GOVERNMENTAL TERRORISM
Arrived 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.
The sixth week of the Duma session a _pogrom_, or massacre, was
instigated in the town of Bielostok, in Grodno, on the edge of Poland. I
hurried to the scene as fast as I could, arriving shortly after the
slaughter had ceased and before the wreckage and debris had been cleared
from the streets.
My train was late. Bielostok was wrapped in midnight quiet when I
alighted at the station. The first impression was that I had been set
down in the midst of an armed camp. Soldiers were bivouacked in and
around the station. A little bridge a few hundred yards down the line
was held by a force of fighting strength. Sentinels patroled the
deserted streets.
The station lies a mile or more outside of the town, and as I had not
been there before I at once engaged a man to guide me to the center of
the town, where I might find a place to sleep. (There was not a cab
anywhere.) We trudged through arbored, deserted streets, turning out for
piles of wreckage, and sometimes jumping over obstructions. Suddenly my
escort stopped short with an exclamation.
“What is wrong?” I inquired.
The fellow began to blubber. It was not till I had coaxed him several
minutes that he was finally able to blurt out:
“It was at this very spot that they killed our school-master--”
“Who did it?” I asked.
“Three gendarmes. I stood right there”--and he pointed to the middle of
the road. “The teacher was coming along the street, annoying no one.
Then three gendarmes appeared and caught hold of him and began pounding
nails into his head.”
The next day I secured a photograph of the man’s corpse with the nails
still in the skull.
The evening of the first night of the massacre the police gave to the
world the report that a Jew had thrown a bomb into a religious
procession, and for the moment the world believed this.
As a matter of fact, according to the unanimous testimony of the
townspeople, and the report of the investigating committee, no bomb was
thrown in the whole town on the day of the religious fête, and no Jew in
any way disturbed the procession. This was an out-and-out fabrication of
the police who inaugurated the massacre, designed to protect themselves.
The first man wounded told me with his own lips what actually
transpired. He was standing by the bedside of his wife, who had that
hour given birth to a child. Hearing a procession passing the house he
stepped to the window to look out. A soldier deliberately raised his
rifle and fired at him--the bullet hitting him in the shoulder. That
shot was the signal for the beginning of the massacre which continued in
the shape of a murderous riot for three days. Not a hand was raised
during those three days to put a stop to the deeds of horror, although
the governor of the province knew about it and had at his disposal
troops sufficient to quell a dozen such affairs. The police led in the
massacre, assisted by the flotsam and jetsam of the town known as the
Black Hundred, while the military acquiesced by refraining from
interference. As I passed one cot in the hospital a voice called to me
in broken English:
“You speak English?”
I turned in surprise and saw a man of about middle age, almost wholly
swathed in bandages.
“How do you come to know English?” I inquired.
“I lived five years in London,” he answered, adding quickly, “Do you
want to know what happened to me?”
I told him I did.
“Well, you see, I had worked hard and saved five hundred rubles
($250.00), and I thought I would take my family to America. I went to
Warsaw to buy the tickets. I was coming back with the tickets in my
pocket. I got off the train at Bielostok and saw a crowd coming down the
street. I did not know what it was, but I was not frightened. Then, all
of a sudden, the man with the cross came at me and began to beat me, and
that is all I remember.”
I wondered what the “man with the cross” could mean, and the hospital
surgeon explained that the man who marched before the religious
procession carried a gold cross with an image of the crucified Christ
upon it, and _that_ sacred symbol was used as a weapon of butchery and
death!
Among all civilized nations hospitals are respected, even in war times.
But the gendarmes stood before the Bielostok hospital and deliberately
poured volley after volley into it, with no other object, apparently,
than to throw the patients into a panic. Some of them threw themselves
under the beds, others climbed up the chimneys. One man remained three
days in a chimney, and then dropped down through the exhaustion of
hunger.
When the firing upon the hospital ceased, a gendarme entered the
hospital and asked if one of the doctors would come into the street to
attend to some wounded men. A _feldsher_ (a doctor’s assistant) gathered
some bandages and antiseptics together and hastened out of the
hospital-yard. As he passed through the gateway a gendarme shot him. He
lay dead where he fell until night.
A young boy of twelve whose face had been slashed with a sword told me
how the police had carried him to the local gendarmerie, after he had
been cut down with the saber stroke. He recovered consciousness shortly
and not being seriously hurt was perfectly able to walk home. Instead of
permitting this the gendarmes threw him into a cart and then piled a
number of corpses above him, and sent him out to where the dead were
being buried. The grave-diggers were compassionate and allowed him to
escape.
The story of Bielostok is the story of nearly every massacre of recent
years in Russia that has been inaugurated by local authorities, with or
without the connivance of higher authorities in St. Petersburg.
From Bielostok I ran over to Vilna, the old Lithuanian capital,
picturesquely situated on the river Vilia. Immediately after the
Bielostok _pogrom_ the Vilna police circulated the rumor that on Sunday
there would be a massacre of the Jews in Vilna. On Sunday the rumor was
corrected. The massacre was set for Tuesday. On Tuesday it was put off
till Thursday and for two weeks and a half the Jews of Vilna lived in a
state of perpetual panic. Those who could fled the city, but the most
were imprisoned there through their poverty.
Governmental terrorism in one form or another is employed by Russia to
terrify the people of a given locality into submitting to certain
impositions, or to quiet seditious gossip, or to coerce the people into
voting for a Duma deputy whom they disapprove of, but who is the
representative of the government.
In Russia no official of the government can be prosecuted at law without
the approval of his official superiors. The prosecution of an official
is popularly supposed to threaten the prestige of the Emperor,
consequently any prosecution is very rare. The right of the Emperor to
promulgate “exceptional laws,” which take precedence over all other laws
in the empire, reduces to an absurdity every form of law-making in
Russia. The right of the Emperor to place a certain official in supreme
command of a given locality, removing him for the time without the pale
of all civil and military authority, makes possible the greatest abuses
which culminate from time to time in organized massacres. These
massacres are sometimes arranged by the police and the gendarmes, as at
Bielostok; sometimes by a single official, sometimes by the organization
of the Black Hundred, as at Odessa. There are famous instances when
massacres have been secretly planned by local authorities with the
knowledge and consent of St. Petersburg. General Trepoff’s attitude of
tacit consent and approval is well known.
The complicity of the Russian government in massacres and other
barbarities that are periodically visited upon the Russian people is
familiar to most people in Europe, but America seems very reluctant to
accept the facts. We are loath to believe that a government, having
dealings with civilized nations, does condone the monstrous crimes which
incontrovertibly do belong to Russia.
A volume of evidence on this issue could easily be prepared. My present
task is to tell of the things I saw with my own eyes, and the things I
learned from unimpeachable sources. Recognizing, however, the
seriousness of these charges, I feel justified in appending enough
citations to official and authoritative reports to adequately support my
most condemnatory statements.[13]
Senator Turau, an official investigator for the government, in reporting
upon one of the Kieff _pogroms_ stated that for purposes of defense the
troops stationed in the city had been assigned to the four quarters of
the town.
“Yet the _pogrom_ lasted for three days,” he goes on to state, “and
stopped only when all Jewish shops and many Jewish houses had been
ransacked. The police were almost entirely absent. The troops walked
slowly down the middle of the street while robbery was proceeding on
both sides of them. When private persons or officials asked for help
from the troops, the answer was always: ‘We have no orders.’ Even the
vice-governor, Raffalsky, though in uniform, had this answer from a
squad of Cossacks. Generally a shop already ransacked was guarded by a
sentinel, who thought it his duty to stand there, paying no attention to
the pillage which was going on all around him.”
A bystander and a policeman were told by soldiers that they were only
ordered to go up and down the street. One soldier said to a law
official: “We are ordered not to mix with the crowd.” A policeman
appealed to a patrol which was watching the pillage of a shop; they
replied: “We are ordered to see that there is no fighting and that no
Russians are hurt.” Some Cossacks told a policeman: “We are here that no
one may fire on the pillagers from the windows and balconies, and that
they may not quarrel among themselves.” A crown lawyer asked some
policemen why they did not take stolen goods from the pillagers; they
answered: “Now it is impossible, as the authorities are against it.” An
officer of the reserve saw robbers with knives “literally cutting up two
Jews”; ten yards away stood a squadron of cavalry “looking on quietly
and not moving a step.” “To stop the _pogrom_ was possible without
special efforts.” The very soldiers who refused “to break their oath,”
that is, to stop the _pogrom_, on the very next day, obeying orders,
fired on the pillagers and arrested them. The pillagers then asked:
“Where were you before? Why didn’t you shoot when the Emperor’s pictures
were torn down?”
According to numerous eye-witnesses, including officials, some of the
policemen and soldiers joined in the robbing and seized goods. “Many
ex-soldiers in uniform took an active part”; “a lieutenant of artillery
was leading the robbers on the Haymarket.” Police-captain Lyashchenko
and his assistant, Pirozhkoff, were in charge of the ward in which most
of the sacking took place. “These two,” says a lieutenant of the
reserves, “were present during the pillage and took no measures, though
policemen and patrols were close at hand.” Some say that on October 31
they shouted “Hit the Jews and rob them.” Two witnesses assert that
Pirozhkoff directed the robbers against a certain shop.
Major-general Bezsonoff was in charge of the second district, in which
nearly all the outrages took place. He stood nearly all the time in the
square before the town-hall “quietly looking on and taking no measures.”
“You may wreck,” he said to those near him, “but you may not rob.” The
pillagers shouted “Hurrah!” and cheered the General. A shop near the
town-hall was being sacked; a detachment of troops stood looking on.
Bezsonoff joined them; when asked to interfere, he remarked that he
would not allow force to be used against the pillagers, and remained a
cold-blooded spectator of the scene (evidence of a crown lawyer). The
chief secretary of the governor-general said to him, “Your Excellency,
there is a _pogrom_; no measures are being taken; how will you order me
to understand this?” “What _pogrom_?” said the general; “it is a
demonstration.” A woman picked up a cloth thrown from a window. “Do you
call that robbery?” said Bezsonoff. “Why, it’s a find.” On November 1
two detectives heard him make a speech to the pillagers. “Boys,” he
said, “you have already hit the Jews enough; you have shown that the
Russian people know how to stand up for its Czar. Enough of rioting; if
you go on wrecking to-morrow, then we will use force.” The robbers
shouted “Hurrah!” and set about making the best use of their time. On
that day General Karass summoned him and warned him for the last time
that he must carry out orders and act with decision. The next day the
_pogrom_ was easily stopped.
Simultaneously with this _pogrom_ in Kieff was another in Odessa,
carried out along parallel lines.
In both of these cases the Jews were the chief victims. It must be
remembered that the Jewish question in Russia is the greatest
governmental red herring in history. Whenever a really vital and serious
question comes up the government diverts public attention to the Jewish
question. But the Jews are by no means the only victims. It will be
recalled that in the Caucasus the Armenians are the sufferers, while
from time to time in the interior of Russia and in Siberia pure Russians
have been massacred--as in Samara on the Volga, where there was a
massacre of “intellectuals” in the autumn of 1905.
In January, 1906, the Gomel _pogrom_ occurred. In connection with this
affair a secret press for the printing of incitements to violence was
discovered in the chief gendarme’s office. A similar press was unearthed
in the central police department at St. Petersburg. Prince Urusoff, who
was assistant minister of interior under Witte, described this discovery
in the course of a speech in the first Duma--a speech which was probably
the most important single speech made during the brief life of Russia’s
first representative assembly. He said:
In January, 1906, one of the persons occupying a subordinate
position in the ministry ... began to receive a large quantity of
specimen appeals ... and also anxious protests against the
organizing of massacres in Vilna, Bielostok, Kieff, Nikolaieff,
Alexandrovsk, and other towns.... He used every means to avert any
further massacres, which he also succeeded in doing.... At this
time some light, though still of an imperfect nature, was thrown on
the ... work of the artificers of massacres. A group of persons,
composing a kind of fighting organization of one of our “patriotic
clubs,” together with some who were in close touch with the editors
of a newspaper--not in St. Petersburg--undertook to combat
revolution.... The Russian population (of the frontiers), and in
particular Russian soldiers, were invited to settle accounts with
the traitors in tens of thousands of appeals with the most
agitating contents.... There were strange results if one thinks of
the preservation of the unity of authority. An assistant
police-master (I merely give an example) circulates the appeals
without the knowledge of his chief; ... or again, a police-captain,
let us say, of the first ward, was considered worthy of a
confidence which was denied to the police-captain of the second
ward. Some one serving in the gendarmes’ office, or in the defense
section, proved to be supplied with special sums of money. To him
certain of the lower people began to resort.... Frightened
inhabitants went to see the governor.... Telegrams from the
ministry spoke of measures to be taken to secure tranquillity; and
such measures were often taken.... In some cases the police quite
earnestly supposed that the measures were taken simply for show,
for decency, but that they were already acquainted with the real
intention of the government; they read between the lines, and
thought that they heard, beyond the order of the governor, some
voice from far off in which they had greater belief. In a word ...
the authorities became completely demoralized.
Meanwhile, in St. Petersburg, as early as the autumn of 1905, and,
it would seem, before the October ministry came into office, in No.
16, Fontanka, in some remote room of the police department, a
printing-press was at work; it had been purchased for the
department by government money. This press was put under the
control of an officer of gendarmes in civil dress, one Comisaroff,
who, with a few assistants, assiduously prepared the appeals to
which I have alluded. The secret of the existence of this
“underground” press was so carefully kept, and the conduct of its
organizers was so conspirative, that not only in the ministry, but
even in the police department, there were but few persons who knew
about it. Meanwhile, the work of the Union of Russian Men, whose
organ the press was, was already meeting with success; for, when
questioned by a person who happened to come upon the track of this
organization, Comisaroff answered: “A massacre we can make for you,
of any kind you please--if you like for ten men; and, if you like,
for 10,000.” I may add that in Kieff a “massacre for 10,000” was
arranged for February 20, but it was successfully prevented.
The President of the council of ministers (Count Witte) had, we are
told, a serious attack of nervous asthma when the facts I have just
narrated were communicated to him. He summoned Comisaroff, who
reported to him on what he had done, and on the full powers which
he had received. In a few hours the department no longer contained
either the press, or the appeals, or the staff; there was left only
an empty room.
Why did not Count Witte expose Comisaroff? Who can estimate the value to
the government of a good Comisaroff trial? But Count Witte knew that he
could not take this line and retain his place. He did not dare to combat
influences which were more powerful than his own. M. Durnovo, who,
reactionary as he was, confessed to Prince Urusoff that “this was not
his way,” was equally impotent. Comisaroff, who had received a
“decoration,” was quite recently living at large under an assumed name.
Prince Urusoff resigned office to become the assailant of the policy of
massacre as a member of the imperial Duma. The ordinary bureaucratic
comment on his speech was that “Prince Urusoff had betrayed government
secrets.” General Trepoff said, on July 9, to a representative of
Reuter’s agency, “Il mentit, et c’est tout.” But the prince did not
speak at random. His speech was founded on intimate knowledge not only
of the government reports already quoted, but of other documents equally
important.
It matters little how much high officials of the Russian government in
St. Petersburg and diplomatic representatives abroad deny governmental
responsibility in regard to massacres, so long as there is abundant
evidence of the guilt of lesser officials and these are allowed to go
unpunished. The maximum rebuke that is usually visited upon any
particularly conspicuous _pogromschik_ is temporary suspension or
transfer from one post to another--sometimes with advance in rank,
sometimes with advance in pay, sometimes both.[14]
Governmental terrorism, however, does not cease with the massacres.
Individuals are assassinated at official instigation, precisely as the
terrorists select a bureaucrat or official for “removal.” A notable
instance of this was that of Professor Hertzenstein, a dignified and
honored professor in the University of Moscow. Mr. Hertzenstein had
given a great deal of attention to the agrarian question in Russia
during twenty years or more. His counsel and advice guided the members
of the first Duma when they were framing their “agrarian program.”
Late one afternoon, Professor Paul Miliukoff, who was then editor of the
“Retsch,” received word from Moscow by telegram that a semi-official
Moscow newspaper
[Illustration:
Seventy-two years old Child four years old wantonly shot
Youth and old age--Bielostok pogrom victims]
just published contained an account of the mysterious murder of
Professor Hertzenstein near his summer home in Terioki, Finland. No one
could be found in St. Petersburg who knew of it, so Professor Miliukoff
despatched a messenger to Finland to investigate. Professor
Hertzenstein, while walking in his garden with his daughter, was fatally
shot that night at a little before nine o’clock, or three hours after
the governmental newspaper in Moscow had announced his murder!
The next morning the “Retsch” printed a concise statement of the
facts--and the police instantly seized the entire edition.
Several weeks later it developed that the assassin was an ex-gendarme
officer who was paid to do away with the one man whom intellectual
Russia trusted to bring them through the thicket of the agrarian tangle.
Another famous instance was that of a prominent Moscow physician, named
Vorobieff. About the time of the Moscow insurrection, Vorobieff’s house
was entered by a party of police commanded by an ex-guards officer
called Ermoleff. Ermoleff accused Vorobieff of “treating
revolutionaries.”
“I am not a politician,” replied the doctor; “I am a physician, a
surgeon, and as such I do what I can for whoever is brought to me
without regard to political belief.”
“Have you a revolver in the house?” inquired the police officer.
“Yes,” said the doctor, “and I also have a government permit to own it
and to carry it.”
“Where is it?” demanded the officer.
“In the drawer of my desk.”
“Get it.”
The doctor turned to obey--and the officer shot him in the back of the
head.
“Oh, what have you done,” cried the doctor’s wife as she saw her husband
fall.
“Hold your tongue and wipe up that mess on the floor,” retorted the
officer as he turned to withdraw his party.
Owing to the outcry that was raised against this wanton murder the
officer was arrested, but after a fortnight’s detention he was released.
The most cruel tortures are applied to prisoners in more than one
Russian prison, but I think that during my year in the country I learned
of no darker deeds than those perpetrated by the chief of the secret
police in Warsaw, a man named Victor Green (a literal translation from
the Russian). Green became dissatisfied with the number of arrests that
were being made in the old Polish capital, so he ordered the arrest of
many innocent men and women and then had them tortured to wring from
them confessions implicating other people. I heard of his applying the
most excruciating torture to young girls as well as to mere boys.
A Russian writer named Vladimeroff went to Warsaw shortly after my visit
to investigate the case of a girl of eighteen, concerning whom certain
terrible reports were then circulating. The following is a translation
of his report on this case:
A young man named Rottkopf, a citizen of Riga, went to visit a
friend who lived, as most Russians live in the larger cities, in an
apartment-house containing a number of families. Now, most
unfortunately for Rottkopf, just before his visit a bomb had been
found by the police secreted in one of the flats. Suspicion pointed
to Rottkopf’s friend. He was promptly arrested, and as a friend of
the suspected man Rottkopf was arrested also.
Rottkopf had a sister, a young girl of eighteen. She, one must
remember, had committed no crime. No such charge was brought
against her, but she was a sister of a friend of a suspected man,
and that was enough for the police. The very evening of her
brother’s arrest she went out to drink tea with some friends in
company with her younger brother. The police descended upon the
house, and she was arrested without even a chance to change her
evening clothes or to take linen along. She did not even know why
she was imprisoned or of what crime the zealous police suspected
her.
She was put in a solitary cell in a secret apartment of the Warsaw
citadel. A sentinel was placed within; the cell was bare, with the
exception of a stool and a small table. There was no bed. The bare,
stone floor was meant for a sleeping-place. The sudden transition
from the cheerful company of friends into the severe and gloomy
surroundings of the dungeon stunned the girl. She comprehended
nothing for quite awhile. She sat in a corner of the cell lost in
thought. From this condition she was suddenly awakened by the
indifferent voice of the sentinel. “Wake up! You will soon be taken
to be tortured.”
Suddenly the cell door opened, the chief inspector entered, said a
few words to the guard, and she was led through a number of poorly
lit corridors and into a small room, where an oil-lamp was feebly
flickering. “Listen attentively, and you will understand!” said the
guard rudely as he left the room and bolted the door.
A deathly silence reigned in the room. She tried to catch the least
sound, the least motion to discern the least token of life, but all
was still as the grave. Suddenly she heard some voices in the
adjacent room, and through the thin partition she could distinctly
hear all that was spoken there. She felt her heart sink within her,
as among many other voices she recognized her brother’s voice. Then
there was a sound of a heavy blow, a thud from the falling of a
human body, and her brother’s outcry.
Her heart was beating fast. She understood that she was alongside
of the torture-chamber, where her brother was brought in to be
tortured, and that she was put there in order to be tortured by the
pangs and sufferings of her dearly beloved brother.
Then fell in quick succession a number of heavy blows, followed by
his desperate outcries. The pain must have been unbearable--he
seemed to be gasping for breath. His tormentors did not stop,
however, but continued beating him for a long time. The blows fell
thick and heavy, and his outcries turned into desperate screams,
into wild heartbreaking sounds of one losing his reason under the
influence of terrible pain. And the poor girl had to hear it all,
and to know that she was powerless to stay the hands of his
tormentors.
Finally the cries ceased. Were the hangmen tired, or was her
brother dead? Her heart full of anguish, she pressed her ear
against the partition in an effort to catch the least sound of his
voice. At that moment one of the executioners entered the room and
she began begging him to tell her what had become of her brother.
Was he alive? Why was he tortured? What for? But it was in vain to
expect human feeling in a hangman. Could the suffering of a young
girl touch his heart? To her beseeching he replied rudely,
laughing: “If you will not inform us all about your brother and the
rest of your friends, the same will be done to you. Then you will
find out what became of him and whether he is still alive.”
He then ordered her to follow him and she was led back into her
former cell, where she was left to pass the night on the bare
floor. But she did not close her eyes the whole night. In a dull
stupor, thoughtless, motionless, she sat in a corner till morning.
The guard was all the time within, never for a moment leaving her.
In the morning some black bread and water was brought to her; no
other food through the whole day. But she could not touch a
mouthful. As soon as night came on she was again taken into the
room where she had been the previous night, and again she had to
live through the same horrors of the past night. For many hours of
horror she heard almost continually the screams and sobs of her
brother. These sobs rent the poor girl’s soul. After her brother’s
cries she heard others; she heard the sobs of another man and
instinctively recognized the voice of a dear friend, a man whom she
knew well and who was very near to her. That was the second night.
The third night she was again taken to listen to the sobs of the
tortured; but that night she remembers as a horrible nightmare,
which she could not distinguish from reality. She did not hear her
brother’s cries any more; others of her friends were being
tortured. She felt that she was losing her reason and she wished
for death.
The fourth night she was again taken in this room. The chief
executioner, organizer, and director of these tortures, Green, came
in and proposed that she inform him about her brother and confess
all her own crimes.
But what crimes? She had done nothing criminal; she is still so
young; she knows nothing criminal either of her brother or of her
other friends. What could she confess?
Upon getting her negative answer she was led into the adjacent
room, from which those screams had come forth the preceding nights.
It was a small room with two windows. In the center stood a table;
on it were wooden and rubber canes. There was a gendarme officer,
Ivanoff, with ten secret-police agents. Many held canes in their
hands. The young girl was seized and put flat on the table, face
down, four of the detectives grabbed her hands and feet, and the
others that were armed with canes began to beat her at the command
of Officer Ivanoff. The blows fell heavily, striking over the head,
back, and legs.
She was beaten till she nearly lost consciousness, but not a sound
escaped her. Getting tired in their monstrous work, the
executioners stopped when she became motionless. She looked like a
corpse with eyes closed, lips pressed tightly together, not a
muscle moving. Nothing betrayed signs of life. She was in a deep
faint.
Green ordered some cold water to be sprinkled on her, and she began
to come to. She was then given a glass of cold water and told to
confess and tell about her brother.
“But, for the sake of Christ, what shall I confess? I have done
nothing criminal, I am not guilty of anything,” feebly murmured the
girl.
And in answer to that came the command of the officer: “Give it to
her, boys; give it to her!”
And they resumed their diabolic work.
In moments when the pain was terrible she would scream aloud. At
times she would bite the edge of the wooden table, pressing her
teeth hard together in the effort not to cry out. The pains were
awful. The executioners had turned into cruel beasts, as if they
were wild animals instead of human beings possessing heart and
soul.
That night she was beaten till dawn, with interruptions, as she
fainted frequently. Every time she regained consciousness the same
question was put to her by the officer--whether she was willing to
confess--and every time that he got her negative answer he became
more furious.
At dawn she was carried into her cell and dropped on the floor in a
semi-conscious condition. During the day she regained
consciousness. Every part of her body ached, she could not bend her
joints. The bruised parts became pitifully swollen, the red and
blue marks began to fester, making the slightest motion very
painful.
The next night she was again carried into the torture-room and
stretched out on the table. The executioners were already at their
posts awaiting their victim. The subordinate officer Ivanoff
repeated the question, and, getting no answer, ordered his men to
strike her, exclaiming in his rage that he would make that
obstinate girl confess all.
Then Green gave orders to pinch her naked body in the contused
spots, which was especially painful because of the festering and
swelling.
She could not stand the pain any longer and her wild cries filled
the room. The almost unbearable agony seemed to rob her of her
senses. Other executioners were in the meanwhile striking her with
canes over her head, her abdomen, the fingers, and toes.
The blows caused blood to ooze out through the skin in some places,
and her shirt was stained with it. Some of her teeth were knocked
out by blows over her face, and tufts of hair were pulled out by
blows on the head, causing indescribable pain.
That lasted the whole night long.
The third night she was again taken into the torture-room, as she
stubbornly refused to calumniate anybody. And she was beaten as on
the previous nights. Then Green bethought himself of new ways of
torture and ordered the eleven men to surround the prostrate girl
and beat her over the abdomen. The blows then rained fast but not
very hard on the abdomen exclusively. This immediately caused her
to vomit....
On the fourth night she was also beaten. She was weak and faint; it
seemed to her that she was dying. Had she not been a girl with a
splendid constitution she could never have lived through this
long-continued torture. The blows were raining fast; the fiends
pinched her and pulled her hair. Suddenly Green ordered his men to
stop, and for a few minutes she was left to lie quietly on the
table. Then she was dragged on the floor and put on her back. Her
executioners began kicking her with their boots. They stamped on
her chest, on her abdomen; they trampled on her face. She bled from
the mouth. She did not cry out; she had no more strength; she
seemed silently dying.
* * * * *
In this condition she was taken back into her cell and the prison
_feldsher_ (nurse and orderly) was called to her. Her face
presented a shapeless mass of red and blue bruises. The eyes were
closed by an enormous swelling; the cheeks, chin, and mouth were a
big bruised mass.... For two months she hovered between life and
death, but youth conquered, and she slowly began to recover. At the
end of two months she began to walk a little. All this time no one
was admitted to her, as the government was afraid to let her
relatives see her in the condition she was in. That was to be kept
a secret, not to escape from the prison walls into the outer world,
so it would not cause any stir, as did Spiradonova’s case.
An acquaintance of the writer’s met her after six months had elapsed, in
a northern prison, where she had been taken when she began to walk a
little. This acquaintance gave his impression of her. At the first
moment he thought that she was an elderly woman with an enormously large
face of indefinitely outlined features. The face was pale except where
covered with red and bluish spots.
But her eyes--her eyes spoke for themselves. Looking into them, he was
dumbfounded--there was so much suffering, so much sadness in those eyes!
He understood that this old woman must have lived through some great
calamity in life, something enormous, some disaster that is beyond human
endurance. He tried to engage her in conversation.
He learned then what this seemingly elderly woman had gone through. She
was aged not by years, but by unbelievable tortures. She is not an
elderly woman, but a young, beautiful girl who has been maimed and
broken by suffering. She told with tears in her eyes that her brother
was shot after being tortured, without having gone through any form of
trial, solely upon the behest of Governor-general Scallon.
A few months after this Victor Green was assassinated. If there were any
tribunal in Russia to whom appeal against an official of this stamp
could be carried, the so-called terrorist would never have been called
into existence. In America I frequently have it said to me: “The
Russian revolutionists who are guilty of murder and assassination do
more than anything else to injure the cause of liberty in their country.
Their deeds are veritably the sowing of dragon’s teeth of hate and
murder.”
But fairly--on the testimony--_who_ sows the dragon’s teeth? Is it the
man who checks the career of a monstrous creature like Green? Is it the
murderous official himself? Or is it the government and the police and
other officials of the Czar?
* * * * *
Pasha was taken one afternoon in July. Her family had persuaded her to
go abroad for the summer, so with her mother she started for
Switzerland. They traveled to St. Petersburg from Moscow and were to
take the Berlin train late one afternoon. About two o’clock that
afternoon Pasha ran over to the office of a certain newspaper to bid a
friend good-by. Suddenly the police appeared, the office was surrounded,
and every one who chanced to be there at the time was marched off to
prison. The mother awaited the return of her daughter with impatience
that soon became alarm. Train-time came and passed. About dusk a party
of gendarmes appeared at the house where they had been stopping and
informed madame of Pasha’s arrest. Then they ransacked the house. The
only evidence found was a copy of my notes on my interview with Marie
Spiradonova, which Pasha had borrowed. Incidentally, during the course
of the search, Pasha’s gold watch and chain, which had been lying on the
bureau, disappeared.
While there were really serious charges against Pasha, these were all
registered against her conspirative name, consequently no definite
charge of any kind was known against her at the time of this arrest.
Merely on the strength of her having been in the newspaper office she
was kept “on suspicion.” Later developments in her case are not germane
to the moment. She was put into a cell with a number of other women to
await trial. One Sunday afternoon an incident occurred in this cell
which aroused wide interest, and Pasha, knowing that I would want an
accurate account of the affair, managed to write and have smuggled out
to me a graphic letter. The only necessary word of explanation concerns
the time-worn custom observed in Russian prisons of allowing political
prisoners to receive donations of food one day a week from their
friends, which recipients share with their less fortunate comrades. In
the particular prison where Pasha was incarcerated there was a group of
men politicals in a room directly over the women. When the women were
ready to divide their contributions with the men they generally rapped
on the ceiling with a broom or mop-handle, and the men would drop a cord
out of their window so that it would dangle in front of one of the
windows of the women’s room. Pasha’s account of what is now known as the
Semonova tragedy (Semonova being the name of one of the other women
confined in the prison) is as follows [I give her own words]:
On Sunday after six o’clock Semonova came to the center window. She
tapped on the ceiling with the mop-stick for the men of the room
above to drop the string--the telephone--they called it. The
package with tea, sugar, and tobacco was on the window-sill. Some
women were standing near Semonova, others, I among them, were
sitting at the table, drinking tea. One was walking up and down. We
were sixteen in the room, which made it very crowded. I saw the
string drop and several hands go through the bars to hold it, but
the winds blow it from them and then suddenly it was jerked up.
Semonova sat sideways on the window sill, her left side toward the
window, and her left hand supported her head. She seemed to be
waiting for the telephone to be dropped for the second time. A few
seconds later a shot rang out. I saw a small puff of yellow smoke.
Semonova’s head dropped strangely. My heart stood still. “Can it
be!” but I saw that the group at the window moved and no one seemed
wounded. I ran to them in the hope that I was mistaken. Meanwhile
one who was standing near her took Semonova and laid her down on
the floor with the words “She is killed.”
One of the prisoners who was a _feldsher_ felt her pulse, but with
a gesture of hopelessness turned aside. Semonova’s eyes were glazed
and blood flowed from her head. I could not desert her. It seemed
to me she still felt and I could not leave her alone.
A general uproar arose in the room and the women cried and shrieked
“Doctor! Doctor!” Then the room suddenly became empty. Some one
poured water on Semonova’s head. A _feldsher_ came in, examined
her, and said: “Her skull is fractured.” We lifted her up and
placed her on a cot. I did not believe her dead and thought she
still suffered.
When the doctor came he said death had been instantaneous. The
bullet entered the left temple and came out through the forehead,
because she had been sitting with her head a little bent, leaning
it on her left hand. Her back had been turned to the soldier who
was pointing at her.
When I saw she was dead I went to the window and cried to the
soldier: “Murderer! You have killed a human being!” He pointed at
me, but I jumped back before he had time to fire. The same thing
happened to the others who attempted to approach the window. We ran
to the gate which acted as a door between our room and the hallway
and behind which were amassed a pack of overseers and cried:
“Murderers, will you shoot us all?” One of them with an impudent
laugh said: “Well, why did she sit on the window-sill?”
Later some one, I don’t know who, said that the soldier had
received the order “not to shoot any more.”
I learned from others what happened outside of the rooms. The women
ran to the gate with cries of “doctor.” A woman overseer opened it
because, it seems, she was so bewildered she could not realize what
had happened. All ran out into the corridor. There they met the
prison director, who was going to our room. A comrade ran up to him
and began beating his face with her fists. He was so bewildered
that all he could do was to say: “I am not guilty. I gave no orders
to shoot,” and went back and did not come again to our room. All
the officials who came later were without him. The comrade who
beat the director was taken by force to the hospital. Later she was
allowed back.
Our first demand was that Semonova’s brother should know what had
happened. We gave them his address, but we knew later they did not
do it. We asserted that without her brother and without the court
officials we would not give up the body, and we waited for the
coroner and procuror. The prison inspector came, but went away
soon. We were seventeen besides the dead in the room now because
two from the hospital had come also. The overseers wanted to drag
them back.
Imagine a large, high room, lighted by one lamp. On the cot the
body with bloody head and glazed eyes covered with a sheet. Near
the cot, on the floor where she had been lying, was a pool of
blood. Many of us had blood on our hands and dresses. Some were
annoyed by the light and the lamp was covered by a piece of dark
cloth, then others were afraid of the darkness and after sitting
some time in a dark corner would lose consciousness. Hysterical
cries, long faintings, hallucinations--all we lived through that
night....
The table was covered with bromo, Hoffman drops, ice-bags, ammonia,
etc. We called the doctor every minute. We were afraid it would not
end with one death only. After some hours they cleared a little
room in the hospital and the weakest of us were brought there. At
last, about eleven o’clock, the judge of the court and procuror
came. While the judge and the doctor were examining the wound, we
told the procuror that the brother had not yet been notified. “But
I can do it,” he said. After the prison procuror came he said he
would leave it to him and he sneaked away--because a talk with a
dozen outraged and fury-like women could not have been agreeable to
any one. You should have seen these “gentlemen” placed there in our
cage and forced to hear epithets far from flattering which were
addressed against them and the prison director. Of course any other
time we would have had to pay for this, but in sight of the body
which was still warm they could not bring themselves to call in the
overseer and use force.
The procuror told me that all the details noted by the judge of
inquiry would be handed over to the military procuror, because the
murderer was a soldier. When the judge of inquiry left, the prison
procuror and prison inspector remained. They told us that the body
would be taken by the police to be buried. We replied that we would
give it up only to her brother. We received the answer that that
was impossible....
The procuror promised to influence the police to let the brother
know before the burial and that the brother would be allowed to see
one of us so that we might be assured that he was at the funeral.
However he seemed frightened of his last promise and he said: “I
will come myself to you and I will tell you about everything. You
surely believe me.”
“We don’t believe you at all and we demand to see the brother.”
They were forced to consent and one of us was promised to see him.
A bier was brought. We put her on it ourselves and carried her out
along the corridor. We wanted to keep her as long as possible from
their unclean hands. Some one proposed to sing the funeral march,
but our hearts were too heavy. Quietly, quietly we carried her
through the corridor, then down-stairs, and there we put her in her
coffin. There were packs of overseers in the upper and lower
corridors. The scoundrels were waiting for a “disturbance.” They
could not understand that that was far from our hearts. Through the
open doorway we saw the police waiting for the coffin. There, too,
the ugly face of the prison director hiding from us flashed by....
It was about one o’clock at night. We came back to the same room
where all that remained of her was a pool of blood. We became
terribly depressed as if we had behaved badly toward her to give
her up without a fight. And no one will know where her grave will
be, for we could not believe their promises. However, the next day
one of us was called to see the brother. Expecting a lie, she asked
him from where he comes, for she knew from Semonova where her
birthplace was. He answered correctly. Then she told him the
details of the shooting.
“You can’t expect justice from them,” he replied. However he
promised to talk with a lawyer about the case.
He said that about ten o’clock in the morning he was told to go to
the police-station. There they told him to go to the monastery of
the Alexander Nevski. He called for a girl friend of his sister’s
to go along with him. They were hardly given time to take leave of
his sister. He came about ten minutes before the interment. There
was an order from the chief of police--“to hurry with the funeral.”
At the funeral was a police captain, a sergeant, a gendarme, the
brother, and the girl’s friend.
We brought to the notice of the procuror:
1. That the administration knew for a long time about the existence
of the telephone and had never objected. And when we disobeyed a
rule of the administration, we were always punished. As, for
instance, for singing we were deprived of seeing visitors and
receiving things from them.
2. That at the time of the shooting she was sitting still, which
gave the soldier an opportunity to make a good shot.
3. That he shot into a crowded room, and it was a miracle that
others were not killed also.
To the last statement the procuror interposed: “What might have
happened has no importance.” Altogether he was impossible....
To our demand to give a definite promise that the appointment with
the brother would be given he answered prudently: “If nothing
particular will interfere.”
“That means”--
“That means if he won’t be arrested before. We are all in the hands
of God.”
“Do you mean because they killed the sister, you will arrest the
brother?”
“You did not understand me. I was only speaking of a possibility. I
was presupposing. Why do you insist on misunderstanding me?”
We came to such a good understanding that next day the brother was
still free.
A considerable uproar followed this incident. St. Petersburg newspapers
clamored for the court-martial of the soldier who had fired the shot.
The man was eventually tried--and acquitted. Then the newspapers,
echoing public sentiment, declared that the trial was a farce. The
matter was not allowed to drop out of sight.
One day the regiment to which the soldier belonged was ordered out on
parade and this man’s name was called. The letter was then read from the
Czar, announcing that the soldier be rewarded with ten rubles, or five
dollars, for having so nobly done his duty!
This closed the incident.
Governmental terrorism exists throughout the whole gamut of the Russian
bureaucracy. Petty police and gendarme officers plan and execute
massacres; soldiers are called upon to stand one side, or to assist in
the slaughter. Knowledge of these massacres is often known in advance
in St. Petersburg and sometimes they are actually arranged in the
offices of the central administration.[15]
Premier Stolypin with his field courts-martial (described in detail in
another chapter) has shown himself no more of a humanitarian than
Trepoff, and in the Semonova incident the Czar revealed to the world his
intimate familiarity with small incidents.
I have no sympathy whatever with the belief that the Czar does not know
what his ministers and officials are doing. If there are details that do
not reach him, he alone is at fault. The present Emperor is a
traditional autocrat. It is my conviction that he acquiesces in, if he
does not instigate, massacre and occasional assassination. However much
one may deplore terrorism--white or red--one thing stands out clear and
true to my mind, namely, the burden of responsibility lies not with the
terrorists of the revolution--their acts are human if to be
deplored--but rather with the infinitely more heinous assassins of the
government--who are distinctly inhuman--and most of all upon him who is
the ultimate head of the whole governmental terroristic organization,
the arch assassin who, by a word, could end for all time massacre and
murder in the Russian empire--Czar Nicholas II.