THE RED REIGN
[Illustration: The author and his brigand guide and interpreter]
THE RED REIGN
THE TRUE STORY OF AN
ADVENTUROUS YEAR
IN RUSSIA
BY
KELLOGG DURLAND
AUTHOR OF “AMONG THE FIFE MINERS,” ETC., ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS
BY THE AUTHOR AND OTHERS
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1908
Copyright, 1907, by
THE CENTURY CO.
_Published, September, 1907_
THE DE VINNE PRESS
TO
MY MOTHER
The author desires to make cordial recognition of the fact that some of
the material used in Chapter IX was also used in articles which appeared
in _Harper’s Weekly_ and _Colliers Weekly_; that certain passages in
several other chapters were used in letters to the _New York Evening
Post_ and the _Boston Evening Transcript_; that part of Chapter XI
appeared in the _Independent_. At the same time he would express his
grateful appreciation to Mr. Hamilton Holt, of the _Independent_, for
the courtesy of supplying him with credentials of representation which
were exceedingly useful on several occasions.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xix
Importance of movement called Russian revolution--Its varied
aspects--Inevitableness of revolution in Russia--Causes--The disease
of autocracy--Insincerity of manifesto of October, 1905, seen in
gradual withdrawal of constitutional rights then guaranteed--Elements
of disintegration in Russian state--Ninety per cent. of Russian people
now oppose existing régime--Startling record of killed and wounded in
1906--Compared to French Terror--Length of Russian struggle compared
to other revolutions in history--Author’s qualifications for present
undertaking--Varied experience among Cossacks, terrorists, and peasants.
CHAPTER I. INTO THE SHADOW 3
The White Terror--My first conspiracy--A frontier episode--A mixed
company--“Vive la Revolution!”--The “Quiet Capital”--A courtesy to
Americans--A friend’s narrow escape--A midnight incident--Early
bewilderment--Witte “more a stratagem than a man”--The ministerial
crisis--The deposed minister--Significant telegrams from the
provinces--Off to the Caucasus.
CHAPTER II. AMONG OFFICERS OF THE CZAR 25
Welcomed by officers of the guard--Being _Cossackized_--An interrupted
sleep--Presentation to the Governor-General--An amusing interview--The
General’s vanity and how it was tickled--The story of the Cossacks--An
Ingoosh brigand--An expedition into the mountains.
CHAPTER III. AT HOME WITH COSSACKS 48
A Cossack village--An exhibition of horsemanship--An accident--How
Cossacks are trained for service--Cossack local government--Basis of
Cossack loyalty--Their attitude toward massacres--Cossacks of the
Caucasus, like other tribes of the mountains, still unconquered--Back
to Vladikavkaz.
CHAPTER IV. UNDER MARTIAL LAW 75
The journey to the “Oil City”--First view of the Caspian--Armenians
and Tartars--Russia’s monstrous misrule--Tiflis blood-stained and
battered--How to wield a Caucasian dagger--Daily perils--Chiaroscuro of
officers’ life--A stirring departure.
CHAPTER V. WITH THE ARMY OF “PACIFICATION” 95
Arrival in Kutais--A siege city--“The very walls have
ears”--Cossack barracks--Loot--“Bloody” Alikhanoff--A dramatic
interview--Justification for burning homes--Military outrages--Why the
inhabitants of the Caucasus are revolutionists and terrorists.
CHAPTER VI. COURTING ARREST 121
A journey in the interior--Warned back--The start--A typical Volga
province--Causes of the famine--Arrival at Tsaritzin--Two medical
students--“Open! Open to the Police!”--The search--Condition of
the peasants--Pesky--A group of remarkable personalities--Village
customs--A dramatic meeting--A night ride--A sudden interruption in our
plan.
CHAPTER VII. IN PRISON 138
Questioned by the Police--Taken--Five charges to account for--Accused
of being an agitator--Eighteen versts to the gendarmerie--A tedious
night--Back to Saratoff--“Take the dogs away”--Prison--Clamoring for
freedom--Discouragement--Parole--Release.
CHAPTER VIII. A VISIT TO MARIE SPIRADONOVA 155
A tyrannical régime--A young girl’s daring--Tortures
and outrages--Entertained by the governor--A kindly
police-master--Grim prison walls--Difficulties--Appeal to the
governor--Shackled prisoners--Marie Spiradonova--A terrible
tale--Interruptions--“Greetings to France, to England, and to
America”--A Spartan mother--Letters from the fair prisoner.
CHAPTER IX. WATCHING THE DUMA AT WORK 177
The famous October manifesto--Skepticism of Russian people toward
promise of Constitution--Difficulties placed in way of honest
voting--Czar’s insincerity and duplicity--Fundamental and exceptional
laws--Ministerial change on eve of Duma--St. Petersburg possessed by
troops--The Winter Palace spectacle--The throne speech--Disappointment
of deputies--“Amnesty! Amnesty!”--“The first shot”--Make-up of
first Duma--First session--Zeal of representatives--Hostile
attitude of government--Work of Duma--Governmental policy of
obstruction--Dissolution--The Viborg manifesto--The present peril--The
promise of the future in the light of the attitude of the Czar.
CHAPTER X. A CONSPIRATIVE MEETING 207
A member of the military organization--Kronstadt--Revolutionary
headquarters among the soldiers and sailors--A conspirative
gathering--Smuggling forbidden literature--A surprise--Disguised
as a Russian sailor--A thrilling experience--An inspiring
episode--Shadowed!--Flight--Plan of escape--Capture deferred.
CHAPTER XI. THE KRONSTADT UPRISING 223
Kronstadt on the eve of mutiny--Influences encouraging
uprising--Make-up of the garrison--Wild rumors--A grand
plan for general army and navy uprising--A successful
beginning--Silence--A momentous telegram--A sudden
signal--Mutiny--Trapped!--Slaughter--Illuminating lessons of the
Kronstadt fiasco--The terrible cost in life and liberty.
CHAPTER XII. GOVERNMENTAL TERRORISM 237
Arrival in Bielostok--First impressions--Stories of the injured--The
crucifix as a weapon of death--The hospital fired upon--Children
victims--Failure of government to place responsibility--Mass of
evidence proving governmental complicity in massacres--Other
massacres officially instigated--Prince Urusoff’s speech--The
assassination of Professor Hertzenstein--A celebrated Moscow physician
murdered--Warsaw horrors--Upon whom rests the responsibility?--Arrest
of Pasha--Shooting a girl in prison--Bureaucracy guilty of murder
and assassination--Placing the responsibility on the Czar--The
arch-terrorist and assassin of Russia.
CHAPTER XIII. AMID WARSAW CONTRASTS 265
Seething Poland--Governmental lawlessness--Overwhelming little Poland
by sheer force of numbers--Twice over the Polish frontier--A panic
of Warsaw Jews--Russian oppression--A nervous populace--Campaign to
exterminate Warsaw police--Hopeless plight of latter--A pathetic
incident--Where poverty stalks--Effect of era of misery and chaos upon
Warsovians--Traffic in white slaves--Daily occurrences--A Warsaw
hospital--Chiaroscuro in the Polish capital--Parties of Poland--Poles
traditional revolutionists--Hope and optimism temperamental
characteristics of the Polish people.
CHAPTER XIV. AMONG THE MUZHIKS 287
Importance of the muzhik in the future--Ancient republican
traditions--Greek church and bureaucracy non-Russian
institutions--Weight of the peasant vote in the Duma--How
the peasant’s belief in “God and Czar” is waning--Strokes of
disillusionment--Indifference to time--Muzhik nonchalance--Strange
sects--Muzhik religion--A characteristic legend--Practical ethics--The
muzhik not necessarily lazy--Muzhik shrewdness--The dawning of
self-consciousness.
CHAPTER XV. THE PEASANT AWAKENING 311
The period of repression following the Duma dissolution--Under arrest
in Moscow--The cradle of the Romanoffs--A peasant gathering--Outspoken
muzhiks--A “constituent assembly”--Rational opinions of the
Viborg manifesto--Nijni Novgorod--The great fair--A disturbed
province--Kazan--A journey to the interior--A visit to Prince
Ouktomsky--Professor Vassiliev and his family--Advanced ideas of
the peasants--Simbirsk, the “Mountain of the Winds”--An illiterate
government--What the peasants want--Entering the famine belt.
CHAPTER XVI. THROUGH THE HUNGRY COUNTRY 341
Heart of the famine region--Terrible pictures of starvation--Peasants
feeding the thatch from the roofs of their houses to cattle--Auctioning
cattle and horses for a song--How the workers and breadwinners suffer
first--Inability of the government to cope with situation--Peasants
pledge their labor for years to come to secure food for their families
for the present time--Another arrest--Expulsion from the province.
CHAPTER XVII. IN THE LAND OF LOST LEADERS 360
Across the Urals--Into Siberia--The Treimen waiting-prison--First
exiles--The journey to Tobolsk--Secret night meeting of
politicals--Hardships of exile--Splendid personnel of prisoners--Forced
into daily contact with foul disease--Starvation--Life among the
Ostiaks--Lack of medical aid--Siberia, a monumental crime--The journey
back.
CHAPTER XVIII. MY FRIENDS, THE TERRORISTS 387
“Terrorism” almost universally misunderstood in America--Terrorism
a philosophy based on logical, intelligent, dispassionate
reasoning--Exceptional incidents that merely prove the rule--Relation
of terrorists to whole revolutionary movement--Differentiation of the
several leading revolutionary parties--Thoughtful and humane methods of
recent terrorists--Capture of “The Bear”--Two girl terrorists executed
at Kronstadt--The daring Maximalists--“Flying bands”--Rigid morals of
terrorists--Total abstainers--Personnel of the Maximalists--A famous
“expropriation”--Plot on the Duma--Bomb in the home of Prime Minister
Stolypin--The most daring plot of all.
CHAPTER XIX. A CLOSE CALL 410
A midnight meeting--An unusual request--Four women of “the
movement”--A sharp engagement--How the plot was carried out--Plans
for escape--Disappointment--An educated cab-driver--A bold scheme--A
unique “bridal” party--No news--Alarm--On the trail--A gendarme
companion--Suspicious incidents--A night alarm--Caught--A desperate
chance--“Au revoir”--Found--Back to the fight--Watched--Final escape.
CHAPTER XX. WITH THE RUSSIAN WORKMAN 433
Yusofka for a week-end--An exciting journey--A late welcome--Guarded
slumber--The story of Yusofka--The Black Country of Russia--Time
of small consequence to Russian workmen--Russian holidays
numerous--The working-day--Cost of living not low--Coal-mines--The
Artel--Morality--The drink question--Through a Russian coal-mine--The
Russian engineer an obstacle to progress--Child-labor laws
good--Conditions compared with Scotland and Pennsylvania--Comparative
wage scale--Standards of living--Departure from Yusofka.
CHAPTER XXI. TOLSTOI--ODESSA--CONSTANTINOPLE 456
A visit to Russia’s grand old man--An interesting _yamschik_--Tolstoi’s
views on the present struggle--His world-wide interests--The varied
and interesting Tolstoi household--On to the Crimea--Odessa--The Black
Hundred organization--Promoting massacres--Quitting Odessa during
a dock strike--A Black Hundred crew--Difficulties at sea--Back to
Odessa--A fresh start--A motley cargo of passengers--Bokhara pilgrims
bound for Mecca, Central Asia Jews journeying to Jerusalem, German
Lutherans--Crossing the Black Sea--Arrival in Constantinople.
CHAPTER XXII. THE TREND 481
Whither? The future of Russia--Why the revolution has not yet
succeeded--Probable outcome of the struggle--Inevitableness of
eventual overthrow of present régime--Attitude of foreign Powers--The
Russian people during the period of rebellion--Effect upon national
character--The Czar and the people--The Czar and the world--What we may
expect.
APPENDICES 497
A--Caucasian testimony; B--The Duma’s Reply to the Throne Speech; C--M.
Lopuchin’s letter to M. Stolypin; D--Report on Siedlce pogrom; E--Notes
on Wages and Cost of Living.
INDEX 529
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The author and his brigand guide and interpreter _Frontispiece_
Moscow barricades 8
Map: Mr. Durland’s route of travel 10
Moscow barricades 13
The “Volksguard” of Salisburg 22
The Governor-General of the Terek 39
My host--Prince Andronnikov. Some of my officer companions 44
A Cossack house. Interior of the above 50
Outside a Cossack yard. My Cossack driver at home with his family 55
Cossack women on frontier duty in the Province of Assouri 61
Orenburg Cossacks--a family group 68
A Cossack village--Province of the Don. A group of Don Cossacks at
breakfast 71
Arrest of suspected working-men--an hourly incident in Baku. Devastated
oil-fields. Baku 82
Tiflis. Showing result of artillery fire on town 85
Caucasian types 92
A Georgian village 97
Alikhanoff’s Cossacks 104
Guerrilla warfare 109
“Pacification” 117
The peasants’ friend. Medical students from Moscow University in charge
of a famine relief station in Saratoff 128
A typical cottage in the famine district of Saratoff. Examination of
credentials 134
A village priest entering a house to bless the bread after the Lenten
fast 151
Governor Xanugievitch of Tamboff 157
Marie Spiradonova in prison--the girl who shot the governor of
Tamboff 168
Where the first Duma met 179
The Emperor reading his throne speech 186
Two Constitutional Democratic leaders in the first Duma 197
The Duma lobby 203
The Kronstadt insurrection. Loyal troops sent to quell Kronstadt
mutiny 233
Youth and old age--Bielostok pogrom victims 249
An infantry patrol. Warsaw. Three soldiers to guard each policeman.
Warsaw 270
“Bomb order” 279
A group of leading men in a starving village 290
Women making hay. The “sleeping-box” over the stove. The platform is
the family bed in the warm weather 295
A village boulevard. A Russian cemetery 301
A Russian farmer 308
Tartar types--East Russia 325
Carriage used by bomb-throwers at Stolypin’s house 330
Starving peasants in a Tartar village 343
Everything eaten up 349
Famine 354
In the waiting-prison at Tyumen. Ostiaks 363
The great Siberian _Trakt_ 371
Siberia: the start into the Interior 378
Sozonoff--a typical Siberian exile of the intellectual class. Head of a
convoy of prisoners on the great Siberian _Trakt_ 383
Horse killed by small bomb thrown to stop the carriage in which state
money was being conveyed 395
The wreck of M. Stolypin’s room 406
An “expropriation” 413
Russian workmen and their “_artel_” 443
A Russian coal-miner 451
Cossacks on patrol duty. Victims of a Cossack _pogrom_ 469
Nicholas W. Tchaykovsky, “Father of the Russian Revolution” 487
Catherine Breshkovsky 491
INTRODUCTION
Importance of movement called Russian revolution--Its varied
aspects--Inevitableness of revolution in Russia--Causes--The
disease of autocracy--Insincerity of manifesto of October, 1905,
seen in gradual withdrawal of constitutional rights then
guaranteed--Elements of disintegration in Russian state--Ninety per
cent. of Russian people now oppose existing régime--Startling
record of killed and wounded in 1906--Compared to French
Terror--Length of Russian struggle compared to other revolutions in
history--Author’s qualifications for present undertaking--Varied
experience among Cossacks, terrorists and peasants.
The Russian revolution is one of the vital issues of the world to-day.
The political revolt, presenting, as it does, so many unique and
dramatic developments, tends to distract the attention of the world from
the broader, deeper, and certainly not less important, phases of the
movement which are found in the social and economic upheaval. The
working out of these forces--political, social, economic--in one
stupendous movement, constitutes one of the great revolutions of
history.
Revolution implies absolute change. Whether civil war, or intense
parliamentary struggle, or both, is the method of accomplishment, is of
small consequence. The ultimate outcome is the same. The present
movement of the Russian people toward a changed condition of life is but
the manifestation of underlying forces of history and destiny to which
all nations must yield. Revolution in Russia during the first quarter of
the twentieth century is as inevitable as the bursting of a Pelée or a
Vesuvius; as inexorable and pitiless as an earthquake, or the passing of
ancient empires.
Revolutions are not made. They are not built upon the propaganda of a
political or economic cult. They do not depend upon the will of
men--whether rulers or parliaments--as do wars. Revolutions are the
result of internal unwholesomeness--disease rooted in the body politic,
too deep to be poulticed out by ameliorating reforms. The Russian
revolution would be viewed as a world catastrophe were it not that the
disease, of which the revolution is but a symptom, is infinitely more of
a world menace. That disease is autocracy. Autocracy is a system of
government incompatible with twentieth-century civilization. Reforms
which are reconcilable to Russian autocracy are inadequate to meet the
present needs of the Russian people, and the meeting of these needs
necessitates reforms of such far-reaching and radical a nature, that
autocracy cannot admit them and continue to exist. Further, certain
reforms and fundamental requirements are now so demanding and so acute
that autocracy cannot much longer stand out against them. The period of
transition from autocracy to constitutionalism, republicanism, or
whatever the ultimate form of government accepted in Russia shall be, we
call revolution. The word has no arbitrary meaning. It simply designates
a period of national upheaval and struggle. In this sense the Russian
revolution may be said to have come to a head on “Bloody Sunday,”
January 22, 1905, and will culminate only with the capitulation, or
overthrow, of autocracy. The abyss toward which the Russian government
is now tending is but the Nemesis of history.
The constitution which was wrung from the hands of the emperor on the
30th of October, 1905, when the rising tide of revolution threatened the
very palace gates, is being gradually modified and withdrawn piecemeal,
and if the emperor has his way not a vestige of it will long remain. The
fundamental rights of men, which it pretends to guarantee the Russian
people, are as non-existent in the Russia of 1906 as they were in 1806,
before the first faint mutterings of the coming storm had been heard.
Not one, but all, of the guaranteed rights of that manifesto have been
withdrawn under so-called “temporary” laws and regulations, and under
the cloak of military law. The rights of free speech, writing,
assemblage, inviolability of person and home, still remain utopian
dreams of a distant day. This manifesto clearly and unequivocally
guaranteed “freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of
association, freedom of public assembly, and real inviolability of
personal rights.” And yet of the approximately 486 members of the first
Duma--the chosen representatives of the Russian people--one (Professor
Hertzenstein) has been murdered by the “Black Hundred”; one priest
excommunicated; two members have been beaten; ten are in hiding; five
have been exiled; twenty-four are in prison; thirty-three have been
arrested and searched; and one hundred and eighty-two are under
indictment on the charge of treason.[1] An obviously anomalous
situation.
“If a strong, central government becomes disorganized, if inefficiency,
or idleness, or above all, dishonesty, once obtain a ruling place in it,
the whole government body is diseased.”[2] No modern state, save Turkey,
is more universally honeycombed with official inefficiencies and
corruption than Russia, and even Turkey’s central government to-day
represents more solidity than the Russian. The only possible
justification for despotism of any character is in its actual power,
and in its fruits. Military despotism in Russia not only broke down, but
was hopelessly shattered by the inglorious and ignominious war with
Japan. The hold that autocracy once maintained on the Russian people
then loosened. It has been steadily weakening ever since Tsushima and
the fall of Port Arthur, followed by the shadow of Mukden, which passed
westward across the empire. Dishonesty and corruption stamps every one
of Peter’s fourteen bureaucratic ranks. The war disclosed an enormous
extent of thievery in all departments of the service. Especially
sensational revelations came to light in connection with the Red Cross,
where the funds were most flagrantly misappropriated--a portion of the
spoils even going to the grand dukes. So recently as January, 1907, the
Assistant Minister of Interior, Gourko, was involved in one of the most
outrageous scandals in all the annals of Russian corruption--namely, the
misappropriation of a large per cent. of one of the all too inadequate
appropriations of money for the relief of the starving peasants.
A state eaten with official rottenness; an emperor attempting not only
to rule but to do the thinking for 142,000,000 of people; an economic
condition of such a character that annual famine falls like a pall over
vast areas (in the winter of 1906-7 taking within its grasp 30,000,000
of men, women, and children); an army spotted with disaffection; a navy
almost chronically mutinous; a people held in artificial tranquillity,
through the terrorism of martial law, which now spreads over four fifths
of European Russia; a critical financial situation, impending bankruptcy
within and the largest foreign loan in history to eventually
meet,--these are some of the elements of the Russian situation of the
present time which must be met by reforms involving changes so complete
as to amount to revolution.
At the beginning of 1907 probably 90 per cent. of the people of Russia
were opposed to the present government, for during the past two years
even the peasants have had opinions of their own, based on their loss of
faith in the “Little Father.” But reigning circles have all of the
organized armed force of the country at their command, and so peculiarly
effective is the system of discipline employed, that against the unarmed
population even of overwhelming superiority in point of numbers, this
position is tenable for a surprising time. On the other hand, a trifling
incident might turn the scales in a night. In a phrase used by Professor
Miliukoff, the Russian situation to-day presents: “An incompetent
government opposed by a thus far incapable revolution.” The government,
unable itself to administer or to rule, is yet able to disorganize the
ranks of revolution and to terrorize into inactivity a large portion of
the country. The revolution, at the same time, while unable to muster
open organization of fighting strength sufficient to overthrow the
government, is able to harass and embarrass the government at every
point and gradually to force it further and further into an _impasse_
from which it can never emerge.
During the year 1906, according to official figures, more than 36,000
people were killed and wounded in revolutionary conflict; over 22,000
suffered in anti-Semitic outbreaks, most of which were promoted by
governmental agents; over 16,000 so-called agrarian disorders occurred.
Political arrests were so constant that during at least two months of
the year--January and July--the aggregate number of men and women
dragged from their homes and imprisoned or exiled was estimated at
25,000 _per month_. Late in the summer of 1906 Premier Stolypin
inaugurated the drumhead field courts-martial, which became immediately
so active that according to an official statement issued on March 5,
1907, 764 persons had been executed--an average of five daily.
These figures loom large indeed when it is recalled that in France,
during the Terror, only 2,300 heads fell from the guillotine block, and
that during the entire French Revolution only about 30,000 lives were
sacrificed.
Here is clear indication of constant activity on both sides. In spite of
this loss of life, this spent and often misspent energy, unnumbered
crimes against generations unborn, it must be admitted that the progress
of revolution is never comparably swift to the movement of wars. By the
very nature of revolutionary struggles they must drag. In England the
Revolution lasted from 1640 to 1689; in France twelve years of constant
conflict and struggle were followed by decades of unrest and periodic
disturbance; in Italy the fight dragged on from 1821 till 1870; and so
will the Russian revolution be prolonged. Compared with the
revolutionary movements of history, however, Russia is making rapid
progress. The stupendousness of the Russian situation, with a
heterogeneous population of 142,000,000 of people scattered over an
empire which includes one sixth of the territory of the world, makes an
almost unreckonable problem--infinitely more vast and more complicated
than the situation in France in 1789.
There are many available books in English, French, and German which
present the conditions of Russia on the eve of revolution. The task
which I assume is to present a picture of Russia in revolution. The year
1906 may be accepted as a typical revolutionary year. Between January
and December of that year I traveled through every section of European
Russia, Poland and the Caucasus, and a part of western Siberia. Of the
spectacular and dramatic events which characterized the year, I
witnessed not a few, but the really significant features of the year are
the not less intense phases of the social and economic disturbances, and
these I aim to make clear to the average reader.
In thus attempting to present, as it were, a cross section of the
revolution, I undertake not so much a difficult task, as one which
demands peculiar opportunities and advantages. To forestall natural
queries, therefore, I may be permitted to state that my own point of
view has been uniquely varied. Shortly after my arrival in St.
Petersburg influential friends, affiliated with the court, made it
possible for me to join a group of fourteen Cossack officers who were
about to journey through the Caucasus. Most, if not all, of these men
had formerly been officers of guard regiments and had been temporarily
assigned to a Cossack regiment for the war, in order that they might
have opportunity to distinguish themselves, thus paving the way for
speedy promotion. The commander of the regiment, who was the chief of
our party, was an aide-de-camp to the Czar. My particular host was a
Georgian prince who has since rejoined his regiment, which is attached
to the person of the Empress. To be an officer or even by birth a member
of the court party does not naturally preclude liberal or even
revolutionary sympathies, but it so happened that all of the officers
who made up this little company were staunch supporters of the Czar and
of autocracy. All that I witnessed of race clashes; of the pacification
of insubordinate villages; the devastation of districts which should
have been fertile and prosperous; of pillage, and loot, and the
violation of the laws and customs adopted by civilized nations for
international warfare, I witnessed, as it were, from the inside.
Protected by the officer’s uniform which I wore, I rode with the
Cossacks, entered their barracks freely under circumstances where any
ordinary traveler would not have been permitted to have passed the
lines. I was even accorded the privilege of using my camera at will.
Through Great Russia and the provinces I passed as an ordinary traveler,
provided with the usual letters of sanction, and permits from central
and local authorities, but without special introductions.
In St. Petersburg and Moscow during the session of the first Duma I
cultivated the acquaintance of the “intellectuals” who at that time bade
fair to be a dominant force in Russia. Men of the type of Professor Paul
Miliukoff, Maxime Kovalevsky, Dr. Loris-Melikoff, and other thinkers and
scholars who would, if they could, lead Russia through her period of
regeneration and reorganization by confining the struggle to the halls
of Parliament, dreading as they do, and distrusting bloodshed and civil
war. After the dissolution I affiliated almost entirely with the
avowedly revolutionary parties. I cultivated members of the military
organization and with them visited the barracks at Kronstadt and
elsewhere, where I witnessed conspirative revolutionary meetings of
soldiers and sailors. Through the courtesy of a local governor I was
permitted to visit in prison the most noted terrorist of the year in
Russia, Marie Spiradonova; and later, through my revolutionary
connections, I established communications with the more active fighting
organization known to the world as “The Terrorists.” With their
introductions as well as with the introductions given me by the
constitutionalists of the Duma, in the late summer and early autumn I
traveled eastward through Great Russia, across the tremendous famine
belt, passed the Urals and entered Siberia, returning to St. Petersburg
across Perm, Vyatka, and Vologda,--provinces of northern Russia. My sole
aim during all these journeyings was to acquire as nearly as I could an
accurate picture of Russia in revolution. My purpose now is to present
as nearly an accurate and truthful a picture of what I saw and of what I
learned as possible. When one has witnessed at close quarters the
devastations of villages by the army; when one has seen with his own
eyes unarmed men, women, and children of tender years shot by soldiers,
torn and maimed by swords and bayonets; when one has acquired absolutely
an overwhelming proof of official responsibility for massacre; when one
has seen homes burned indiscriminately and merely “suspected”
revolutionists exiled without even the forms of a trial, one cannot
speak with any degree of sympathy for the government which stands behind
all of these things. Yet I strive to the uttermost to be fair to that
side and to present as cogently as one can the elements of truth to
which the government still clings. The point of view throughout is that
of an American who is not unmindful of the dramatic elements of the
fight nor of the picturesque; and frequently romantic environments of
the struggle; at the same time it is of one whose deepest interest lies
in the social and economic causes which lie at the bottom of the whole
vast movement, and whose previous training has fitted him to watch with
a clearer perception perhaps than is usually given to the casual
traveler, or newspaper correspondent, the progress of the social and
economic development through this period of storm and stress.
THE RED REIGN
“Nous ne supposons
rien, nous ne proposons
rien, nous exposons.”
THE RED REIGN
CHAPTER I
INTO THE SHADOW
The white terror--My first conspiracy--A frontier episode--A mixed
company--“Vive la Revolution!”--The “Quiet Capital”--A courtesy to
Americans--A friend’s narrow escape--A midnight incident--Early
bewilderment--Witte “more a stratagem than a man”--The ministerial
crisis--The deposed minister--Significant telegrams from the
provinces--Off to the Caucasus.
The wave of revolution which swept over Russia in the year of grace 1905
culminated in a series of insurrections during that week of December
which is celebrated throughout the western world in sacred memory of the
birth of the Prince of Peace. As the dawn of 1906 crept reluctantly
across the torn and disintegrating empire of the czars, there was
inaugurated a reign of reaction unparalleled since the melancholy days
of ’81 which followed the assassination of Alexander II. Russia named
this period of shadow The Repression. The people called it the White
Terror. Into this lugubriousness, whatever it be called, I was about to
enter. In Berlin I lingered a day or two. Even when a bright northern
sun fell not unkindly upon the German capital I could not wholly shake
off the disquieting feeling that I dare say most foreigners experience
when about to cross the Russian frontier for the first time.
Hordes of Russians were pouring into the city. It seemed that every
family who could spare the railroad fare was sending its most beloved
members across the borders of the Land of Ominous Promise. According to
the Berlin police-records as many as ten thousand sometimes arrived in a
single day.
The good Herr proprietor of the _Gasthaus_ where I was quartered came to
my room to implore me to reconsider entering the country at so disturbed
a time. In his hand he brought, for my edification, and as a warning, a
copy of the following notice which was being posted throughout a certain
district I would pass on the way to St. Petersburg, commanded by one
Colonel Jablonsky. A fleeing Russian had smuggled it out to help him
dissuade rash travelers about to enter his country:
I, the manager of the movements of troops, request that energetic
measures be taken. Bullets and bayonets must be widely used without
any fear for the consequences, if any agitators be seen. If the
workmen do not let the locomotives go from the “depot” shoot them.
Traffic must be established by evening. I repeat again, do not
spare bullets and bayonets.
The machinists who live at the government quarters are to be asked
three times to accompany the locomotive, and if they only open
their mouths to demur, shoot them on the spot and turn their
families out into the street.
Manager of the movements of troops,
(Signed) JABLONSKY.
There may have been more bark than bite to this Jablonsky; yet his
proclamation suggested anything but a peaceful railway journey.
Toward ten o’clock that evening my luggage was transferred to a cab,
and as I appeared in the hotel doorway my friend, the Herr proprietor,
once more came forward.
“To-day it is quiet, yes. But to-morrow--,” and the expressive shrug of
his fat German shoulders eloquently vouched for his genuine concern for
my welfare--or his pocketbook--who shall say which?
The luxurious comfort of the _wagon-lits_ soon dispelled the nervousness
created by my stay in Berlin, and the next forenoon, as we rattled
across the snow-screened plains of the north, I serenely accepted the
counsel of a Russian fellow-traveler and deliberately ripped off the
binding of a certain “forbidden” book which I carried, that I might wrap
the printed pages about my body, next to my underclothing, to escape its
confiscation. The book was Peter Kropotkin’s “Russian Literature,” which
I thought I might find a useful book of reference.
The last station in Germany was passed at noon. From here on our speed
was noticeably lessened. We rolled noisily past the frozen fields which
lie in the narrow strath that marks the dividing-line between the two
countries. An ice-bound creek running through the strath was crossed by
a small trestle. Close by this miniature bridge a Russian soldier in the
characteristic coarse brown coat presented arms. As I looked out upon
him I laughingly touched my cap in salute, and his peasant face broke
into a broad grin that fairly beamed of friendliness. That smile
softened my crude, preconceived notion of Russian soldiers many degrees,
and during the thousands of miles that I was presently to travel in the
Frozen Kingdom, I always remembered the smile that greeted me when first
I crossed the border, and it was rarely indeed that I did not find a
cordial response where I spoke a friendly word, or extended a friendly
hand.
At Wirballen we changed trains, passed the customs, surrendered our
passports for examination and viséing, and submitted to whatever other
routine the officers required. Gendarmes swarmed everywhere. The
prominence of their arms excited my interest. Swords clanked noisily at
their heels, striking the ground with each step they took, large
revolvers were attached with threatening convenience to their belts, and
always outside of their handsome, gray, winter coats.
The delay here was characteristically tedious. Hours were consumed in
despatching business which after all was slight in bulk, but unduly
weighted by red tape. Aside from the “dangerous” literature which was
securely fastened about my body, I had nothing dutiable, so I thought I
could safely expedite the examination for myself in order that I might
be an unharassed spectator on this, my first, Russian scene. To
accomplish this I innocently offered a Customs Inspector a small piece
of silver, which was vehemently refused. Mr. Inspector informed me in a
loud voice that he could not think of taking money from an individual
for doing what the government paid him for doing. A moment later his
back was turned, and a thin ugly hand stole between two of my grips and
the half-closed fingers twitched expressively toward the palm. The man’s
eyes were on his superior. I dropped a modest coin into his hand, and
the same instant a Russian standing next me dropped a much larger
coin--gold in fact--into the same palm. The man started in visible
surprise and excitedly snapped shut my bags without so much as glancing
at them. As he did so he muttered something to me under his breath, in
Russian, which I could not understand, but my
[Illustration: Moscow barricades]
neighbor--he of the lavish tip--said, _sotto voce_: “Take two of my bags
along with yours.” The meaning of this was not at the moment clear to
me, but I meekly complied with the request, and ingenuously submitted
the stranger’s grips to the checking officials as if they were my own.
Had the man been an absolute stranger I might not have followed his
directions so readily, but he was the same man who had showed me how to
carry my book so as to escape detection.
Not till the train had actually left the Wirballen station did the man
come to claim his luggage. Then he lingered to talk awhile and we became
friendly to the point of confidence. Darkness had settled deeply down
over the outside world before he left my compartment, and we were
running across wide, open fields occasionally broken by forests of fir,
into which the engine belched bright sparks from the soft sticks that in
Russia are burned instead of coal. My companion watched the sparks
scattering against the trees and settling on either side of our steel
pathway, and made some allusion to the sparks of liberty that even then
were scattering across all Russia, settling around and in every town and
village from the Baltic Sea to the waters of the Orient. The man’s eyes
flashed, hardly less bright than the darting flecks of flame outside the
window. He found a sympathetic listener, and it was then we warmed
toward each other and he told me the contents of the bags that I, so
innocently, had smuggled safely into the country. They contained
hand-grenade models, phials of high explosives and several innocent
Browning revolvers. I cannot say that I regretted then, or have I since,
this, my first humble service to the revolution.
On this train destined for St. Petersburg there was no other American
traveler, but there were several Russians who spoke in English and any
number who understood French, so that I had intercourse with many of my
fellow-passengers in addition to the revolutionist who now called me
“comrade.”
The French Revolution brought into popular usage the word “citizen,” but
the Russian revolution has popularized the word “comrade”; and comrade
is surely the warmer, the heartier, and the more inspiring.
“What do you think about the plans for the Duma?” I asked of an army
surgeon who spoke English.
“I do not think,” was the reply. “The Dutch have a proverb, ‘Nothing
thought, nothing done.’ I have learned not to think in this country.”
Later on I succeeded in drawing another man into conversation on the
subject. In the midst of the discussion a gentleman entered our
carriage, and as he sat down directly opposite us, I thought to include
him in the conversation, so told him the drift of our talk. He stared
blankly at me a moment and said: “Is there good sledging in Petersburg
now, do you think?”
I saw the point and changed the subject. A few minutes later he leaned
close to me and said: “I should beg your pardon, but I left the
adjoining carriage because the passengers began to talk about politics.
Once I was in a theater in Petersburg witnessing a performance of
Hamlet. I had a seat in one of the galleries. Two peasants presently
came in and sat near me. They removed their greatcoats and their boots.
They made themselves comfortable for the evening. But when _Hamlet_ was
trying the blade of his sword for the duel, one peasant said to the
other: ‘To-morrow morning at five o’clock we leave Petersburg to return
to our homes. Is it not so?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the other. ‘Then we must get
out of this,’ added the first, ‘for see, they are going to fight. They
[Illustration]
[Illustration: RUSSIA; Mr. Durland’s Route of Travel]
now have their swords out, and if we do not get away we shall be held as
witnesses.’ And they left the theater. Those peasants were wise.”
Having an American passport I did not feel it necessary to be as wary as
the peasants, and, being anxious to get as many expressions of opinion
as possible, I soon went into the adjoining carriage to occupy the place
left by this man who had told me the story. In the carriage I found a
Polish opera-singer, a fiery young man in the uniform of a student of
jurisprudence, a merchant of Archangel, an attaché to a Russian Embassy
in a European capital, and an army officer. I had not been long there
when the opera-singer and the student grew very free in expressing their
determination to spare no effort to overthrow the present government.
“Now the time is not quite ripe,” they said. “Not to-day, but soon. The
Duma? There will be no Duma. There cannot be a Duma. The government has
not the money, and even if it had it could never be. Russia will be
aflame before the Duma meets.”
The student was a very intense fellow. His voice fairly rang with the
determination of a man consecrated to a cause.
“My word,” said the officer to me, “these two will be arrested this very
hour if the gendarme appears. That student chap cares not whether he
dies to-day or to-morrow.”
“Bravo!” I cried, curious for the officer’s reply. Instantly his face
sobered.
“Hush, man! Do you forget you are now in Russia?”
I laughed unbelievingly, and the attaché who was sitting next to me and
who had been listening said: “Let me tell you a little story. Once I was
in a village church when an old woman suddenly made a scene in the
gallery. She was carried down-stairs and into the air, where a crowd
gathered about her. ‘What is it?’ ‘What is the matter?’ we all asked
her. Amid her tears and with shortened breath she said: ‘I was in the
gallery. I had no prayer-book, so I asked the sexton to give me one. He
went down-stairs and handed one up to me from below.’ ‘Well?’ ‘He stood
on the floor and handed me the book--and I was in the gallery.’
“‘That would be impossible, woman,’ we said. ‘No man could reach that
distance.’
“‘But I say he did. He did hand it to me,’ protested the woman. At last
an old body on the edge of the crowd exclaimed: ‘It could not be the
churchman. It was surely the devil.’
“The excited one grew calm then, and after a minute said quietly:
‘Perhaps it was. It is so hard, sometimes, to tell who is man and who is
devil.’
“Remember that, sir, as long as you are in Russia--it is hard to tell
who is man and who is devil.”
The discussion raged hot till near midnight. Only the officer remained
silent. He could not speak. He dared not--then. He listened intently and
his eyes often glistened with interest. At last he took from his grip a
bottle of liquor and a traveling drinking-cup. Filling the cup he held
it high above him and in a voice that sounded to me full of hollow
mockery shouted: “Vive la Russie!” The carriage suddenly fell silent.
The student evidently hesitated whether to speak his defiance or not. I
felt confident that the officer was heart and soul with the sentiments
of the student, so I ventured to murmur, distinctly, but not too openly:
“Vive la Revolution!”
The glass was near his lips, but at my words he paused, and, leaning
toward me, whispered:
[Illustration: Moscow barricades]
“That is better, but not so loud, please.” And then, this man, the
Russian wearing the uniform of the Czar, drank to the toast--not of “la
Russie”--but “la Revolution”!
Punctually at eight-thirty the next morning we rolled into the so-called
Warsaw station in the “Quiet Capital,” and I drove directly to a hotel
where friends awaited me. Outwardly, St. Petersburg preserved that
appearance of calm which makes the city one of the most charming in
Europe.
I arrived on Sunday. The bells of St. Isaac’s and the Kazan Cathedral
and a score of lesser churches (but not lesser bells) clanged and boomed
through the crackling frosty air. Myriad little sledges drawn by little
horses scurried through the streets, and on the Morskaia that afternoon
aristocracy drove--as madly, as carelessly, and as undisturbed as it
drove that memorable Sunday just one year before when in the Winter
Palace Square, just close by, Father Gapon’s procession of unarmed
working-men were fired upon by the troops of the emperor--their “Little
Father!”--as though they were an enemy upon a battle-ground. Impending
doom may have dimmed, but it did not darken, the brightness of the city.
Whatever of foreboding may have possessed the hearts and minds of the
people, there was an outward show of gaiety that was a revelation to
me--until I remembered the ball at which French officers danced on the
eve of Waterloo; and the festivities of Port Arthur which continued even
after the little yellow men had begun to pelt the fatal hand-grenades
straight to the heart of Russia’s military prestige.
That night, in company with an American friend, I dined at Palkine’s
restaurant on the Nevskii Prospekt. A Rumanian orchestra in native dress
was playing a wild, gipsy air when we entered, but as we sat down the
music, in a great burst of ecstatic sound, ceased. My companion
remarked: “We are already recognized as Americans--now watch.” Almost
instantly the swarthy players began the familiar strains of “The Star
Spangled Banner,” and followed it with the stirring tune of “Dixie.” At
the close we acknowledged the attention of the orchestra and the leader
made us a proper bow. American airs are always popular in Russia, and
Americans were being especially courted at that moment. Talk of an
“impending bankruptcy” was in the air. Negotiations were then under way
for floating a new loan in Europe, but these had not progressed far
enough for any one to be sanguine. Indeed, the revolutionists and the
liberals were still hopeful that the government would find a new loan in
Europe impossible, consequently, in official circles the possibilities
of finding money in America were being considered. There were not above
twoscore Americans all told in St. Petersburg at that time (1906),
counting the diplomatic corps, correspondents, and business men, so it
was an easy matter to treat all with rare courtesy.
“Why do they not play the Russian national hymn?” I asked of my friend
before we left the table.
“Because the national air of Russia, like the ‘Marseillaise,’ is
prohibited,” he replied. And thereupon he told me of how, a little while
before, he had been one night in a famous St. Petersburg restaurant
called “The Bear,” when, during the playing of the national hymn, a
guard officer had shot and killed a man ostensibly because he lolled
over the back of his chair instead of standing erect, squarely on both
feet. The police authorities, fearing further disturbance of a similar
nature, immediately prohibited the playing or singing of the national
air!
It was nearly midnight when my friend and I returned to our hotel, but
there we found other friends still up. Hardly had we laid off our
greatcoats when the door was thrown open and in rushed a common
acquaintance--a Russian--tremendously excited, but radiant. He had been
with a group of intellectuals in a home just around the corner. Suddenly
the police appeared and placed all present under arrest. Only our friend
escaped, and he through some clever ruse. While he was still relating to
us his experience we heard the sound of singing, in the street below,
and as we went to the window caught the words of a favorite
revolutionary hymn. My blood stirred in my veins when I learned that the
singers were being led away to prison, and I thought then, as I often
thought later, after wide experience in Russia, that few things on earth
are more thrilling than the sound of voices under such
circumstances--brave men and women marching through frozen streets,
often half-clad, to prison, or tied to Cossack saddles being dragged to
tortures, and fearlessly, gloriously singing the words of freedom.
Sleep was slow in coming to my pillow that first night I spent in St.
Petersburg. My mind was in a whirl in the vain endeavor to shake free of
the conceptions of Russia gained before ever I crossed the frontier.
Already I realized that, while Russia might be just as bad as most
foreigners think it, it is bad in a different way. And whatever dangers
may exist for the traveler in the interior, St. Petersburg, at least,
was as secure (to the stranger) as Berlin, Paris, or New York.
One week later the confusion of impressions was even greater. Reports
had come in, during these seven days, of clashes between the military
and the people in forty-eight provinces. The atmosphere of uncertainty
was more intense. Conditions seemed to be ripe for almost any kind of a
disaster--imperial insolvency, barricade fighting in the streets, army
or navy mutiny, general insurrection--and yet nothing of consequence
actually happened. The cabinet crisis grew more acute, it is true.
Witte--who has been called “more of a stratagem than a man”--was said to
be in perpetual deadlock with M. Durnovo, his unscrupulous minister of
interior, and those who had access to the premier told of how this
greatest of Russian political adventurers would sit at his desk, in
silent despair, toying with his glasses, frequently snapping them in
two--sometimes a dozen pair a day.
The second morning after my arrival I was accorded an interview with M.
Timirassiroff, whose demission was just announced, because of his
liberal tendencies.
M. Timirassiroff had been for many years an admirer and supporter of
Count Witte--whom he several times spoke of to me as “a great man”--but
he now believed that Witte’s secretiveness, and lack of decisiveness,
even of ordinary courage, was ruining his power and perhaps blasting his
career.
“A Bismarck goes straight through his difficulties to the goal he has
before him. Count Witte goes around his,” said M. Timirassiroff.
The deposed minister also dwelt upon the impractical method of
administration then in vogue. Under the existing system each minister
reports directly to the emperor, and the prime minister has no way of
learning the character of the report of his individual ministers unless
they choose to tell him--which in the case of Witte they seldom did.
Witte, consequently, preserved a holy silence before his ministers in
regard to his own policies. A premier who persistently declines to
share with his cabinet information upon which he bases his policies
naturally fails to obtain unanimous support.
“I would say to Count Witte,” said M. Timirassiroff, “how can I
subscribe my name to that which I know nothing about?”
“You, sir,” the premier would reply, “are occupied with your own
department, your own ministry, you cannot know all the cards.” (A
favorite phrase with Witte.)
“If I do not know all the cards, then show them to me. I am not merely
head of my ministry, I am also a member of your cabinet.”
This Witte never would do. And in the attitude of mutual suspicion, each
member at sixes and sevens with the premier and with the other members
of the cabinet, all working individually and often at cross-purposes; in
this blind but truly Russian way the Witte ministry staggered on--to its
fall. Similarly is Russia as a whole reeling toward the abyss. A
ministry falls a thousand times more easily than a dynasty, but a
dynasty following the same mad tactics that wrecks ministry after
ministry must sooner or later collapse also. Follies that pass
understanding are laid to the door of the house of Romanoff, and after
the revolution had once broken over Russia, every serious person knew
that the time element was all that remained as a subject for
speculation. This is a big factor, however. The moment marked by this X
stands elusively in the distance and between the present and it are
weary miles that a nation must tramp, miles marked by many a mirage
which like the vision of the oasis in the desert cruelly deceives the
faint and exhausted traveler.
One week in St. Petersburg was enough for me to realize all this. The
beginning of the end might be to-morrow. Or, with equal likelihood, it
might be years away. The temper of the people was such that nothing
would be a surprise.
St. Petersburg seemed to reflect the atmosphere of Moscow, which still
cowered and quivered from the severe and bloody repression that followed
the magnificent fight her mere handful of armed citizens maintained on
the barricades for nine days against disciplined troops. Suggestive
messages, distorted and censored by government officials, kept coming in
from different parts of the empire, the most disquieting, perhaps, from
the Baltic provinces, for there General Orloff, “the butcher,” was
pressing on with his expedition of “pacification.” Telegrams from Riga
and other Baltic towns which leaked through the censor were one mournful
chronicle of the “pacification”:
At the Staro-Gulben 20 peasants are shot dead, at Tirsen, 6, and at
Sipolena, 2. At Novo-Pebalge an estate is burned down. At
Staro-Pebalge a beautiful school building has been destroyed by
shells. At the Volosts of Saukin and Noutt, 13 people were shot
dead by the dragoons, and 20 peasants were whipped by the “Rozgie.”
Troops set fire to the Library of one landlord and all the books
were burned, he himself arrested, and his daughter punished by
“Rozgie.”
In Wender district, when the people were burying a number of the
“Volost” who had been shot by the dragoons, the cemetery was
surrounded by the troops, and about 100 peasants taken and punished
by “Rozgie.”
In the government of Kurland, 20 estates are burned down,--the
inhabitants of which are mostly arrested. In Assorski Volosta, a
teacher, M. Stapran, a student and an organist, and an officer--a
deserter--were arrested. The first three were shot and the latter
sent to Jacobstadt.
In Wenden the shooting of members of the new “Volostny Pravleny” is
still going on, though the chief of the Wenden army, General
Schiff, absolutely declared to the members of the “Volostny
Pravleny” that none of them will be shot any more, without trial.
[Illustration: The “Volksguard” of Salisburg
In the spring of 1906 the revolutionary movement had so far progressed
in the Baltic Provinces that independent states were declared by the
people in several places. In Salisburg the officials of the independent
government and the People’s Guard were so confident of continued
independence that they had themselves photographed. Later the troops of
the Czar stamped out this revolt and a copy of the above photograph fell
into the hands of the police who, through it, were enabled to run down
all of these revolutionists and wholesale executions followed.]
However, at Pebalga the troops shot 20 men and burned 10 estates.
At Bausk the dragoons shot Messrs. Blankenstein, Pitz, Rassman, and
Friedman. They had orders to shoot in all 16 men, and hang a woman
dentist, Rachel Wolpe. Not finding her at home the dragoons
destroyed all her property. When they did not find Mr. Michelson,
they tortured his wife. The latter took her baby in her arms and
declared that she was prepared to die, but the dragoons left her
alone and came the next day to torture her again for hours.
However, they could not force the unfortunate victim to tell them
where her husband had hidden himself.
And so on, through a column, sometimes through two columns.
Especially significant telegrams were daily pouring in from the
Caucasus. There the wildfires of revolutionary activity were fiercely
sweeping from the Black Sea to the Caspian; there the Cossacks--the
bulwark of czarism--were in constant action.
One week to a day after my arrival in St. Petersburg I met in the Cave
La Grave (a French restaurant much frequented by foreign newspaper
correspondents) a friend, a gentleman of the court, who inquired:
“Are you interested in Cossacks? Would you like to visit the Caucasus
with a party of Cossack officers?”
The infinite possibilities that such an opportunity as this offered
fairly overcame me. My friend continued:
“My officer-brother’s regiment, whose commander is an aide-de-camp to
the emperor, has just returned from Manchuria. Fourteen of the officers,
with a proper escort, are about to make a long journey through the
disturbed country in connection with the disbandment of their regiment,
which had been drafted for war service only. If you care to join them I
will telegraph them to wait for you.”
The telegram was sent. That night found me speeding south toward the
unconquered and unconquerable Caucasus, where the flower of the Russian
army was hopelessly struggling to quench the flames of revolt with
blood--the blood not only of men, but of women and children.