WITTE CONDEMNED TO DIE
One of the most repulsive sides of the reaction of 1906-7 and of the
autocratic regime that engendered it was laid bare in the course of
the investigations which took place in the latter year into the
various attempts made on Witte's life. Incidentally the iniquity of
the hidden workings of Tsarism burst fitfully into the light and
caused even Witte's faith to waver in the viability of the regime.
Those inquiries were both official and private, and the records of
them passed through my hands. I knew the names and possessed
photographs of the would-be assassins, and I telegraphed accounts of
their misdeeds to London in the hope of having the penitent criminal
sent to Russia for public trial, and for the exposure of the crimes
of his employers--people in high places--in accordance with his own
desire. The friends of the Tsar had come to the conclusion that the
autocracy would wither and die unless the man who had concluded peace
with Japan and constrained the Emperor to create the Duma were done
to death.
Witte was the one statesman who had arisen in Russia since the days
of Peter. He pursued a fairly coherent policy, just to the past,
congruous with the present, anticipatory of the future. Its
immutable postulate was peace in Europe and the world. In vain he
had endeavoured to carry it out against the insurmountable
difficulties created by the Tsar and the Tsar's environment, but even
in the face of these he had prevented one war and ended another.
Perceiving the impossibility of saving the Tsardom from anarchy or
the population from ruin under the prevailing regime, he had worked
hard and not unsuccessfully to modify it, and to him the credit or
the blame of having extorted the October constitution from Nicholas
II. was universally attributed. The achievements he had thus
effected despite vast obstacles {188} stirred the admiration of all
who were capable of appreciating them.
But for the Tsarist State it was expedient that Witte should die.
And he was accordingly condemned to be assassinated. The sentence
was passed, not by revolutionists--these had no grievance against
him--but by an association of reactionaries subventioned by the court
and patronised by the Emperor. It was the statesman's belief that if
these reactionaries had had among them men who like the terrorists
were prepared to die for their idea, they could have made away with
him quickly, but being mostly drawing-room plotters they depended
upon mercenaries to deal the death-stroke and face the danger. That
was why one of them, Kazantseff by name, deluded two or three
shallow-brained louts of anti-Tsarist leanings into believing that he
represented the revolutionary executive which had condemned certain
traitors to die. He then exhorted them to render a valuable service
to the cause by carrying out the sentence. The dull-witted bumpkins
acquiesced and killed B. Yollos, an old friend of mine, a brilliant
publicist and member of the first Duma who had just invited me to
Moscow. He was shot dead in the broad daylight. A friend of his,
also an old acquaintance of mine, Herzenstein, was likewise put to
death by Kazantseff's orders.
Witte's destruction was devised with method and deliberation. A plan
of his house was made and two infernal machines timed to explode at 9
a.m. were lowered down the chimney. Although filled with high
explosives which would have riven the entire wall of the building,
the machines, owing to a defect in the works, did not explode.[1]
The next attempt was better devised. When the ex-Premier was getting
into his motor, bombs were to be thrown at him. And as I accompanied
him, I should have shared his fate.
One Friday morning[2] everything was carefully planned {189} for the
crime, which was to have been committed on the following day after
lunch at about half-past one. And if the plan had been realised the
Premier and myself would have been assassinated. A soothsayer, Witte
remarked, might on that Friday noon have foretold my future with
perfect truth in some such words as these: "Your life is in danger.
The danger is imminent, and the chances that you will escape it are
exceedingly slight. The assassins are two, their immediate employer
is one, behind him is the greatest power in the Empire watching,
winking, shielding. They have already been employed on similar jobs.
Your friend Yollos was one of their victims. This time they are to
blow up a motor-car in which you will be seated, you and a
distinguished statesman. The appointed time is to-morrow. He and
you have one and only one hope of escape. It is not in the
unsuccessful explosion--that is eliminated, for the bombs are
powerful. It depends upon a much less likely contingency. In order
that you should come off with your life to-morrow, it is necessary
that the employer, who is safe and sound and sure of success, should
be beheaded by one or both of his assistants. Nothing else will
avail you ought. The outlook is dismal."
That forecast, had it been uttered on Friday, would have dovetailed
with the facts exactly. For the plot was to be executed on the
following day by the two murderers, who from a tavern opposite
Witte's house were to advance and throw highly explosive bombs at the
motor as he entered. There was nobody to hinder them. But in the
meantime one of the would-be assassins, Feodoroff, an ignorant
dull-witted lad, had acquired the conviction that he was being duped
by Kazantseff who, posing as a Bolshevik, had told him that it was
the Revolutionary Party that had condemned Witte to die for having
betrayed it by arresting some of its members.
The truth was that Kazantseff was himself the paid agent of an
official in the government service, and they both belonged to the
band of reactionaries known as the League of the Russian People
patronised by the Tsar.
One of the would-be bomb-throwers, Feodoroff, had for {190} some time
suspected that he was being hoodwinked. After having murdered a man
described to him as a reactionary he learned from the newspapers that
his victim was one of the most promising Liberal Parliamentarians and
publicists in the Empire, B. Yollos, whereupon he asked his employer,
Kazantseff, for explanations. As the explanations only half
satisfied him, he and his companion kept a watch on their suborner
who next urged them to assassinate a man named Dr. Belsky and then
Count Witte. But opening a drawer of his table one day during his
temporary absence, one of the murderers found convincing proof among
the papers there that Kazantseff was a member of the reactionary
society known as the League of the Russian People. Thereupon he
decided to kill him. At first Saturday was the day fixed.
I was lunching with Witte on that day and on my arrival he said, "I
must leave the house immediately after lunch to-day, for there is a
sitting of the Council of the Empire at which I want to be present.
You and I shall drive together there at once after coffee." But
before we had left his study for the dining-room the telephone bell
rang. Witte listened, became anxious, and after a few monosyllabic
questions set down the receiver. Then turning to me he said,
"Something grave is happening. Akimoff[3] tells me there will be no
sitting of the Council to-day.[4] It appears that some crime is
being devised in connection with the sitting. He cannot tell me what
it is. My impression from what I have just heard is that the
terrorists want to blow up the upper chamber and all its members." I
said, "We shall know, later. As you have ordered the motor let us
use it. Come with me after lunch to the Exhibition of Motor Cars, in
the Michael Riding School." Witte assented, and when the repast was
over we went. The crime devised was the murder of Witte.
This attempt, however, was postponed to the day of the next sitting
of the Council, but in the meantime things took an unexpected turn.
Kazantseff went with Feodoroff to a {191} place outside Petersburg in
a wood where on the eve he had hidden the explosives for the bombs.
Feodoroff and he first walked along the rails and then turned into
the forest. Kazantseff having found the place where he had hidden
the materials, began to fill the bombs. Feodoroff at first intended
to wait until the work was done, but on second thoughts he took a
dagger and at once plunged it into Kazantseff's neck. As it chanced
it was a weapon which he had received from his victim a day or two
before for a different human sacrifice. Kazantseff quivered, fell to
the ground, and lay motionless in a pool of blood. Then the murderer
began to rifle his pockets for papers, but the seemingly dead man
stirred and gazed up at Feodoroff weirdly. Losing all self-mastery
Feodoroff seized the dagger and drove it wildly into Kazantseff's
cheeks and neck, having forgotten to take it out of the scabbard, and
in his frenzy he at last dealt such a sweeping blow with it that the
head was severed from the trunk. Then he went back to Petersburg,
gave himself up to the revolutionary party, confessed his crimes, and
asked them to put him to death.
As soon as I learned the details I communicated them to London[5] in
the hope that European opinion might perhaps constrain the Russian
government to accept the offer made by Feodoroff to surrender himself
on condition that he had a public trial. This I did in concert with
Witte, who said to me, however, "'Please write down this prediction
of mine before you send your telegram: the Russian government will
not bring Feodoroff nor his companion to trial because if it did it
is the Tsar's own environment that ... would be the real accused, and
it is they whom the evidence would condemn. Therefore, they cannot
accept your challenge." And I wrote his prediction down. It came
true. None the less Witte made every effort to have light thrown on
the plots against his life, but to no purpose. Stolypin and the
Minister of Justice[6] were determined that {192} the matter should
be hushed up, so they allowed only a few formalities to take place
before ending the inquiry. Stolypin himself had requested me, the
year before, to use my influence to keep Witte out of Russia, and
answering a direct question of mine, added that while willing to
protect him if he should come back, he could not promise to do it
efficaciously.
This attitude and all that it was subsequently found to imply filled
the ex-premier with bitterness of soul. He complained of it to
various ministers and dignitaries, and finally brought the matter to
the knowledge of the Emperor. But he obtained no satisfaction. The
official inquiry into the attempt on his life by means of the
infernal machines was stopped by the public prosecutor on the ground
that he could not find the guilty parties. The investigation into
the other plot likewise became a mere matter of form. I still
possess a long document dictated by the statesman himself asking me
to bring the following facts to the cognisance of the civilised
world:--
"In circles that may fairly be termed official, the various attempts
on my life were spoken of, and in one case written about, several
days before they were actually made.[7] You know the crimes laid to
my charge. I was accused of having made peace with the Japanese and
of having destroyed the autocracy in Russia. And the reactionary
hangers-on of the court were for killing me. The Prefect of
Petersburg[8] himself stated that he was aware that an attempt on my
life would be made. The second plot against me was known to many
people in advance: several members of the Council of the Empire had
heard of it. The President of the Council knew of it and adjourned
the sitting on account of it. The ex-Director of the Department of
the Police[9] announced it to the ex-Minister of Finances, Shipoff.
I received a letter {193} from my would-be murderer demanding 5000
roubles, and the express carrier who handed me the letter was
authorised to take the money back. I put white paper into the
envelope as though it were banknotes, informed the police agent, and
asked him to have the express messenger followed. My request was
agreed to verbally, but it was not complied with, lest the criminal
should be caught.
"What grieved me profoundly was that a lying report was spread at the
time by the reactionaries that I had had the bombs put down my own
chimney. At present even they do not dare to repeat it because the
conspirators who committed the crime have since become known. But
how members of the Stolypin cabinet could have given currency to this
black calumny, aware as they were that the Prefect of Petersburg was
cognisant of the conspiracy long before it was carried out, I cannot
understand.
"Why was Kazantseff not arrested after any of his murders? As you
know, he took part in the assassination of Herzenstein. Of this a
gendarme was eye-witness. He also arranged the plot against my life.
He had your friend Yollos shot in Moscow. Then he came back to
Petersburg to try again to have me killed. The authorities are
conversant with the intention and the endeavours to compass it. They
were also informed of the day, and yet they plead that they could do
nothing to bring the plot-weaver to justice! And when Kazantseff
himself was killed they feigned not to know who he was. Mark these
dates: on the 27th May (9th June) the murder of Kazantseff became
known, yet on the 15th/28th July the public prosecutor abandoned the
inquiry into the plots against my life. But the authorities knew all
about Kazantseff. They must have known, because it was in concert
with the League of the Russian People that he had Yollos shot. And
when he did this he was a detective agent; he was in receipt of a
salary from a government official, and he was living on a false
passport given to him by the secret police. In order to be able to
entrap impulsive young men he had been authorised to give {194}
himself out as a revolutionist, and in this capacity he enlisted some
unthinking lads to execute what he assured them were decrees of the
terrorist organisation.
"The plot to kill me was ingenious. Kazantseff betrayed a man named
Petroff and had him sent to Archangel. This Petroff had been a
member of the council of working men's deputies who, when I was
premier, wanted to arrest me, but all of whom I had arrested. If
Kazantseff's plan had put me out of existence, how would it have been
explained? Not as a reactionary, but as a revolutionary crime. The
authorities and their press would have pretended that Petroff had
escaped from his place of punishment in order to be avenged on me.
There would have been a tremendous outcry against 'those mad
revolutionists who would not spare even Count Witte.' Remember, all
this took place at the moment when you were telling me and an
unbelieving world that the second Duma was about to be dissolved.
You remember how your statement was denied first by Nelidoff, then by
the Finance Minister, Kokofftseff, and at last by the prime minister
himself, in spite of which you repeated after each denial the time
limit before which the Duma would cease to exist. Your prediction
was verified. An adequate pretext was needed for the coercive
measures then planned. A new electoral law, whittling down the
franchise, was being secretly drafted by Stolypin, but there was no
specious excuse for it. The murder of Witte by 'terrorists' would
have supplied one. And how much more stringent that bill would have
been if the murder of Witte had taken place in time and could have
been laid to the charge of those who were desirous of enlarging the
functions of the Duma!"
The chain of thought between what Witte expressed in this utterance
and what he inferred but left unsaid is sufficiently visible. He
often told me that he was convinced of the complicity of prominent
personages in the plot to kill him. When the official inquiry was at
last abandoned he read me a letter for Stolypin, the Premier, which
he had drafted, and after we had discussed its wording he had it
delivered. {195} He finally contrived to elicit the Tsar's opinion
on the matter. Of that I possess an exact copy.[10]
It was an emphatic assertion that ample justice had been done to
Witte, and that the Minister of Justice was right in quashing the
investigation.
In sooth that was the nearest approach to justice to which the
Tsarist State was capable of rising from the depths to which it then
had fallen. It was the perverted social and moral conceptions
embodied in those revolting methods of Azeff, Kazantseff, and their
exalted employers that quickened in men, even in ardent monarchists,
a puissant desire to have the country rescued at every cost from the
choking grip of this awful nightmare.
The regime having sophisticated the intelligence and debased the soul
of the people had come to be thus destructive of the foundation of
mutual trust. It encouraged private citizens to form associations
for the murder of eminent men of liberal tendencies. And several of
these were now in existence. Whatever stock of moral force Tsarism
may have had at the outset would seem to have been exhausted at the
close of the Manchurian campaign. And the differences in the
capacities of the various races and social classes of the community
for steady advance along the road of cultured thought and feeling
were by that time become too great, too fundamental, to warrant hope
from any organising policy with unity as one of its aims. The
Tsarist State was obviously condemned to die. With a genial
statesman like Witte at its head it might still, so to say, have
appealed from the sentence, but only with the empty hope of
prolonging life while the appeal was being argued. With Witte
immobilised it could only drift helplessly towards the abyss.
[1] I held one of them in my hands and carried it downstairs in
presence of Witte and of the chief police agent.
[2] On the 7th June, 1907.
[3] President of the Council of the Empire.
[4] On the 9th June, 1907.
[5] They were telegraphed by me to the _Daily Telegraph_.
[6] Shtsheglovitoff, the same minister who arranged the infamous
indictment of an innocent Jew for an imaginary ritual murder.
[7] I can confirm this assertion for I was present on some occasions
when Witte was warned. I once warned him myself.
[8] Von Launitz. He was himself assassinated in accordance with a
plot arranged by the head spy of the government, Azeff.
[9] A. A. Lopukhine.
[10] I am unable to say whether this judgment of the Emperor was
scribbled on Witte's remonstrance to Stolypin or on the report
submitted to him by the Minister of Justice. A complete account of
all the details is among my papers which for the moment are beyond my
reach. But the main point is the tenor of the Tsar's judgment, and
that I have reproduced.
{196}