outset that in a land of universal venality the reputation of Plehve had
this considerable advantage, he was said to be absolutely unbribable.
That is a great deal, a very great deal, when one considers that in
Russia certain legislative acts are quite openly traceable to the
payment of this or that high functionary. Suspicion, which as a rule
does not even spare princes, never once tainted him. But little account
do the Russians take of this characteristic. Probably they would prefer
it if his other evil traits were a bit softened by the vice of venality.
For Plehve passes for something far worse than a spendthrift or a
wasteling. He is a rascal without scruples, a political Sadist, a
bloodhound, an accomplished deceiver; at the same time, a cynic entirely
without heart, a "va banque,"[2] a swindler to whom a political career
or the playing with human lives means nothing more than a pleasant nerve
stimulant--in short, a tiger clothed in a human form. At the same time,
he has the most charming manners, is delightful and entertaining, and
possesses the most true-hearted face possible. His unbelievable
falseness is the next thing about which all complain who have had doings
with him. "Every word that he speaks is a lie," is the assertion which
one oftenest hears about him. The criminal element in his tactics
consists not only in the fact that he persuades the Czar that revolution
is at hand, and keeps him in continual, nerve-killing anxiety by means
of threatening letters, proclamations, and so forth, which he causes to
be smuggled into the Emperor's pockets, but still more in the fact that
he actually provokes disorders, in order to be able to use them as
arguments and to strengthen his position, and in the further fact that
he is continually discovering conspiracies and handling the supposed
members in the most fearful way in order to prove his indispensability.
The whole store of police tricks which have been played on despots in
order to turn autocrats into willing tools of their Prætorians has been
pillaged by Plehve in order to bring his system to a state of
perfection. In particular the Jews and the Poles must suffer in order to
contribute to the danger of the situation--_i. e._, the indispensability
of Plehve. Not a soul in Russia doubts that the Kishinef massacres were
the direct result of his commands; the cynicism with which he rewarded
Krushevan, the leading agitator from Bessarabia, with which he took
under his protection the agitator Pronin, who had been insulted by a
congress of teachers, is a shameless acknowledgment of his deed, which,
to say more, he only repudiates before foreign countries, not, however,
before his confidants. He seizes upon every little thing in order to
make some big affair out of it. In Warsaw the widows of the members of a
committee which had collected money for a Polish hospital corps were
stoned by students. Immediately was sent the telegraphic order to
investigate the thing most thoroughly, and if those who were the
sufferers had not refused all assistance to the police another couple of
dozen would-be rioters would have been sent to Siberia, in order that
the existence of a Polish revolution might be proved. A Russian editor,
whose paper had been suppressed because of the publication of a
revolutionary poem, sought audience of the head of the censorship at the
ministry of the interior, in order to obtain permission for the
reappearance of the paper. The chief of the department explained to the
editor, according to a Russian nobleman, that if he should simply
declare to the minister that the revolutionary poem had been smuggled
into the paper by Jews, he would immediately obtain permission to
publish his paper again! From a source whence I never should have
expected such a statement, from a highly conservative aristocrat, an
"excellency" in the service of the state, I received in all seriousness
the information that only Plehve, in league with Alexeyev, had conjured
up the war by holding off the Japanese, simply because in this way he
would become so much the more indispensable. Nay, more, it was even
indicated to me that the nihilists, who killed Alexander II. at the very
moment when the proclamation of a constitution lay upon the table
awaiting his signature, could not have found their way to the imperial
carriage without help from the police. And the ally of Loris-Melikov,
the man who had drawn up the plan, and who best of all knew how near its
signature, which must be avoided, the proclamation was, was none other
than Plehve! His instinct drove him to the ranks of the reactionaries,
for there is little use for people of his caliber in a constitutional
state. His anti-Semitic tendencies, which he naturally disavows to every
Jewish visitor, are only assumed because people high in position and
influence, like the empress dowager, Prince Sergius, and others of the
generation of Alexander III., are fanatically anti-Semitic. So even this
is not genuine in him. Nothing is but his theatrical ambition to assert
himself as long as possible, and to have the nerve-tickling of a
tight-rope walker who balances on his wire rope over fixed bayonets.
That is the picture of the minister of the interior as public opinion in
Russia paints it. I must confess that the picture is as little to my
taste as is the man. While the great Russian novelists are, above all,
masters in the use of shades, political public opinion likes to work
with the strongest colors, with bloody superlatives. Suspicious as the
circumstances may be that not a soul in the broad Russian empire is
inclined to say a friendly word for the ruling power of the time, yet
the unprejudiced observer must reckon with the circumstance that even
without a free press in Russia there is a certain uniformity of
political opinion which can only be explained on the hypothesis of a
certain uniform centre of opinion, many of whose statements are taken on
faith by every one. I imagine that this centre is situated pretty high,
perhaps in the immediate neighborhood of the Czar, and that the picture
of each minister is sketched by his rivals, but, like every article for
the masses, only in poster style, in striking words, very white or,
oftener, very black. He, not a Russian and not a rival, who has not the
same burning interest in getting rid of Plehve, will therefore do well
to transpose this rascal from his supernatural atmosphere into an
every-day one, and a somewhat different picture will result.
I think of it in this light: Plehve comes from a states-attorney and a
police career. Some traces of this origin cleave to every one of like
training. Judges who have been states-attorney are the terror of
lawyers, because of their inquisitorial manner, and because of their
inclination to see in every defendant a person already condemned.
Furthermore, dealings with police agents are least of all fitted to
cultivate scrupulousness. Let only Puttkammer's words be recalled,
"Gentlemen do not volunteer for such services."[3] The continual fear of
assassination, which is well founded in the case of the head of the
Russian police--Plehve allows his expenditures for the guarding of his
person to amount as high as eight hundred thousand rubles a year--does
not conduce to making a man human; and, finally, all bearers of honors
in Russia are cynics, because their existence is founded only on the
mood of a single person, and their whole career is a game of hazard. In
the case of Plehve and others there is this additional evil influence,
that not being Russians--Plehve is a Pole, of Lettish-Jewish
origin--they must distinguish themselves by special Russian Chauvinism
in order to avoid suspicion. Plehve is not a great man, his whole
ministerial career being devoid of a single noteworthy act. He is a
successful official, who intends by every means to make himself felt in
high circles, and who considers himself justified in countering the
intriguing of his rivals by any or all the means customary in the land,
and "Voilà tout." But, in general, love of truth is not a characteristic
of so-called public life in Russia. Hence it would be unjust to count as
a special crime Plehve's special falseness.
It must be conceded that even this picture is far from being a pleasing
one. If to these features the proved fact is added that Plehve denounced
to the governor-general, Count Muraviev, his own Polish foster-parents,
who picked him up, so to speak, in the very street and raised him
(Plehve was originally a Catholic), so that they were sent to Siberia in
return for their kindness; that Plehve, therefore, began his career with
a deed of infamous ingratitude and treachery,[4] then the black will be
black enough to allow of passing over the remaining smirches in the
picture of a monster.
But the most pitiful of all that I heard about Plehve's régime was the
answer I received when I asked a man in a very responsible position
whether better things might be expected when Plehve should be overtaken
by his inevitable fate.
"No," the answer was; "deserved as such a fate will be, for us it will
bring no help. Another man, that is all. Plehve is only the ideal
required by the régime. A police state needs police natures, and always
finds them. He has all the vices save that of corruptibility, but is by
no means unique in the hierarchy of Russian officials. And it is far
from probable that anything better would succeed him. If all Russia
hopes [_sic_] that he will soon be annihilated, it is not because an
amelioration of things is hoped for, but because some satisfaction is
felt when one of these beasts meets his due. But a philanthropist and a
friend of justice will be just as unlikely to be minister of the
interior under an absolutism as he is to desire to be an executioner.
Only another system can bring us other men. A reign of terror tolerates
only hangmen."
FOOTNOTES:
[2] One who risks everything on one card.
[3] "Gentlemen geben sich für diese Dienste nicht her."
[4] See Struve's _Oswobozhdenie_.
XIX
THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
It was perhaps not altogether accidental that one evening at a social
gathering I was introduced to one of the foremost lawyers of St.
Petersburg, whose biting sarcasm in discussing the events of the day
immediately struck me, and aroused in me the desire to have a more
serious talk with him. This was immediately granted with that amiability
which is never wanting in the intercourse of Russians with foreigners.
Subsequently I learned that I might congratulate myself, for that
particular lawyer was said to be not only one of the keenest minds in
Russia, but one of the men best acquainted with his country. Moreover,
he was so overwhelmed with work that even greater men were often obliged
to wait by the hour in his antechamber before they were able to gain
admission. Indeed, the time fixed for our interview, near midnight,
showed this to be the case. The conversation lasted until long after
that hour, but I had no cause to regret the loss of several hours of
sleep.
My host rose immediately and gave the inevitable order to bring tea and
cigarettes. In a few minutes we were discussing the question which
interested me most, as being the key to an understanding of all the
other economic conditions of the country--namely, the question of the
administration of justice in Russia.
"One circumstance makes it uncommonly difficult here to obtain justice,"
began the lawyer. "I refer to the strained relations between the bench
and the bar. Here the judge is more hostile to counsel than is the case
in other countries, and often enough he is inclined to make them feel
his power. This is less serious in civil suits--in which the judge,
after all, merely has to do with the parties in the case--than in
criminal cases, in which the judge represents the authority of the realm
towards the accused and his advocate. In such cases the defendant may
easily pay the penalty of the animosity which the judge feels towards
his counsel."
"What is the cause of this?"
"It has only too human a cause. It is not unheard of for a busy lawyer
of reputation and good connections to earn thirty or forty thousand
rubles a year, or more. Compare with that the wretched salaries of the
judges; consider how costly living is here; imagine the continuous
over-burden of work of the bench and the lack of public appreciation,
and you will comprehend why our judges do not look at the world in
general through rose-colored glasses, and particularly at the
prosperous, well-situated lawyer."
"You say lack of public appreciation. Is the position of judge not an
honorable one?"
"On the whole, no official in Russia is much respected. At the most he
is feared. The most lucrative positions, however, are those of the
administrative department and the police. In these branches are to be
found the most rapid and brilliant careers, and therefore the sons of
great families, in so far as they become officials, prefer them. The
judge must work hard, and has small thanks."
"Does not this evil have a moral effect on the impartial administration
of justice also?"
"You mean, in plain speech, are not our judges to be bought? Well, I
must say, to the honor of these functionaries, that relatively speaking
they constitute the most honorable class of all our officials, and that
the majority of them are superior to bribery. To be frank, there is
professional ambition enough; and the effort to please superiors is
almost a matter of course, since the independence of the judges, which
had brought us extraordinary improvement in the candidates for the
office, has been set aside again."
"Your judges are not, then, independent and irremovable?"
"What are you thinking of--under our present régime? We do not wish
independent judges. A minister of justice like Muraviev, who certainly
constitutes the supreme type of all that is meant by the expression, 'A
man of no honor,' is the strongest hinderance to justice. Therefore, a
monetary acknowledgment to the whole senate is expected for each
satisfactory judgment. We have such a case just now. Here you have a
list of names of seven judges who were promoted out of turn by Minister
Muraviev on consideration of the kind support which they gave to the
Ryaboushinskys, the Moscow millionaires, against the Bank of Kharkov,
which was their debtor."
"Will you permit me to make a note of this list?"
"Certainly. I am not the only man who has it."
I noted down the names Davidov, Sokalski, Vishnevsky, Laiming, Delyanov,
Dublyavski, Podgurski. They were entered on a type-written sheet with
the distinction and encouragement they had respectively received after a
suit which brought a considerable profit to a Moscow millionaire firm.
"But you said," I objected, "that the judges are not open to bribery.
Yet they performed an illegitimate service to millionaires."
"Certainly I said the judges are not open to bribery; but I did not say
that of the minister of justice. On the contrary, I called him a man
without honor in a place of the highest power."
"You mean, then, that he was paid for the judgment that was given in the
interest of the millionaires?"
"Your astonishment only betrays the foreigner. Only the little debts of
the honorable minister were paid off--good Heavens!"
"It is incomprehensible."
"On the other hand, the judge has everything to fear when he is not
compliant. Do you suppose that a comedy of justice like that of Kishinef
can be played with independent judges? And yet there are always heroes
to be found who fear no measures, but administer justice according to
their convictions. That is the astonishing thing, not the opposite,
under a Muraviev-Plehve régime."
"Was it better, then, formerly?"
"It was, and would have become better still if our authorities had
remained true to their mission of uplifting the altogether immoral
people instead of corrupting them still further. In the system of
Pobydonostzev, in which politics take the place of morality, no
improvement is to be expected. You might as well expect fair play from
the Spaniards of the Inquisition as here, where premiums are set upon
all sorts of unwise actions, if only they seem to lead to the levelling
of the masses, who are to be kept unthinking."
"You say the people are immoral?"
"They lack--above all things, the sense of justice. No one here has
rights. No one thinks he has. The natural state of things is that
everything is forbidden. A privilege is a favor to which no one has any
claim. To win a lawsuit is a matter of luck, not the result of a
definite state of justice. One has no right to gain his cause simply
because he is in the right. As a consequence of this, it is neither
discreditable nor disgraceful to be in the wrong. You win or lose
according as the die falls. I will illustrate from your own experience.
You were to-day in the Hermitage. At a certain door, before which stood
a servant, you asked whether people were permitted to enter. The answer
was not 'yes' or 'no,' but 'Admittance is commanded,' or 'Admittance is
not commanded.' This spirit extends to the smallest things. That you
keep your child with you and bring it up is not a matter of course, but
you are permitted to have children and to bring them up--the latter, be
it noted, only in so far as the police allow. If you should to-day
suffer heavy loss by robbery or burglary, what should you do?"
"I should report the matter, of course."
"You say of course, because it is a matter of course to you that a crime
reported should become characterized as a crime, because in a certain
way you feel the duty of personally upholding law and order. When the
same thing happens to me, a Russian, I must first conquer my natural
tendency, and then after a long struggle I, too, will report the matter,
because--well, because I, as a lawyer and a representative of justice,
am no longer a naïve Russian, but am infused with the usual ideas of
justice. The normal Russian exceedingly seldom reports a case to the
police, because he absolutely lacks the conviction of the necessity of
justice. When he says of anybody that he is a clever rascal, his
emphasis is laid on the word clever, which expresses unlimited
appreciation."
"That must make general intercourse exceedingly difficult."
"Certainly. To live in Russia means to use a thousand arts in keeping
one's head above water. One never has a sure ground of law under his
feet. Property both public and private is perhaps not less safe in
Turkey than here. Have you heard of the great steel affair?"
"No."
"It is no wonder, for we do not make much ado about a little mischance
of this sort. In that affair a capital of eight million rubles
disappeared without a trace. It was invested in the coal and steel
works. A grand-duke, moreover, was interested in the enterprise,
Grand-Duke Peter Nikolaievitch. A license to mine iron ore on a certain
territory for ninety-nine years had been obtained. A company was formed
with a capital of ten million rubles. The grand-duke took shares to the
amount of a million rubles. The enormously rich Chludoff put eight
million rubles into the concern. French and Belgian experts were brought
on special steamers; champagne flowed in streams. Of course the reports
of the experts were glowing ones. But after three years there was of the
eight million rubles, barely paid in, not a kopek more to be found. It
had all been stolen. Likewise there was no ore or coal on the territory,
nor had there ever been. No one went to law about the affair, so little
sensation did it cause."
"When did this affair take place?"
"Between 1898 and 1901."
"And can your press do nothing to better this general corruption?"
"We have a saying, 'It is hard to dig with a broken shovel.' Talented
people like ourselves soon learned from abroad the little art of
corrupting the press. With a fettered press like ours, this is less
difficult here than in other countries, where a paper respecting public
opinion might under some circumstances be unreservedly outspoken. But
why should a press with Suvorin and the _Novoye Vremya_ at the head,
surpassing absolutely all records of baseness--why should such a press
run the risk of bankruptcy? Moreover, you must always keep one thing in
mind: a press may exert tremendous power by publishing a man's
worthlessness, until he is made powerless in society; but since here
notorious sharpers are readily accepted in the highest ranks of society,
and even grand-dukes do not escape the suspicion of corruption, it does
no one any harm to be reported as having dexterously spirited away a few
hundred thousands."
"You say even grand-dukes?"
"--Are not safe from suspicion. I can personally testify that not one of
them takes a ruble himself. But the persons who live by obtaining
concessions for joint-stock companies, etc., know how to represent that
they need considerable sums for the purpose of influencing the highest
persons, the minister and grand-dukes. Hence arises this idea."
"And intelligent business men believe that?"
"Believe it? No one would understand the opposite. Imagine a scene in my
office. A business man comes to me with a case. He inquires my fee. I
say five hundred rubles. He asks what will be the expenses. I say a few
rubles for stamp duties, etc. Then he becomes more definite. He means
the _charges_. 'There are none,' I answer. The man of business rises,
disappointed. 'Ah! so you have no influential connections?' I will not
say that this happens very often with me; for the men who come to me
once know what I can do, and what not, and what my practice is. The case
is, however, characteristic. Outside the legal profession, which still
lives on the tradition of the time of its independence, every one is
open to bribery; and every one reckons with the fact."
"And no one is angry at open injustice?"
"What is injustice? Despotism of the great. We have been used to that
for thousands of years and accept it like the caprices of fortune. The
peasant makes no distinction between a hail-storm which ruins his crop
and an authority who oppresses or injures him. There is no way of
resisting either; for when one curses God, He sends greater misfortune;
and when one disputes with the authorities, one is absolutely lost.
'Duck, little brother; everything passes'; that is the final conclusion
of our wisdom. We are educated to it by inhuman despots and by an
official service of thieves and debauchees. We lack, too, the sharply
defined idea of ownership, in which the sense of justice, considered
psychologically, has its root. You know that here the peasants own their
own land only to an extremely small extent. The individual is merged and
lost in the 'mir' (village community), where the trustee, the 'zemski
nachnalnik,'[5] the village elder, and liquor rule. This _obshtchina_,
communism, is the strongest fortress of reaction. No ray of
enlightenment penetrates it. At the utmost, misery and ever-returning
hunger produce finally a condition of despair in which the peasant is
capable of anything except an action which might advance him in
civilization. In the census of 1898 there were found villages where no
one had any idea what paper is, and peasants who did not know the name
of the Emperor. The 'mir,' moreover, is in its nature opposed to private
ownership, and every discussion between the member of the village
communism and the property-holder is artfully prevented by the
scattering about of compulsory peasants. For property-owners are at
present for the most part Liberal. The régime, however, stands or falls
with the isolation of the peasantry from Liberal influences. For the
peasant is not unintelligent by nature, and, if he is not prevented, he
learns very quickly."
"That is also, then, one of the causes of the ill-treatment of the
Jews?"
"It is _the_ cause. Do not suppose that the Holy Synod alone has power
to influence legislation in favor of orthodoxy. Sectarians and Jews are
demonstrably the only people who have a moral code of their own, and,
therefore, know how to distinguish justice from injustice. They are also
the only ones who criticise the actions of the authorities. They were,
therefore, a dangerous leaven in the community, otherwise slipping off
to sleep in a body. Therefore, it was a matter of self-preservation for
the autocracy to isolate the Jews and make them harmless. Do not suppose
that any anti-Semitic feeling is prevalent among us. The autocrats are
trying artfully to implant it by means of such people as Plehve's
intimate, Krushevan, of the 'Bessarabetz.' But the effect does not go
deep, thanks to the same circumstance which makes the progress of
civilization difficult; the peasant cannot read, and does not in the
least believe the priest. The massacres of Kishinef were directly
commanded. Every man was killed by order of the Czar. No anti-Semitism
exists among the people. Whatever anti-Semitism there is is sown by the
government for the purpose of isolating the peasants in order that 'the
urchins may grow up stupid.'"
"Ought not the Jews to take that into account and not meddle with
politics?"