that Starinkyèvitch, whose place this had
been, must find room elsewhere. I found later that it was a great
sacrifice this comrade had made for me, for Starinkyèvitch was thereby
separated from his friend Martinòvsky. In a room where so many men lived
constantly crowded together, the only possibility of close intercourse
and the sharing of intimate thoughts between two friends was when they
lay side by side on the bed-shelf, and it was only subsequently that I
found out what significance this had in our situation.
When we arrived, supper was already over, but we were given each a glass
of tea with a tiny scrap of sugar, and a piece of black bread. I was
overwhelmed with questions, and was made to tell all about my arrest, my
adventures, and what was going on in Russia. We chattered, joked, and
laughed as only the young can, for except Berezniàk and Dzvonkyèvitch,
who were forty and forty-five respectively, we were all between the ages
of twenty-four and thirty. I had an odd feeling, as if after a long
absence I found myself once more in an intimate family circle. Time
flew, and it was late at night before I lay down to sleep, spreading on
the wooden boards of the bed-shelf a little mattress that I had brought
with me. My journey from Moscow had lasted seven months; I was sick of
moving about, and now experienced a real feeling of comfort at the idea
of having come to anchor for years.
* * * * *
I had been rejoicing much beforehand at the prospect of meeting in Kara
my old friend Jacob Stefanòvitch,[78] from whom I had last parted four
years ago, in Switzerland. He had then returned to Russia, had been
arrested in February, 1882, convicted in the “Case of the Seventeen,”
and sentenced to eight years’ “katorga.” He had been two years in Kara
before my arrival. As he was lodged in another room I could only pay him
a flying visit that evening, for soon after our entrance the rounds were
made and the doors all locked for the night. Next morning, as soon as
the rounds had been made and the roll-call got over, I called to the
gendarmes through the peephole in our door, and made them take me to No.
1 room, where Stefanòvitch was. During the daytime we were permitted to
go from one room to another—a privilege obtained by the “politicals”
only after a long, hard fight, although in the criminals’ prison the
doors of the rooms had never been kept locked by day.
Footnote 78:
See portrait, p. 112. Stefanòvitch was one of the most prominent of
the Terrorists, who, helped chiefly by Deutsch and Bohanòvsky,
succeeded in instructing and organising several thousands of peasants,
and was on the point of heading their insurrection when he was
arrested in 1877. Stefanòvitch, Deutsch, and Bohanòvsky were
imprisoned at Kiëv, and their escape thence has been related (note, p.
98). Stepniak describes Stefanòvitch (see _Underground Russia_, _Jacob
Stefanovic_, and _Two Escapes_) as of very strong and original
character, extremely reserved, speaking rarely, and, though a man of
action, very cautious and practical. He was the son of a village
priest, and kept up constant intercourse with his old father, even
when it was most dangerous for him to do so, at a time when whole
cities would be thrown into a ferment if his presence in them were
suspected. His personal appearance Stepniak describes thus: “He was of
middle height, and somewhat slender, hollow-chested, and with narrow
shoulders. Physically, he must have been very weak. I never saw an
uglier man. He had the face of a negro, or rather of a Tartar,
prominent cheek-bones, a large mouth, and a flat nose. But it was an
attractive ugliness. Intelligence shone forth from his grey eyes. His
smile had something of the malign and of the subtly sportive, like the
character of the Ukrainian race to which he belongs. When he mentioned
some clever trick played off upon the police he laughed most heartily,
and showed his teeth, which were very fine and white as ivory. His
entire countenance, with his wrinkled forehead and his cold, firm
look, expressed a resolution and at the same time a self-command which
nothing could disturb. I observed that in speaking he did not use the
slightest gesture.” Stefanòvitch has now (1903) been over twenty years
in Siberia. It was expected that in May this year he would be
liberated so far as to be permitted to reside in some outlying
province of European Russia, but this hope has not been
realised.—_Trans._
In No. 1 there were also sixteen men, that being the complete number;
and now that we had arrived every room was full. After greeting the
comrades here and chatting with my friend, I visited all the other
rooms. Of course, the advent of a new-comer is a great event in the
prison, and is generally expected beforehand, for notwithstanding all
official precaution, a good deal of intelligence from without finds its
way through the walls. The arrival is awaited with the greatest
impatience, as may be imagined; and for a few days the monotony of the
life is enlivened by the new-comer’s tidings of the world in general and
of the revolutionary movement in particular.
Not only had I much to tell, but I was much interested in learning the
views of my comrades, though all that I heard was not entirely to my
liking. I recollect a conversation I had with an old acquaintance,
Volòshenko,[79] who passed for a very intelligent man. He had been
arrested at Kiëv in 1879, and sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude,
afterwards increased by eleven years more in consequence of an attempted
escape. When I spoke of the new tendencies in the Russian revolutionary
movement, and mentioned that a Socialist group had been formed calling
itself the “League for the Emancipation of Labour,” and professing the
Marxian views held by the German Social Democrats, Volòshenko seemed
highly amused.
Footnote 79:
See note, p. 189.
“Social Democrats in Russia! That’s a comical idea! Who are these
people?”
“You see one of them before you,” I replied.
Volòshenko and many others in the room stared in blank astonishment. Had
I announced myself a follower of the prophet Mahomet they could scarcely
have been more surprised. The ideas of Karl Marx were at that time but
little known in Russia. It was indeed thought one’s duty to read the
first volume of _Das Kapital_, which had appeared in a Russian
translation, and it was usual to find educated people in European Russia
recognising Marx’s services to the science of political economy; but in
Kara they had not progressed even so far. As to the philosophical basis
of Marx’s theory of Socialism practically nothing was known;
nevertheless it was rejected, partly owing to the influence of Eugene
Dühring, partly to that of the Russian author N. Mihailovsky, and
finally on account of a _dictum_ of so-called “sane common sense” that
Marx’s ideas were quite inapplicable to Russia. This last was
Volòshenko’s contention, fortified, however, by no personal knowledge of
Marx’s writings.
I was in a position to give more than verbal tidings of the new
tendency. We had succeeded, despite all official scrutiny, in smuggling
various prohibited writings into the prison, and among them the first
publication of our group, Plehànov’s _Socialism and the Political
Struggle_. For a long time no forbidden literature had penetrated to
Kara; the excitement was great, and the new material for thought was
seized on with avidity. I was very anxious to discover Sundelèvitch’s
attitude towards this problem, for in the old days, when we were nearly
all Terrorists, he was considered as more or less of a Social
Democrat—at any rate, he had been known to approve of the German
development on those lines, so far as that country was concerned. We had
been acquainted in 1878, when he had in charge the transport of
forbidden literature for the _Zemlyà i Vòlya_ (Land and Liberty) group;
and he had made use of his special experience in such illegal traffic to
get Stefanòvitch and myself safely across the frontier after our flight
from Kiëv prison. At that time we had had many hot discussions with
Sundelèvitch over the methods of conducting our struggle in Russia; for
I was then a decided opponent of the Social Democrats, and as a
Terrorist and “Naròdnik” (_i.e._ member of the party whose object it was
to organise revolts among the peasants) held the peaceful tactics of
German Socialists to be utterly ineffectual—naturally, therefore, I
would have all the more scouted the idea of introducing them into
Russia. Sundelèvitch, on the contrary, did not believe in “the People,”
and thought agitation among the Russian working-classes quite futile. In
his opinion the first thing to do was to fight for political freedom;
and then, as soon as that was obtained, to resort to the constitutional
methods of the German Social-Democratic party. Consequently, he did not
join the terrorist party till it began its political activity in 1878;
and he was one of the first to enunciate the idea that its methods were
only temporarily adopted because they offered the sole possible means in
Russia of overthrowing the existing political order. He was one of the
most energetic in organising terrorist conspiracies, and the party owed
much to his help in carrying through their active work; he was
invaluable in striking out the most effective and practical suggestions.
He was arrested quite by chance in a public library in Petersburg during
the autumn of 1879, and was prosecuted in the “Case of the Sixteen,”
when Kviatkòvsky and Pressnyàkov were sentenced to death, and he himself
to lifelong penal servitude.
I had been thinking much about our former arguments, for I had since
been converted to the views Sundelèvitch then advocated, and I now hoped
to find a kindred spirit in him. Even on purely personal grounds I
desired it; for when a man is convinced of the rightness of his own plan
of action, it must be irksome to live for years with others who, while
sharing his principles, differ entirely as to the best means of carrying
them out; and this is especially so when what one holds most sacred is
in question, no matter how tolerant one may be. I earnestly hoped I
should not be alone in my views, and I could have asked for no better
friend than Sundelèvitch, who was incomparable as a comrade—one of the
finest natures I have ever known, unselfish, trustworthy, judicious.
As I now lay beside him during the long evenings we talked of our common
friends still in freedom and fighting for the cause, of the victims of
that fight who had died the death of heroes or were languishing in
Schlüsselburg; but instinctively I shrank at first from touching on
theoretical subjects, dreading that we might be out of sympathy, for I
soon heard that he was no longer of his old way of thinking. Like many
others during their first years of imprisonment, Sundelèvitch
experienced a reaction; he absolutely threw over the Marxian doctrine,
and would not admit the economic teaching of _Das Kapital_ to be sound.
In time we fought many a tough battle on this head, my friend declaring
that for Germans Social Democracy might do, but that such ideas would
never effect anything in Russia.
With my other friend, Stefanòvitch, I had less opportunity for
conversation, as we inhabited different rooms; but to him also my
opinions came unexpectedly, and seemed strange and incomprehensible.
When we had parted four years back we had been quite at one, and he had
remained, as he was then, half Naròdnik, half Terrorist; while I, having
thoroughly assimilated the new ideas, had, with some other companions,
founded the Social Democratic organisation, _Tchòrny Peredyèl_
(Redivision of the Land). He learned this now for the first time, and
could not tell off-hand how he should regard it; but being unusually
thoughtful and far-seeing, he appreciated the importance of the change
that had come over the opinions of his comrades in the struggle. He
grasped the trend of the new doctrine, and tried to comprehend it fully.
It was clear to him that through our organisation a way was being laid
in Russia for a perfectly new outlook on the world; he doubted whether
it would find favour in our country, but was far from meeting the idea
with enmity or contempt, as the shallower minds among the revolutionists
did both then and later.
This common life of so many young people in the prison had led to the
development of a peculiar jargon. Each room had its nickname: the first
was “the Sanhedrin,” the second “the nobles’ room,” the third “Yakutsk,”
and the fourth “Volost,” _i.e._ “the commune.” These names had their
origin in the dim and distant past, and I never discovered what had
given rise to them.
The inmates of the “nobles’ room,” in which I was located, were all
clever, well-educated young men, full of life and vigour; each in a way
represented a different type, and some had a really remarkable force of
character. Among these latter I would especially class Nicholas
Yatzèvitch, who was the son of a priest in Poltava. When a
seventeen-year-old student in the Veterinary College at Kharkov he was
arrested for attempting to rescue Alexei Medvediev[80] from prison, was
tried, and sentenced to fifteen years’ “katorga.” He had escaped (as I
have said before) from the Irkutsk prison, had been recaptured, and
condemned to another fourteen years’ penal servitude. He was barely
nineteen when brought to Kara, where he gained the goodwill of everyone
by his admirable qualities. Modest even to bashfulness, silent and
reserved, he yet exercised over his companions a quite wonderful
influence. His thirst for knowledge was without limit; he studied
various subjects with unflagging industry while in prison, especially
natural science, philosophy, and literature, besides learning several
languages. He found time, too, for manual work, at which he proved
himself very quick and adroit. He was on friendly terms with every one
of his comrades in prison without exception, always affectionate and
ready to help. No wonder he gained the esteem of all, and was willingly
looked up to as an authority, despite his youth (he was but
five-and-twenty when I first went to Kara); whether the question were
one of household affairs or an abstruse theoretical problem, his opinion
was sure to find favour with the majority. The bent of his mind was
towards metaphysics, and in philosophy as well as social science he gave
himself out as an eclectic; he shared the opinions of Dühring and the
Neo-Kantians, and in political economy was a follower of Carey, Bastian,
and similar bourgeois theorists. Of course, therefore, he counted among
the opponents of Marxism.
Footnote 80:
See chap. xxv. p. 262.
Of very different character were the two bosom friends Martinòvsky and
Starinkyèvitch, usually called “the two Vanitchki,” though really only
one of them answered to the name of Ivan. Starinkyèvitch was another
favourite of our little society, invariably good-tempered and full of
fun. His jokes, _bon-mots_, and nonsense would often send us all into
fits of laughter, when his own hearty ringing laugh was sure to dominate
all the others. He too was talented, but not steady and persevering like
Yatzèvitch. He was one of those fortunate beings who are able to get the
gist of a passage with one rapid glance; but he squandered his gifts,
attempting everything, and doing nothing thoroughly. He was almost
girlishly tender, clinging, and confiding by nature; but could on
occasion become passionate and violent. Moscow was his birthplace, and
he was sent straight from the University in 1881, when a mere boyish
student, to twenty years’ imprisonment, simply because he refused to say
from whom he had received a manifesto that was found in his possession.
He was an enthusiastic member of the _Naròdnaia Vòlya_.
They say that two friends are generally of opposite temperaments, and
the two Vanitchki certainly bore out that theory. While Starinkyèvitch
was gay and lighthearted, Martinòvsky was grave, sedate, almost morose.
He seldom smiled, and I can never remember hearing him laugh. He was a
man of iron will, commanding and even despotic in character. I cannot
imagine his ever being brought to yield a hair’s-breadth on any subject;
on the contrary, he seemed always to contrive to bring others round to
the fulfilment of his wishes. He was without doubt an extremely gifted
and capable man, who might have made his mark as a leader in public
affairs if he had had the chance. He was above all things practical; yet
could immerse himself on occasion in theoretical problems, and was one
of the first in the prison to take up the study of Marxism. He too came
from Moscow, and like his friend Starinkyèvitch, had been condemned to
twenty years’ imprisonment. Martinòvsky had been sentenced, in the same
case as Sundelèvitch, Kviatkòvsky, and others, to fourteen years’
“katorga,” and an attempted escape brought him an addition of another
six years. His having been chosen _stàrosta_ (head-man) by his comrades
proves the complete trust they placed in him, and he was in every way a
model representative of our interests.
The following story concerns another of my fellow-prisoners at Kara. On
the 25th December, 1879, General Drenteln was driving in his carriage
through the streets of Petersburg. He had just been appointed chief of
gendarmerie, in succession to General Mezentzev, (killed by the
revolutionists; see pp. 92 and 263,) and was also the head of the
notorious “third section.”[81] Suddenly a man riding a beautiful
thorough-bred stopped the carriage and fired several shots at the
General through the window, none of the bullets hitting their mark. The
rider made off, the General cried to the coachman to follow him, and a
wild chase began. The people in the streets understood nothing about
what had occurred, and saw with amazement this strange race between the
General’s carriage and a magnificently mounted horseman. More than once
the latter seemed on the point of being brought to bay, but always
escaped down some side street, closely followed by the General’s fast
trotters. At last the rider made a dash, left his pursuers behind, and
was in hot flight, when his horse stumbled and fell. The fugitive did
not lose his presence of mind, however; beckoning to a policeman, he
said: “My good man, this horse is hurt; just look after it for me while
I go and fetch the groom.” The policeman obediently took the bridle, and
the horseman vanished round the corner, cut through a passage, called a
droschky, and was seen no more. General Drenteln foamed with rage when
he found the horse in such safe keeping, but the rider gone. The police
were set to work, and easily discovered the steed to be a racehorse
named “Lady,” which had been hired from a riding-school by a student
named Mirsky,[82] already under police observation. Mirsky was by this
time no longer to be found in Petersburg; he had escaped to South
Russia. Several months later, however, he met his fate at Taganrock,
while under the roof of a friend and comrade named Tarhov, a lieutenant
in the artillery. Another officer, having suspicions about Tarhov’s
guest, put the police on the scent, and the house was surrounded.
Mirsky, unwilling to surrender without a struggle, fired several
revolver-shots at the police, and tried to break through their cordon.
He was overpowered, however; was made prisoner, and in 1880 was brought
before a court-martial, together with Tarhov, the poet A. Olchin, and
some others. That was a time when even people not actually implicated in
terrorist attempts were condemned to death off-hand by the
courts-martial, and no one doubted that Mirsky—whose assault upon the
chief of gendarmerie was undisputed—would be executed. Only he himself
seemed to think otherwise. I remember how, shortly before the trial,
somebody who had visited him in prison came to us and said that Mirsky
wanted us to send him black clothes and a white tie, to wear when he
went before the court. We were all very much surprised, and laughed
rather mournfully over his odd whim. It was the first time it had
occurred to any revolutionist to trouble himself about what sort of coat
he should put on to face his judges. But of course we provided him with
the means of shining for the last time in public; the papers remarked
that “the chief defendant presented a very gentlemanly appearance,” and
his speech of defence was reported with approval in various foreign
journals. He was condemned to death; and although this sentence was
commuted to one of penal servitude for life, he very narrowly escaped
suffering the full rigour of the law. Had the attempt—planned for that
very day—to kill Alexander II. at the station in Alexandrovskaia been
successful, or had the trial taken place two days later, after the 19th
November, when the Tsar’s train was blown up at Moscow,—all would have
been over for Mirsky. As it was, however, he escaped with his life, and
was confined in the famous Alexei-Ravelin tower of the Fortress of Peter
and Paul, where at that time the most important “politicals” were
imprisoned. Four years later he was brought to Kara, and he was one of
my companions in the “nobles’ room.”
Footnote 81:
The secret police, which was then under the chief of gendarmerie,
though it has since been constituted a separate department,
controlling vast sums of money.
Footnote 82:
See portrait, p. 112.
Instead of a slender, aristocratic youth, as Mirsky was described at the
time of his trial, I knew him as a robust, somewhat undersized but
well-built man, of about twenty-seven. And he had changed in more than
outward appearance; he was no longer the hot-headed boy, ready for any
rash deed, but a serious man who had been through much and had thought
deeply. Keen-witted and well educated, he had formed his own conclusions
as to social conditions in Russia and their development in the future.
The teaching of Marx was unknown to him, but he had attained a similar
standpoint by following out his own reasoning. He was particularly
sceptical concerning the views then prevalent among Russian
revolutionists, according to which a purely Russian programme should be
based on the organisation of the _artèls_ (workmen’s unions), and on the
already existing system of the joint ownership of land by the village
communes; a programme which must differ essentially from that of
Socialists in all other civilised countries. He did not believe that
anything further could be built on these remnants of patriarchal
institutions. He was of opinion that the complete overthrow of the
existing political régime was the first thing to be aimed at in Russia,
but he was convinced that terrorist tactics would never entirely bring
this about; and he expected equally little from any uprising of the
working classes, since the mass of the people were sunk in apathetic
resignation and hopelessness. Yet still the question tortured him—how
should this task be approached?—and he was of all the prisoners in Kara
the best prepared for the philosophical arguments of a Marxist.
Mirsky had been a medical student; but during his imprisonment he took
up the study of jurisprudence, and was credited with such a thorough
knowledge of legal affairs that his judgments were more trusted than
those of some graduate lawyers who were among us. Mirsky was of Polish
extraction; but having been brought up in Russia he was in every respect
a thoroughly Russian Socialist.