Mr. Sturmer was not a novice in politics and he was known to be a
reactionary of the deepest dye. It is likely that even Rasputin’s
friends would never have given a thought to the possibility of his
becoming Prime Minister if Count Witte had still been in the land of
the living. With the latter’s death the sort of coalition or secret
society that had hoped through the occult influence of the “Prophet”
to rise to power had lost its best head. There was no one to take his
place, officially at least, because with the best will in the world it
was impossible to suggest as a candidate for a ministerial portfolio
Mr. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff. The past record of this man did not permit
him to play any rôle but that of the Père Joseph of a minister who was
not a Richelieu. And though the secret position of principal adviser
to a personage of the importance of Rasputin had its advantages, it
nevertheless precluded the possibility of becoming a candidate for the
place of a statesman.
The next best thing, therefore, was to find some one who would be
willing to become consciously what the “Prophet” was unconsciously,
the instrument of the vile crew whose ambition was to make money by
all means out of the terrible situation into which the country was
plunged. These unscrupulous people all felt that they would never again
in the whole course of their life have another such opportunity of
becoming rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and they were not the kind
of people to allow it to escape them. Every effort was therefore put
forward to bring Mr. Sturmer to the notice of the Emperor, and to the
attention of all those capable of suggesting to the latter the choice
of this functionary to replace Mr. Goremykine, who had openly declared
that he could not any longer go on fighting against the subterranean
forces which were slowly but surely working against him, and making his
position more unbearable every day. The candidate who would have been
the most welcome to public opinion was Mr. Krivoscheine, but he was the
last man whom Rasputin’s friends would have cared to put forward.
On the other hand, Mr. Sturmer, for personal reasons into which it is
useless to enter here, when approached by Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, had
not hesitated a single moment in promising to indorse the purposes of
the small group of persons who had made up their minds to become the
real rulers of the State. As soon as he had declared his willingness to
join with them in the future an energetic campaign was started in his
favour, not in the press nor in the Duma, nor even among the public,
but in the immediate vicinity of the Sovereign, a campaign in which
some of the highest authorities in the Greek Church were enrolled, and
in which the Empress herself was persuaded by some of her personal
friends to take part. The expected then occurred. The Czar was finally
persuaded that in Mr. Sturmer he would find a faithful servant, which
in a certain sense he did, and also a minister determined to govern
according to the old principles of autocracy with an utter disregard
for the liberal parties, as well as for the Duma. The Duma had not
spared the Government during the whole summer, and its activity had
been viewed with dismay by certain members. Yet the country was glad
to find that at last there existed among its representatives men
courageous enough to say what they thought, and to try to save Russia
from the abyss into which it was felt that she was falling through the
influence not so much of Rasputin himself as of those who surrounded
him and who used him for their own ends.
This campaign succeeded and Mr. Sturmer was appointed. His selection
caused an outcry of indignation throughout the whole country, and
distressed its best friends for more than one reason. But even among
the functionaries of the Ministry, which had to accept him as its
chief, there were found some rebellious spirits, among whom was the
then Minister of the Interior, Mr. Chvostoff, who made up their minds
that it was at last high time to get rid of Rasputin in some manner
or other. He was also a reactionary, like Mr. Sturmer, and even a
furious one. When he was still a deputy in the Duma he had been one of
the leaders of the faction of the right and before that time had made
for himself the reputation of being an ultraconservative in all the
different administrative posts which he had occupied. Among others, he
had been Governor at Nijni Novgorod for a short period. He belonged to
the number of persons who held the opinion that Rasputin ought to be
removed. But whether he was really a party to the extraordinary story
I am going to relate is a matter about which I shall abstain from
expressing an opinion.
The fact is that about the beginning of the year 1916 people were
startled by hearing of a new conspiracy against Rasputin, in which it
was rumoured that the Minister of the Interior himself was a party.
Things stood thus: A secret agent of the Russian police called Rgevsky,
a man about as unscrupulous as Manassevitsch-Maniuloff but not so
clever, who had already figured more than once in occasions when the
need for a provocative agent had been felt, arrived in Christiania,
in Norway, where the unfrocked monk Illiodore was living, and sought
him out. His journey had been undertaken without the knowledge of the
chief of the secret police, Mr. Bieletsky, but on the express orders of
Mr. Chvostoff, the Minister of the Interior. Bieletsky, however, had
suspected that some underhand game was going on, and had caused Rgevsky
to be watched. When the latter had crossed the frontier at Torneo, he
had been thoroughly searched and examined by special orders received
from Petrograd, without, however, anything suspicious being found on
him. When he was questioned as to the reasons for his journey abroad he
had, in order to be allowed to proceed, to own that it was undertaken
by command of the Minister of the Interior.
On his return from abroad Rgevsky was at once arrested under the
pretext of having blackmailed another police agent. Furious at what he
considered to have been a breach of faith, he contrived to apprise
Rasputin of the position in which he found himself placed, and revealed
to him that the object of his mission had been to see and speak with
Illiodore to try to persuade the latter to organise a conspiracy with
the help of the many followers he still had in Russia. The object of
this plot was to be the murder of the “Prophet.” Illiodore had been
considered ever since his quarrel with Rasputin one of the latter’s
worst enemies, and it was felt that he would enter with alacrity into
the plot which it was proposed to engineer. But to the stupefaction of
the persons who had thus applied to him in the hope of finding in him
the instrument which they required, Illiodore went over to the enemy.
On the advice of Rgevsky he telegraphed to Rasputin, asking the latter
to send some one whom he could trust to Norway, and telling him that he
would deliver into the hands of that person the proofs of the plot that
was being hatched against his, Rasputin’s, life.
Mr. Chvostoff, when taken to task for the affair, of course, denied
it in its entirety. He declared that he had given quite different
instructions to Rgevsky, and that he had sent the policeman to Norway
to buy the memoirs of Illiodore, which he had heard the latter was
about to publish abroad. But at the same time Chvostoff made no secret
of his feelings of repugnance to Rasputin, and declared that he
considered him a most dangerous and mischievous man, whose presence
at Petrograd was exceedingly harmful for the prestige of the dynasty,
as well as for the welfare of the State in the grave circumstances in
which the country was finding itself placed.
According to Mr. Chvostoff, Rasputin was surrounded with individuals
of a most suspicious character, who spent their time in concocting
any amount of shady affairs and transactions, and who had organised
a regular plundering of the public exchequer. He did not dare to do
anything directly against the “Prophet,” but he tried to get at him
through the arrest of several of his adepts and friends. He caused the
houses of a considerable number of these to be thoroughly searched for
compromising documents. Among other places searched was the flat of
a Mr. Dobrovolsky, who held the position of a school inspector. This
search gave abundant evidence by which he might have been incriminated
in more than one dirty transaction. But he was not immediately arrested
and contrived to make his escape. Another of the Rasputin crew, a
certain Simanovitsch, was arrested at the very moment when he returned
to his home in the private automobile of Mr. Sturmer, one of whose
familiar friends he happened to be.
At the request of the “Prophet” an inquest into the denunciation of
Rgevsky was ordered by Mr. Sturmer, and a certain Mr. Gourland, whose
name had often been mentioned as that of a rising secret agent, was
entrusted with it. But Manassevitsch-Maniuloff contrived to oust him
and to get himself appointed in his place. At the same time it was
decided to send some one to Norway to interview Illiodore, and to try
thus to come to the bottom of the whole business. A certain General
Spiridovitsch, who had already more than once been entrusted with
missions of a delicate character which he had always accomplished to
the satisfaction of those who had employed him, was selected for
the task. The General had several interviews with Mr. Chvostoff, but
they all came to nothing, and he did not go abroad as it had been
rumoured that he would do. At last both the Minster of the Interior
and the chief of the secret police, Mr. Bieletsky, had to resign their
functions, and Rasputin found himself delivered from two of his most
dangerous enemies.
The next question which arose was that of the appointment of
Chvostoff’s successor. The post which he had vacated was such a
difficult and responsible one that several persons who were sounded as
to their readiness to accept it refused the offer in a most categorical
manner. The story which I have just related died at last a natural
death. Rgevsky disappeared, no one knew where, but the difficulties out
of which it had arisen were still there. They could hardly be set aside
by any minister, unless some radical measures were adopted, such as the
exile of Rasputin, a thing which no one dared to propose, and which no
one would have dared to enforce even if some one else had proposed it.
After the resignation, or rather the dismissal, of Mr. Chvostoff,
his post was finally offered, by the advice of Rasputin and at the
suggestion of Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, to Mr. Protopopoff, a rich
landowner of the Government of Simbirsk, who for some time had occupied
the position of vice president of the Duma of the Empire.
Just before his appointment to what is the most important and
responsible function in the whole Russian Empire, there was much talk
of an interview which he had had at Stockholm with Mr. Warberg, a
representative of the German Government, during which the conditions
at which a separate peace might come to be concluded between Russia
and the Central Empires had been discussed. Later on, when this
meeting, which had been arranged through the good offices of a Jew, Mr.
Maliniak, became the subject of general knowledge in Stockholm, and
details concerning it had found their way into the Russian press, Mr.
Protopopoff was violently attacked by the liberal parties in the Duma,
which accused him of treason, and refused even to listen to the clumsy
explanations which he attempted to give of the affair.
It was then generally believed that the political career of this
gentleman was at an end, and it was assumed that he would have to
resign his vice presidency in the House. Certainly no one ever thought
that he would suddenly develop into a minister. And yet, this is the
very thing which happened, thanks to the Rasputin crew, which persuaded
Mr. Sturmer to present Mr. Protopopoff to the Emperor as the best
candidate for the place vacated by Mr. Chvostoff. In the meanwhile,
Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, who had been the moving spirit in this whole
intrigue, had been appointed private secretary to Mr. Sturmer, and at
his instigation there began dissipation of public funds such as Russia
had never seen before, and such as, let us hope, she will never see
again.
There are many more things than I could possibly relate in regard
to the incidents of which I have given the outline here, but these
could hardly be published at present. The only thing which I can do
is to try to make my readers understand the general position as it
presented itself before the murder of Rasputin by quoting some speeches
which were delivered in the Duma as far back as the year 1912. They
were reproduced in the Russian Liberal organ, the Retsch, on the day
following the assassination of the “Prophet.” The Russian censor
offered no opposition to this republication.
The first of these speeches was made by Mr. Goutschkoff, one of the
most enlightened men in the whole of the Russian Empire, whose liberal
opinions and sound political views had won for him the respect of all
parties, even those who were opposed to them. The occasion upon which
it was pronounced was that of the discussion of the budget of the Holy
Synod, a discussion during which for the first time the personality of
Rasputin, together with his activity, was publicly denounced as one of
the greatest sources of danger that had ever threatened the country as
well as the dynasty.
“You all know,” said Mr. Goutschkoff in this memorable address, “what a
terrible drama Russia is living through at present. With sorrow in our
hearts and with terror in our souls we have followed its developments,
and we are dreading its consequences. Standing in the very heart of
this drama we see a mysterious, enigmatical, tragi-comical figure, who
seems to have come out of the dark ages, which we believed had passed
away forever, into the full light of the twentieth century. Perhaps
this figure is that of a sectarian of the worst kind who is trying to
popularise amongst us his mystical rites; perhaps it is that of an
adventurer seeking to hide under the cloak of religious fanaticism and
superstition his numerous swindles. By what means has this individual
succeeded in rising to such a prominent position and in acquiring such
an influence which even the dignitaries of our church, together with
the highest functionaries in our State, acknowledge and which they seek
to propitiate?
“If we had had to do with only this one figure which had made its way
on the field of religious superstition and which has thriven, thanks
to an exalted spirit of mysticism, a state of mind which, though not
perhaps bordering on insanity, is yet not quite normal, then we should
have said nothing. We might have regretted the fact; we might even have
wept over it, but we would not have spoken about it.
“But unfortunately this figure is not standing alone. Behind it there
is a whole crew, strong and varied, unscrupulous and grasping, which is
taking advantage of its position and of the talents of persuasion which
it may possess. Amongst this crew there are to be found journalists in
want of copy, shady business men, adventurers of every kind and sort.
It is they who are the moving spirits in all this sad history, it is
they who inspire it, they who tell it what it is to do. They constitute
a kind of commercial enterprise, and they understand how to play their
game in the most clever manner.
“Before such a spectacle it is our duty to cry out as loud as we can
that one ought to beware of all those people, and that the church--our
church, and the country--our country, find themselves in imminent
danger, because no revolution and no anti-Christian propaganda have
ever done them more harm than the events which are daily taking place
under our eyes for the last twelve months.”
Two years later, in 1914, a few weeks before the breaking out of the
present war, another deputy, this time a clergyman, Father Filonenko,
spoke about Rasputin in the Duma, and did so in the following strong
terms:
“As a faithful and devoted son of our Holy Orthodox Church, I consider
it my painful duty to mention once more what has already been discussed
here, by so many orators better than myself, and to recur to a subject
which is at present talked of at the corner of every street, in every
town and in every village, no matter how distant and how far from
any civilised centre in our vast Empire. We find ourselves compelled
to look upon this unexplainable influence of a common adventurer,
belonging to the worst type of those sectarians, whom until now we have
known by the name of Khlystys, and despised accordingly. We are obliged
to reckon with this influence of a man upon whom all the sane elements
in our society look with contempt.”
On that same day another deputy belonging to the group of
Ultra-Conservatives, Prince Mansyreff, also spoke about Rasputin, with
perhaps even more energy than any one had ever done before in the Duma.
Said the Prince:
“The adventure of Illiodore ended in ridicule, but we have now in his
place another adventurer, with the personality of whom are connected
the most nefarious and disgusting rumours, the most unnatural and
contemptible crimes. It is useless to mention his name; every one
knows who he is, and of whom I am talking. He has been let loose
on our society to acquire some influence over it, by men even more
shameless than he is himself; he has been used to terrorise all those
who have dared to express their opinions against the currents which
prevail at present in our administrative circles. This adventurer,
whenever he travels and whenever he arrives in St. Petersburg, is
met at the railway station by the highest dignitaries of the church;
before him pray, as they would do to God, unfortunate hysterical ladies
of the highest social circles. This individual, who only seeks the
satisfaction of the lowest instinct of a low nature, has introduced
himself into the very heart of our country and of our society, and we
find and feel everywhere his disgusting and filthy influence.”
A few days after this memorable sitting of the Duma the Government
issued instructions to the press never to mention Rasputin’s name or to
speak of any subject connected with him in the newspapers. As soon as
this became known the Octobrists put down on the order of the day in
the Duma an interpellation on the matter, and Mr. Goutschkoff in moving
it exclaimed:
“Dark and dangerous days have arrived, and the conscience of the
Russian nation has been deeply moved by the events of the last few
months, and is protesting against the appearance amongst us of symptoms
proving that we are returning to the darkest periods of the middle
ages. It has cried out that things are going wrong in our State, and
that danger threatens our most holy national ideals.”
Prince Lvoff seconded the motion, and asked the Government to explain
who was this “strange personality who had been taken under the special
protection of the administration, who was considered as too sacred to
be subjected to the criticism of the press, and who had been put upon
such a pedestal that no one was allowed to touch or even to approach
him.”
I would not have quoted these speeches but for the fact that they
all bore on the same point, the one that I have tried to make clear
to the mind of my readers. This point is that the danger which
Rasputin undoubtedly personified in Russian society at large did not
proceed from his own personality, but from the character of the men
who surrounded him, who had made out of him their tool and who were
trying through him to rule Russia and to push it into the arms of
Germany. There is no doubt that Germany had been carefully following
all the phases of the drama which culminated in the assassination of
the “Prophet” and had been helping by her subsidies the underhand
and mysterious work of men like Mr. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff and his
satellites, and like Mr. Sturmer. Sturmer believed quite earnestly
that he would secure immortality for his name and for his work if
he contrived to conclude a peace which every one knew that Russia
required, but which no one except himself and the adventurers to whom
he owed his elevation thought of making except in concert with Russia’s
Allies, and only after Germany had been compelled to accept the
conditions of her adversaries.
The whole Rasputin affair was nothing but a German intrigue which
aimed at discrediting the dynasty and perhaps even at overthrowing the
sovereign from his throne.
Thanks to the infernal cunning of the people who were its leaders, the
Imperial circle and even some of the Imperial family were represented
as being entirely under the “Prophet’s” influence. And thanks to the
solitary existence which the Emperor and Empress were leading, and to
the small number of people who were allowed to see them, these rumours
gained ground, for the simple reason that there existed no one capable
of contradicting them or of pointing out their absurdity. Calumnies
as stupid as they were degrading to the authors of them were set in
circulation, and the revolutionary movement which Germany had been
fomenting grew stronger and stronger every day, until it reached the
lower classes. These classes by a kind of miracle were also kept very
well informed as to everything that was connected with Rasputin or
with the subterranean work performed by his party, a work which tended
to only make the House of Romanoff unpopular, and to represent it as
incapable of taking to heart the interest of the country over which it
reigned.
If we consider who were the people at the side of the “Prophet,” and
who inspired all his actions as well as his utterances we find police
agents, adventurers who had been sometimes in prison, and sometimes in
exile; functionaries eager to obtain some fat sinecure in which they
might do nothing and earn a great deal; stock exchange speculators
of doubtful morality and still more doubtful honesty; women of low
character and army purveyors, mixed up with an innumerable number of
spies. Most of these last were in the German service and were working
for all that they were worth to bring about some palace conspiracy or
some popular movement capable of removing from his throne a Czar whose
honesty and straightforwardness of character precluded the possibility
of Russia betraying the trust which her Allies had put in her.
Yet this was precisely what these people wanted, and what they had
made up their minds to force through, thanks to the indignation which
the various stories which were being repeated every day concerning
Rasputin and the favour which he enjoyed was arousing all over Russia.
The Emperor, of course, knew nothing of all this; the Empress even
less. There was no one to tell them the truth, and they would have been
more surprised than any one else had they suspected the ocean of lies
which had been told concerning themselves, and concerning the kindness
with which they had treated a man whom they considered as being half
saint and half mad, but of whom they had never thought in their wildest
dreams of making their chief adviser.
In this extraordinary history there is also another point which must
be noticed. When the first deceptions produced by the disasters of the
beginning of the campaign had thrown public opinion into a state of
mind which was bordering well nigh upon despair, and before it had had
time to recover from the shock of the fall of Warsaw and the line of
fortresses upon which they had relied to protect the western frontier,
people had begun to seek for the cause of the great disillusion they
had been called upon to experience. It was very quickly discovered,
partly through the revelations that had been made in the Duma, that
the real reason for all the sad things which had happened lay in the
systematic plundering of the public exchequer, that had been going on
for such a long time and which even the experiences of the Japanese war
had not cured. When the fierce battle against Germany began in grim
earnest, the first thought of the Emperor had been to try to put an end
to these depredations that had compromised the prestige and the good
name of Russia abroad as well as at home. Great severity was shown to
the many adventurers who had enriched themselves at the expense of the
nation. When it had come to the fabrication of the necessary ammunition
required by the army, then the help of Russia’s Allies--England and
France--had been sought. Thanks to the efforts of these two Powers,
something like order was re-established in the vast machine of the War
Office.
The fabrication of shells of a size that could not fit any gun was
stopped. The army at the front got clothes and food of which it
had been in want at the beginning of the campaign. Ammunition was
despatched where it was required, and not in the contrary direction
as often had been the case before. The Allies helped Russia to the
best of their ability, and Russia, at least the sane and honest part
of Russian society, felt grateful to them for their co-operation in
the work of their common defence against a foe which it had become
necessary to defeat so thoroughly that civilisation could no longer be
endangered by its existence and activity.
But the people who surrounded Rasputin and with whom he was working
were not grateful for the labour of love which Great Britain and France
had assumed. They began to complain of the so-called interference
of foreign elements with the details of the Russian administration.
Some went even so far as to say that Russia was becoming an English
colony. All the plunderers, all the thieves who had had their own way
for so many months, perceiving that they would no longer have the
opportunities which they had enjoyed before to add to their ill-gotten
gains, tried by all means in their power to discredit the Sovereign
whose firmness they had found in their way. They joined all the
pro-Germans of whom, alas, there existed but too many in the country,
in an effort to bring about a peace, the shame of which would have been
quite indifferent to them.
It is not at all wonderful if those shameless adventurers started the
conspiracy for the success of which they required the moral influence
of Rasputin and the authority of his person. It was, after all, such
an easy matter to say that in such and such a case he had been acting
in conformity with the Imperial will. No one could disprove the truth
of the assertion, and in that way the Emperor was made responsible
for all the unavowable things which were going on. He was supposed
to have given his sanction to all these things simply because it
had pleased, not even Rasputin himself, but individuals like Mr.
Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, to declare that they had been done with his
knowledge and approval.
Can one feel surprised if in the presence of this artificial
atmosphere, and still more artificial position, an intense feeling of
disgust took hold of real patriots, and made them contemplate seriously
the possibility of trying at least to unmask Rasputin and his crew and
bring to the ears of the Czar all the different rumours which were in
circulation concerning the “Prophet” and what was going on around him?
Men of experience and of weight seriously thought how this could be
done. They made no secret of the fact, unfortunately for themselves as
well as for the success of their plans. What was going on very soon
came to the knowledge of Manassevitsch-Maniuloff and made him more
frantic than he had ever been to overthrow what he called “foreign
influences” in Russia. He applied himself with renewed energy to bring
about, by fair means or foul, the conclusion of a peace on which
depended his whole future destiny. And he might perhaps have succeeded
if circumstances had not turned against him and put an end to his
machinations, at least for a time.
Mr. Sturmer was but a tool in the hands of this artful, clever private
secretary whom he had been persuaded, or rather compelled, to take.
Manassevitsch-Maniuloff had managed to get hold of him and to keep him
securely bound to his own policy. He was the man who had contrived
to put him into the position of authority which he enjoyed, and Mr.
Sturmer, whatever may have been his other defects, had a grateful
nature. Besides, Maniuloff amused him, and took an immense amount
of trouble off his hands. He could rely on his never doing anything
stupid, even when he did something very dishonest. Mr. Sturmer was
absorbed in great political combinations and was looking toward a long
term of office. He felt absolutely safe in the situation which he
occupied, where at any moment he liked he could speak with the Czar and
explain to him what he thought to be most advantageous to the interests
of his party, or the events of the day as they followed in quick
succession.
Alas for this security! An unexpected incident was to destroy it in
the most ruthless manner. Rasputin, together with Mr. Maniuloff, went
too far in the system of blackmailing which they had been practising
with such skill for so many long months. For once they found their
master in the person of one of the directors of a large banking
establishment in Petrograd, who, upon being threatened with all kinds
of unpleasantness unless he consented to pay a large sum of money, did
not protest as others had done before him in similar cases, but gave
it immediately, first having taken the numbers of the banknotes which
he had handed over to Mr. Maniuloff. He went with these numbers to the
military authorities and lodged with them a formal complaint against
the blackmailers. The result was as immediate as it was unexpected. The
General Staff had been waiting a long time for just such an opportunity
to proceed against Rasputin and the members of his crew. That very
same night, in obedience to orders received from the military commander
of Petrograd, Mr. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff’s house was searched from top
to bottom, and he himself conveyed to prison, without even having been
allowed to acquaint his chief, Mr. Sturmer, with what had happened to
him.