THE “COLONISTS”—FURTHER EVENTS IN THE WOMEN’S PRISON—THE
HUNGER-STRIKES—THE YAKUTSK MASSACRE
The summer of 1888 brought troubles also to us in the men’s prison,
though they had nothing to do with the grievances of the women.
Among the inmates of the “hospital” room was Vlastòpoulo, formerly an
officer in the army, condemned in 1879 to fifteen years’ “katorga,” this
sentence having been subsequently increased to the life-term, in
punishment for an attempt at escape. He was a man of many gifts and well
equipped with varied information, firm in character, very proud and
ambitious; and he was held by us to be unalterably fixed in his
terrorist principles. His comrades placed great confidence in him, and
esteemed him highly, as they testified by twice electing him _stàrosta_.
In the spring of this year (1888) Vlastòpoulo’s roommates, of whom I was
one, noticed that he was becoming short-tempered, peevish, and restless.
About this time we were visited by an official of the Imperial Police
Department—one Russìnov by name, a privy councillor. Tours of inspection
were often made by high officials from Petersburg, and had for their
real object the inciting of political prisoners to “repentance,” and the
urging them to sue for pardon. These efforts were sometimes successful.
Weak-minded people were occasionally found who would sing, “Pater,
peccavi”; but it is worthy of note that such instances never occurred
among the women “politicals.”
On this occasion we were unaware that Councillor Russìnov had made
proposals of recantation to any repentant souls among us; but one
morning, shortly after his departure, Vlastòpoulo left the prison in the
company of gendarmes, handing to one of the comrades as he passed
through the door a note, which when read aloud, left us all perfectly
thunderstruck. Vlastòpoulo informed us that he had lost all faith in the
justice of the revolutionary struggle, and had therefore resolved to
“cast himself at the foot of the throne,” as he expressed it, _i.e._ to
petition the Tsar for pardon.
No previous occurrence of the kind had been at all like this, and the
impression on us was overwhelming. Vlastòpoulo was, as I have said, a
most prominent person in our ranks, and his example might well be
followed by others, especially considering the frame of mind in which
many of the prisoners were known to be.
This was, as I have explained, a time of thorough-going reaction in
Russia. Sufficient news penetrated the walls of our prison to convince
us that there was at the moment no hope whatever of any definite
immediate success in the revolutionary movement; and the fact of this
being so necessarily caused much brooding over gloomy and even desperate
thoughts, to which in prison one is but too prone. If some among us were
already troubled by feelings of disillusion and doubts of the validity
of our ideal, a further piece of news which arrived at this
juncture—totally unexpected and at first incredible—would naturally only
serve to heighten dismay. The rumour reached us that Leo Tihomìrov, one
of the best-known leaders of the _Naròdnaia Vòlya_, had become a
renegade. This man, whom chance alone had saved from death on the
scaffold, had fled from Russia in 1882; and it proved to be true that in
1887 he had written the pamphlet, _Why I Ceased to be a Revolutionist_,
in which he forswore his former convictions, and by which he gained the
Tsar’s pardon. He received permission to return to Russia, and
henceforth devoted his pen to the service of the existing Government, of
which he is to this day a supporter.
This instance of apostasy—unique in the history of the Russian
revolutionary movement—made the deepest impression throughout all
Russia. “If such a man as Tihomìrov has become a monarchist, and
acknowledges the absolute power of the Tsar, why then I, poor sinner,
can be a revolutionist only through a misunderstanding,” I heard one of
the foremost among us say; and, in fact, he himself soon afterwards sent
in a petition for pardon. Our worst fears were realised. Nine men in all
followed the example of Vlastòpoulo; among the number Yemelyànov, who
had held a bomb in readiness to throw at Alexander II., and Posen, whose
monarchist infatuation I have already mentioned. Of course, all this had
a most overwhelming and depressing effect upon us.
The authorities always took care that anyone who had petitioned for
pardon should at once be removed from our midst and interned outside the
prison until orders arrived from Petersburg. Naturally we ourselves
instantly broke off all relations with such a person, which often
occasioned very affecting scenes. The action of sending in a petition of
the kind we termed “asking to be sent to the colony”; and to this day
the word “colonist” has a sinister sound in Siberia, bearing the
implication of “renegade.”
Meanwhile the fight in the women’s prison was not at an end, but raged
more fiercely than ever. Four other women who had been brought to
Ust-Kara joined in the protest of Elizabeth Kovàlskaya’s three friends.
The authorities did not seem inclined to move Masyukov; and the truce
having expired, the women resolved to carry out their threat, and again
began a hunger-strike. When we learned this, we decided that we too must
associate ourselves with them in their protest, and we refused to take
food, declaring that we did so to show our solidarity with our women
comrades, though in our own opinion the commandant’s apology had been a
sufficient atonement for his offence.
Our prison now presented an unwonted appearance; all work was suspended,
the chest that served as our larder remained closed, the kitchen stood
empty, and about the yard wandered the prisoners, who for days ate
nothing, but in whom no signs of yielding could be discerned; it was
easier for us to starve than to eat, while we knew that our women
comrades were suffering the pangs of hunger.
We made no announcement of our proceedings to the commandant, and he
also preserved silence until the third day, when he sent for our
_stárosta_ to know why we were on strike. When our reasons were given
him he asked the _stárosta_ to inform us, as well as the women, that he
really was soon to leave the place; he had just sent in an application
to be relieved of his post, and had received a favourable answer. In
proof of this he showed a telegram relating to the matter.
We succeeded in persuading the women to give in for the time and to take
nourishment, they having now fasted for eight days; but they would not
entirely forego their protest against Masyukov, only modifying it so far
as simply to “boycott” him. Ever since the abduction of Elizabeth
Kovàlskaya the commandant had been afraid of appearing in their sight;
but now they determined to break off even indirect communication with
him. This decision cost them perhaps the heaviest sacrifice they could
have made: it meant that they refused to accept their mails, which had
always to pass through the hands of the commandant, so that they
received neither money nor letters. Consequently they were forced to
subsist on the prison rations alone, all communication with their
friends was stopped, and all tidings of the outer world that they could
have obtained from newspapers were lost to them. The natural result was
that in a very short time the poor women began to suffer greatly, both
physically and mentally, and that some of them were well-nigh driven to
despair. The commandant was obliged to send back whence they came all
letters addressed to the women prisoners. The alarm of their relations
and friends at getting no news and receiving back their own letters
unopened may well be imagined; and the knowledge of the suffering thus
caused to their dear ones was an added misery for the captives.
She who suffered most in this terrible ordeal was Nadyèshda Sigida, one
of the latest arrivals in Ust-Kara. I never knew her personally, but
from all I heard of her from her friends she must have been a very
sensitive young creature, gentle, affectionate, and attracted by all
that is good and beautiful. She was deeply attached to her family, who
lived in Taganrock, a small town in South Russia. Before her marriage
she had been a teacher in a school, and her whole heart had been in her
profession; she had taken but little direct part in the revolutionary
movement, and had been condemned to eight years’ penal servitude because
a secret printing-press and some bombs had been found in the house
inhabited by herself and her husband. The latter had been condemned to
death, the sentence being afterwards commuted to penal servitude for
life, and he had died on his way to the island of Saghalien. Fate had
dealt hardly with the poor woman: she herself had been unjustly
sentenced, she had lost a beloved husband, and she had arrived at the
Siberian prison at a juncture when she was obliged to take part—almost
involuntarily—in the drama I am now describing. The stoppage of all
communication with home must have been especially cruel to her; her
longing for her mother, brothers, and sisters made her nearly desperate,
as she pictured their feelings on receiving back their unopened letters
to her.
There seemed no way out of this terrible _impasse_. A year had gone by
since Kovàlskaya’s departure, and Masyukov was still commandant. The
women, in a state of desperation, declared at last that they could bear
the position of affairs no longer, and would put an end to it, cost what
it might. They consulted together, and again resolved to fast, so they
set up a hunger-strike for the third time.
“Will it be any good?” Sigida asked herself. The authorities seemed
determined not to yield; the hunger-strike had led to nothing hitherto,
and would probably once again prove a fruitless undertaking; would it
not be better that one victim should pay for all? Better that one alone
should suffer, than that all should sacrifice themselves. Sigida
resolved to save her companions.
One day she told the gendarme on duty that she wished for an interview
with the commandant, and asked to be taken to him. Masyukov saw nothing
out of the way in this request, and ordered Sigida to be brought to his
office.
Some of us were witnesses that day of a strange scene, which could be
followed by looking through the crevices in the stockade surrounding our
yard. A carriage brought a young lady, attended by two gendarmes, to the
commandant’s house; she entered, and shortly after the commandant, in a
state of great excitement, jumped out of the window into the yard
bareheaded, and ran away. The young lady soon appeared in front of the
house, and spoke with evident earnestness and decision to the gendarmes;
after which she began talking quietly with a warder’s children, and
caressing them. All this seemed most enigmatical; we gathered little
save that the young lady had insisted on having a telegram despatched.
But the solution soon followed. We learned that when Sigida came face to
face with the commandant she struck him a blow, saying, “That is for you
as commandant!” and our hero, despite the presence of the gendarmes,
took to his heels and fled, leaping out of the window as we had seen.
Sigida, afraid that Masyukov would try to hush up the affair, had
thereupon demanded that the occurrence should be telegraphed at once to
the proper authorities. She was counting on the usual procedure in such
a case; an officer receiving a personal injury from one of his charges
being generally removed from the place where such a thing had happened,
and the offender sentenced to death. Her calculations as to these
probable results of her action proved false, however; the poor lady had
offered her sacrifice in vain.
I must here pause to speak of other events, which, though not directly
bearing on these struggles at Kara, yet greatly influenced the minds of
those concerned in them. The year of which I speak, 1889, will never be
forgotten by those who were then in Siberia. The news of the sanguinary
scenes that took place in Yakutsk was told to the whole civilised world,
and everywhere aroused horror at the cruelty of the Tsar’s Government;
yet probably but few of my readers will recollect the particulars.
There were at that time interned in Yakutsk some young men and girls who
were to be deported still further northward, “by administrative
methods,” to those wretched forlorn hamlets that figure on the map of
Siberia as Verkhny-Kolymsk, Nijni-Kolymsk, Verchoyansk, and so on. Among
these young people, who of course belonged to the student class, there
were boys and girls under age, to whose charge even Russian law could
lay no crime.
The Vice-Governor, Ostàshkin, who was then in command of the province of
Yakutsk, had given orders that these exiles should be conveyed to their
appointed destinations in a manner that would have rendered the
hardships of the journey quite unnecessarily severe; and when the young
people learned this they made representations to the authorities,
pointing out the danger that threatened them of perishing by cold and
hunger on the way. They were told to come together to talk matters over,
and they accordingly assembled in a dwelling-house to await the arrival
of the chief of police; instead of whom, however, came an order to
betake themselves at once to the police office. They now felt convinced
that they were to be deported at once, without time for protest, and
they refused to obey; whereupon there arrived immediately a troop of
soldiers commanded by an officer, and a frightful scene began that
beggars all description. The soldiers clubbed the exiles with the butts
of their rifles, stabbed at them with bayonets, and fired on the
defenceless assembly. Six corpses were left on the spot, among them that
of a pregnant woman, and many were severely wounded. The wounded and
injured—numbering twenty-seven—were then thrust into prison; and a
court-martial was opened, wherein three persons were condemned to death
and executed in Yakutsk, and nineteen were sentenced to penal servitude
for life. That is briefly the history of the “Massacre of Yakutsk.”[104]
Footnote 104:
The Yakutsk massacre has lately (April, 1903) been recalled to public
memory by the arrest of the Russian revolutionist, Michael Gotz, in
Italy, and the attempt of the Russian Government—fortunately
frustrated—to obtain his extradition. Gotz was one of the youthful
exiles at Yakutsk, and was severely wounded, but survived to be
court-martialled and condemned to penal servitude in the mines for
life. He and his comrades were subsequently amnestied, chiefly in
consequence of the notoriety given to the affair by an account of it
published by the _Times_ with indignant comments, which caused such
feeling both at home and abroad that even the Russian Government was
affected.—_Trans._
We in Kara received the news of these horrors just when our own
situation was becoming critical. Sympathy with the innocent victims and
anger against their oppressors were mingled with apprehensions for
ourselves; for we naturally thought, “If the Government can treat so
barbarously harmless people who are not convicts, what may be done to
us, ‘deprived’ as we are ‘of all rights,’ convicts in a prison whence
tidings need never penetrate to the outer world?”
After events justified these fears.