to secure veracious information. That is to institute a free press and
an independent parliament. To be sure, both press and parliament may be
led astray, and lead astray. It is unquestionably easier to find one's
way in a few reports of the highest counsellors than in the chaotic
confusion of voices of unmuzzled newspaper writers and members of
parliament, among whom, it cannot be denied, conscienceless demagogues
find place only too quickly. But he who bears such heavy responsibility
should not avoid difficulties; and there is absolutely no other means of
gaining a hearing for the truth than by the free utterance of every
criticism. Finally, one learns to read and to hear, and comes to
distinguish between real arguments and those of demagogues. No one
outside the country can form a conception of how the Russian press and
the elements of parliamentary institutions are oppressed by the camorra
of officials. The zemstvo of the province of Tver, which had the
effrontery to entertain wishes for a constitution, was dissolved; and
this is the least that happens in such cases. The persecution of the
persons who are under suspicion of exerting especial influence upon
their fellows--this is the evil. They are surprised by night, and in the
most fortunate cases are held in prison for months during
investigations. In other cases, when the search shows that the smallest
bit of forbidden literature was in the hands of the suspected man, his
exile to a distant province or to Siberia is a matter of course. These
things, however, are unfortunately only too well known. What is not so
well known is the way editors are treated who presume to wish to edit a
sheet or who draw upon themselves as editors the displeasure of the
police. The head censor in St. Petersburg, chief of the highest bureau
of the press, is a certain Zvyerev, a former Liberal professor in the
University of Moscow. Renegades are always the worst. Since Zvyerev has
been censor the restrictions of the Russian press have been severer than
ever. I became acquainted with the former editor-in-chief of a great
paper, who sketched for me the examination he underwent before
permission was granted him to edit a paper under censorship. There are,
I should explain, two sorts of papers in Russia. The first are those
which appear ostensibly without censorship, at their own risk, and at
the slightest slip are simply suppressed. It is easy to guess how ready
people are to invest in such enterprises. Those of the second sort are
papers under censorship, which are submitted to the censor before they
appear, and through his oversight receive a certain protection, not, to
be sure, of a very far-reaching kind. This, however, is the only method
by which any capital can be secured; and without capital to-day the
founding of a paper is an impossibility.
Ivan Mikhailitch Golitzyn, then, wishes to start a paper, has taken all
preparatory steps, has procured capital and valuable testimonials, and
appears now before the mighty Zvyerev to request the final license.
Zvyerev is a snob and bows to a great name. Therefore he cannot
immediately say no, for the candidate has taken care to obtain
testimonials from the most prominent people. Therefore the following
dialogue ensues:
"Ivan Mikhailitch, I know you and your family. You are a Russian noble,
and as such are called upon to protect the interests of our Emperor and
of the church. There is also nothing to be said against your patrons.
But you yourself, ever since your student days, have been under
suspicion of harboring Western ideas. Your associations also are not
entirely above suspicion. I am informed that you associate with Jews."
"Your excellency knows that my paper is to stand for progress, which
certainly is not forbidden, and if Jews are among my acquaintances, it
would be unchristian to insult them by turning my back on them."
"Yes, that is all very well. But I should like to know whether you will
oppose the impertinences of the Jews with the necessary vigor?"
"Your excellency will perceive that a paper which stands for progress
cannot attack the Jews without good reason. But, on the other hand, it
cannot be philo-Semitic, for our mercantile class would not advertise,
on account of their anti-Semitic feeling, and the paper could not
continue."
"Will your paper support the absurd efforts which are being made towards
the introduction of a constitution?"
"We will concern ourselves only with practical questions. The
introduction of a constitution does not belong to these."
"But if one of your editors should make an attempt to enter upon the
discussion of this question, would you permit it?"
"My editors know the programme and will not attempt any disloyalty to
it. But should the case occur, it would be my duty to protect the
integrity of the programme."
"Ivan Mikhailitch, you are a clever man and know how to make evasive
answers. I cannot refuse you a license. But I warn you! And beware of
the Jews. That is the first duty of a Russian nobleman to-day."
That is the conversation which has certainly been carried on more than
once in Zvyerev's office before the founding of a paper. In striking
agreement with it is the scene which Struve reports in his
_Osvobozhdenie_, when, after the suppression of a paper, the editor
presents himself because his license has been taken away unjustly.
Again, take the case of a Moscow paper which has published a poem
delivered at the time of a public festival, but in which the author had
afterwards made some changes. The paper--I do not remember its name--was
suppressed. The publisher or the editor, who is likewise said to have
been a Russian noble, went to St. Petersburg, and objected that, as his
paper appeared under censorship, if any one was to blame it was the
censor who had let this poem pass. Zvyerev, however, showed plainly that
latter-day tendencies did not please him, and that he only wanted an
excuse for taking measures against the paper. Of course such measures
mean, under some circumstances, financial ruin; in any case, severe
injury to all the contributors. Therefore suppression of the license is
an unusually effective means of pressure to bring to bear against the
convictions of editors. In this case pressure of such a monstrous kind
was attempted as it is to be hoped stands alone in the chapter of
censor-tyranny. The editor was told in plain words, by Zvyerev, that he
might permit it to be stated that the poem had been smuggled into the
paper behind his back by the Jews, and that the minister of the interior
would at once grant a license for the reappearance of the paper. The
editor, of course, refused the demand, and a new page was added to the
book of Russian infamy. Zvyerev is still in office as a worthy assistant
to his minister, Plehve.
The oppression of independent-minded organs is, however, not the only
expedient of Russian policy in regard to the press. Its antithesis is
not absent--official support of the revolutionary and provincial press.
Russia rejoices in one journal which has not its equal in untruthfulness
and diabolical baseness in the whole world, the _Novoye Vremya_. This
Panslavic sheet, which is ready to eat all Germans and Jews alive, and
which finds no lie too infamous, no invention too childish to serve up
to its readers, if only their prejudices are tickled, is openly
supported by the Russian government. It therefore contains an
incomparably greater amount of news than any other, has consequently the
most subscribers, and can pay its contributors and correspondents the
best, so that every one who wants to read a paper with plenty of news
has to take this noble organ. I found it everywhere in Russian houses,
and if I asked the master of the house his opinion of it, the answer was
everywhere the same: "Infamous, but indispensable."
It is, then, carefully seen that in Russia, as elsewhere, emperors--and
other people--do not hear the truth. The autocracy, or rather
bureaucracy, surrounds itself with bulwarks which nothing can penetrate.
It will need an earthquake to make a breach. This earthquake is, indeed,
according to the common opinion of all thinking Russians, nearer than is
generally supposed. It is the financial breaking-up of a system now held
together only by foreign loans.
XXII
SOME REALITIES OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION
At a social gathering which I must not describe because I do not wish to
make it recognizable, I had an unusual privilege. We were drinking tea
and talking--politics, of course, for no one any longer talks of
anything else in Russia--when the door opened and a tall and very
stately couple entered. A general exclamation hailed the new arrivals.
They were welcomed with striking heartiness and invited to the table, as
people who had returned from a long journey. When introduced to them I,
of course, did not understand their names, and contented myself with
enjoying the handsome appearance and elegance of the gentleman as well
as of the lady until I could ask my neighbor at table why these people
were welcomed with such surprising warmth.
"He has just come out of prison," was the hastily whispered reply.
The communication had such an effect that I was unable to finish the
meal. It is not a usual thing for a western European to sit among the
guests of a prominent family with people who have just been discharged
from prison. Moreover, among us, culprits do not look like this
uncommonly handsome pair. Finally, it is not customary with us to
receive with such heartiness people who have just discarded prison
shackles. I therefore asked for the name and crime of the new-comer. I
was told, and at once I understood everything.
This courtly gentleman was a Russian noble and a prominent lawyer. At my
request he related in German his prison experiences. He had, it seems,
been arrested at night and immediately incarcerated. His wife had taken
the children out of bed, because even the beds had to be searched for
forbidden literature, and the like. The pretext for this night visit of
the police had been that the lawyer had been informed against as having
given shelter to a political fugitive. For this reason search was made
even in the cradle of the smallest child, in order to make sure that the
criminal was not hidden there. The true ground, however, was that Mr.
von X----, as a lawyer, defended political criminals and must be dealt
with accordingly. Eleven days were spent in examining him. The search of
the house revealed nothing; for only the most reckless have a trace of
forbidden literature in their houses, although Struve's
_Osvobozhdenie_[7] is read almost everywhere. No other accusation could
be brought against a man so highly honored. He was also not altogether
without means of defence in his large clientage. His case had caused a
great sensation. The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese war had, however,
caused the authorities to content themselves with treating him to the
pleasures of a short residence in a police hole, and they refrained for
the time being from exiling or banishing him from the place of his
practice--an experience which might easily enough happen after a much
longer investigation to lawyers less noted or of lower rank.
After this little incident, noteworthy enough to a foreigner, I became
much interested in the troubles of lawyers, and obtained the amplest
information on the subject. I even incidentally made the acquaintance of
one of the officially disciplined lawyers of Kishinef, but was unable to
converse with him, as he spoke no language other than Russian. He was a
vigorous man, rather young, with heavy, dark hair and beard, and of a
distinctively Russian type. As the son of a priest, he ought to have
had, according to the ideas of people of discretion, something better to
do than to interfere with the programme of the government. But Dr.
Lokoloff, the lawyer in question, is a remarkable man. He believes it to
be an advocate's duty to uphold justice; and he absolutely refused to
admit that justice in Russia is a matter of politics. I managed to learn
more about the proceedings against Dr. Lokoloff from a well-informed
colleague of his whose name I, of course, may not disclose. Since the
simple recital of such a case is more instructive than whole volumes of
generalizations, I will give it in detail as related to me. I may,
however, promise that the case is by no means the worst I have heard of,
as the government takes much severer measures to terrorize lawyers and
to prevent them from defending "politically inconvenient" persons. The
case of Lokoloff, moreover, calls for more detailed treatment because
the massacre perpetrated at Kishinef, in the name of the Czar, has at
last drawn public attention to the conditions in his dominions.
The participation of the government organs in the "pogrom" of Kishinef
was exposed by another lawyer, Dr. Paul N. von Pereverseff, who expiated
his accusation with exile to Archangel, where he and his wife now live
in a village, while his children are being sheltered by relatives.
Pereverseff had gone to Kishinef after the disturbances, and had there
made the acquaintance of Pronin, Krushevan, Stefanoff, and Baron
Levendahl, at that time in command of the gendarmes at Kishinef. Since
he came as counsel for the accused, and was a Russian nobleman above
suspicion, he at once enjoyed the confidence of these honest men. Thus
he learned that Pronin, the colleague of Krushevan and the protégé of
Plehve, in his character of member of the committee for poor culprits,
gave exact instructions to the prisoners how they should speak in the
legal proceedings. Pereverseff soon became convinced that the chief
culprit--namely, Plehve, who had planned to administer punishment to the
Jews, and to present a new accusation against them to the Czar, would
not appear at the bar. Instead there would appear only the poor wretches
who had been directed to plunder and kill the Jews by order of the Czar.
Dr. Lokoloff arrived at Kishinef in May, 1903, as advocate for the
injured parties, and learned there from Pereverseff what the latter had
already discovered. He then made a personal investigation extending over
several months, in the course of which he discovered also that the
"pogrom" of the police and of Baron Levendahl had been instigated by
direct orders from higher authorities. He gave expression to this
conviction in the course of the proceedings, and was, in consequence,
imprisoned on an order telegraphed direct from the minister of the
interior to Prince Urussoff, the governor, on December 9, 1903.
On the day following the despatch of the telegram a letter from Plehve
reached Prince Urussoff, in which the former desired that the
proceedings of Lokoloff in Kishinef be immediately reported and his
exile to the north decreed. Prince Urussoff himself visited Lokoloff in
prison, and made him acquainted with Plehve's message, whereupon
Lokoloff wrote a protocol in answer to four charges based upon data
furnished by the gendarmes, as follows (the accusation is given first
and is followed by Lokoloff's answer):
"I. It is asserted that you have come to Kishinef in a
professional capacity, with the ostensible purpose of affording
legal assistance to the injured parties, but in reality to carry
on, in conjunction with other persons whose activity in opposition
to the government is well known, a private investigation parallel
with the legal one, to incite the Jews to make biased statements,
serviceable to the purposes of the opposition, and to bring forward
groundless complaints.
"_Answer._ Yes, I have carried on an investigation, and in so doing
have only discharged my duty. It is not forbidden in our country to
conduct investigation openly or secretly. My course of action was
dictated solely by the interests of my clients and the inadequate
official investigation. Very rich men took part in the
disturbances; but the official investigation detected only _poor_
ones as the accused. The interests of the injured persons, however,
demand that the _rich_ culprits also be brought to justice. The
investigation made by me was no secret. The governor, the state
attorney, the court of appeal, and the county court knew of it; and
I received my information in regard to the disturbances from
inhabitants of the city. In order to secure this information, I
questioned many hundreds of people who had been witnesses of the
disturbances. My offices were in special rooms, which were known to
the police. The assertion that the testimony was biased and false
is itself false.
"II. You have deliberately spread false assertions in order to
discredit the local authorities in the eyes of the government.
"_Answer._ I have never deliberately spread false assertions in
order to discredit the local authorities in the eyes of the
government.
"III. You have made use of your official position as counsel to
publish information concerning proceedings in closed sessions,
including the deliberately false assertion that in the legal
process the connivance of the authorities in the organization of
the disturbances, with the help of the authorities and of the
troops, was proved.
"_Answer._ I have never said that the disturbances were organized
by the government. But from very exact statements of witnesses, I
consider it proved that the disturbances were organized with the
help of very many official persons--as, for instance, Baron
Levendahl. [Here followed an exact statement of the details of the
action of Levendahl, which space will not permit me to give.] The
judge during the investigation, Freynat, himself acknowledged to me
that the leaders of the incendiaries were agents of Levendahl. I
myself demanded the attendance of Judge Freynat as a witness to
this. He was called, but not until after all the lawyers had been
excluded!
"The agents of Levendahl, who were imprisoned with the murderers,
were set free in the course of a few days, as is testified to by
witnesses.
"IV. You are in very intimate relations with persons who belong to
the radical opposition. These persons are Dr. Doroshevsky and Miss
Nemtzeva.
"_Answer._ Relations are not forbidden. I made the acquaintance of
Dr. Doroshevsky and Miss Nemtzeva only because they took part in
the 'pogrom,' to the extent of saving many Jews. Miss Vera Nemtzeva
is, moreover, the daughter of a respected proprietor."
Lokoloff wrote to the governor from prison to the effect that the
accusations were groundless, and that he was not guilty. On the receipt
of this letter Prince Urussoff visited him in his cell and admitted
that, in his judgment, Lokoloff was, in fact, wrongfully imprisoned. The
imprisonment, however, had been in obedience to an order from the
minister of the interior. The prince showed Lokoloff a copy of a letter
which he had sent to Plehve. This letter stated that according to
Prince Urussoff's interpretation of the law the action of Lokoloff did
not constitute a crime, and that therefore he could not order his
banishment to the north, but that Lokoloff was "fanatically convinced"
that the "pogrom" had been organized with the connivance of the
authorities, and that he had unconsciously imparted this conviction to
those with whom he came in contact. Therefore his residence in Kishinef
must be considered dangerous.
After some days Urussoff received a telegram from Plehve directing that
Lokoloff be liberated and that he be expelled from Kishinef.
Plehve's order was communicated by the governor to Lokoloff, who
expressed his astonishment that he should be expelled from Kishinef,
while Pronin, who in Urussoff's own opinion was one of the chief
offenders, was allowed to remain. This order, he added, would not tend
to a feeling of confidence in justice in Bessarabia.
As a matter of fact, the expulsion of Lokoloff was generally looked upon
as fresh evidence of the complicity of the government in the
disturbances.
No one in Kishinef now knows anything more about the affair.
Pereverseff, who had directly attacked the government, was severely
punished and banished; Lokoloff was expelled. "All quiet in Schepko
Street."
Of course the members of the legal profession in Russia do not regard
the matter with indifference. At a meeting of the Association of
Lawyers' Assistants the sympathy of those present was extended to
Lokoloff; and at the monthly banquet of the Literary Alliance at St.
Petersburg the members even went so far as to express its disapprobation
of the action of the government in the affair.
The minister of justice, Muraviev, however, the worthy colleague of
Plehve, explained to a deputation of lawyers which congratulated him on
his jubilee in January last, that he was favorably disposed towards the
profession, but that advocates would do well to _avoid "pleading
politically," since it was very prejudicial, indeed dangerous, to the
profession, which might easily suffer for its independence._ A word to
the wise, etc.
Such are the joys of the legal profession in Russia, and such is the
fate of those who speak in defence of the right. The people of other
countries will appreciate the services to truth and justice which, in
spite of all obstacles, the undaunted advocate performs.
Such are some of the stern realities of an advocate's life in Russia,
and such the possible, nay probable, fate of any one who "pleads
politically" in defence of the right. It will be apparent to the
citizens of other countries at what a cost the conscientious members of
the legal profession discharge, in spite of endless obstacles, their
duty to truth and justice.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] Liberation.
XXIII
THE STUDENT BODY IN RUSSIA
Not very long after the dismissal of the former minister of education,
Sänger, I sought out a certain university professor who had been
mentioned to me as being accurately informed about university affairs.
Of course, my visit to him had been carefully planned, for it is not
possible in Russia for a person--least of all if he be an official--to
express himself freely to strangers.
The information which I received from this authority on the general
political and economic position of Russia agreed with the discussions I
had heard on every side. Misery, despair, inevitable collapse, these
were the words which were most noticeable in his description, too, and
it would be almost superfluous for one to reproduce the conversation
unless certain additional details had been brought out which are
particularly characteristic of the intense ferment in which intellectual
Russia is at just this time involved.
Just previously several students had been arrested. I asked about the
cause of the arrest and the probable fate of the young folks. A
demonstration in favor of the Japanese had been held by the students,
and had been reported. This was the cause of the arrest. "As yet nothing
can be said about the fate of the incautious young men," the professor
answered.
"You say that the students held a demonstration for the Japanese? It is
scarcely credible!"
"And yet it is true. All enlightened people, and accordingly the
students, too, regard the Japanese as an unexpected ally in their fight
against the existing conditions, and so sympathy for them is not
concealed. And, besides, aversion to them as a nation does not exist."
"But it is the very brothers and fellow-countrymen of the students who
must pay for it with their own blood if the Japanese retain the upper
hand!"
"That is partially true. But, first of all, Poles, Jews, and Armenians
have been sent to the seat of war, so that the Russian families do not
as yet feel the war so keenly; and then the Russian is used to the idea
that there must be bloody sacrifices for the cause of freedom. At any
rate, those who were arrested are much nearer the other students than
the troops who have gone to the front."
"But they challenged their fate!"
"That is a part of the fight against the régime. They seek martyrdom,
since they have become convinced that nothing can be attained by bare
protests and petitions. Perhaps a trace of Asiatic fatalism, and a lower
valuation upon life than is given it in the West, plays a part in their
acts, but, more powerful than all else probably, their conviction that
public opinion appreciates their sacrifices and approves of their
conduct."
"Then ambition is also an influence?"
"If you care to call it so. There is a little ambition in every
martyrdom. But the strongest motive is that youthful self-sacrifice, and
the belief that something can be attained for the cause by their
offering themselves up--in short, fanaticism. In this way some of the
most incredible things occur; for example, a student in prison emptied
an oil lamp over his body and set fire to it only in order to protest
against absolutism."
"I have heard this horrible story."
"Those who are now under arrest," the professor continued, "will
probably most of them soon be let free, for I do not believe that the
authorities have at present any desire to raise much of a storm. But as
many of them as are Jews will in all probability be more severely
punished, if only for statistical reasons."
"I understand."