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Title: The dawn in Russia
Author: Nevinson, Henry Woodd
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The dawn in Russia" ***
THE DAWN IN RUSSIA
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
NEIGHBOURS OF OURS
IN THE VALLEY OF TOPHET
THE THIRTY DAYS’ WAR BETWEEN GREECE AND TURKEY
LADYSMITH: THE DIARY OF A SIEGE
THE PLEA OF PAN
BETWEEN THE ACTS
A MODERN SLAVERY
[Illustration:
_Art Reproduction Co._
“PACIFICATION.”
THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW, CHRISTMAS, 1905.
From _Sulphur_ (_Jupel_).]
THE
DAWN IN RUSSIA
SCENES IN THE RUSSIAN
REVOLUTION
BY
HENRY W. NEVINSON
[Illustration]
_ILLUSTRATED_
LONDON AND NEW YORK
HARPER & BROTHERS
45 ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1906
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
PAGE
Summary of chief events since the outbreak of the Japanese
War, February 1904--Scandals of the War--Tolstoy’s
protest--The Königsberg case--Assassination of Bobrikoff
and Plehve--The Zemstvo Petition of Rights--The appearance
of the workman--Father Gapon--Petition to the Tsar--Bloody
Sunday--Trepoff--Assassination of Grand Duke Sergius--Promises
of a State Duma--Outbreak in the Caucasus--The
Moscow Zemstvoists--Death of Troubetskoy--End of the
Japanese War--The railway strike--The general strike--The
Manifesto of October 30, 1905--Restoration of Finland’s
liberties--Mutiny at Kronstadt--Refusal of Zemstvoists
to serve under Witte--Martial Law in Poland--Second
general strike declared--Its failure--Manifesto to
the Peasants 1
CHAPTER I
THE STRIKE COMMITTEE
The Hall of Free Economics--Description of Delegates--The
Women--The Executive--Khroustoloff--The Eight-hours’
Day--The Russian “Marseillaise”--Meeting against Capital
Punishment--Freedom in the balance--Beginnings of reaction--But
hope prevailed 25
CHAPTER II
THE WORKMEN’S HOME
The Schlüsselburg Road--The River--The People and the
Cossacks--Casual massacres--The Workmen’s Militia--The
Alexandrovsky ironworks--The mills--The hours of
labour--Wages--Prices and the standard of living--Standard
of work and food--Housing and rent--Washing--Holidays
and amusements--Connection of work-people
with villages--Passion for the land--The Peasant’s
Congress--The Sevastopol mutiny--The post and telegraph
strike 37
CHAPTER III
FATHER GAPON AGAIN
Meeting of December 4th--The Salt Town--Gapon’s
followers--Barashoff, the Chairman--The Hymn of the
Fallen--Russian music--Police spies--Russian
Oratory--Moderate demands of the Gaponists--Opposition
of the Social Democrats--Scarcity of Anarchists--Conversation
with Father Gapon--His apparent Nature--Charges of
Opportunism 50
CHAPTER IV
THE FREEDOM OF THE WORD
Effect of the post strike--Volunteer sorters--Epidemic of
strikes--Joy in public speaking--The power of speech--Sudden
outburst of newspapers--_The Russian Gazette_--_The New
Life_--_The Son of the Country_--_The Beginning_--_Our
Life_--_Russia_--The Jewish Papers--The Reactionary
Press--_Novoe Vremya_--_The Citizen_--_The Word_--The satiric
papers and Cartoons--Character of Russian satire--The Social
Revolutionists had no paper--Nor had the Radicals--The
dangers of division--The split in a Polish restaurant--The
joy of life--The assassination of Sakharoff--The protest
of the Strike Committee against Government finance--Arrest
of Khroustoloff and the Executive 60
CHAPTER V
THE OPEN LAND
The town of Toula--The road to the country--The travelling
peasant--The wayside inn--A country house--Landowners
at home--A typical village--A cottage
interior--The stove and the loom--Doubts on the Mir--A
beggar for scraps--Flogging for taxes--Tolstoy on the
End of an Age--How Empires will now cease--The aged
prophet--The restoration of the land--The rotting towns--New
ideals of statesmanship--Indifference to poets and
Shakespeare--The grace of sanctity and the limitations of
logic 81
CHAPTER VI
THE STATE OF MOSCOW
The return of the Army--How they were received--Fears and
hopes about their return--Would the soldiers obey?--The
Rostoff regiment--The Cossacks and the crowd--Instinct
of mutual aid--The post strike--Private assistance--Formation
of unions--The tea packers--The shop assistants--Failure
of gaiety--University closed--Lectures for
the Movement--Soldiers in revolt--The Zemstvoists--Miliukoff’s
paper--A Moscow factory--The barrack system--Wages--The post
strike and freedom of speech--Gorky on the rich and
educated--_The Children of the Sun_--The street murders 97
CHAPTER VII
THE OLD ORDER
St. Nicholas’ Day--Fears and expectations--The Black Hundred
Perils of night--The new Governor-General--The sacred
Banners--The crowd of worshippers--The procession--The
bishops and the Iberian Virgin--The Krasnaya--Incitements
to massacre--Appeal to Dubasoff--The stampede of the
patriots 120
CHAPTER VIII
THE DAYS OF MOSCOW--I
My start for the Caucasus--The railway strike begins--The
peasants on the train--General strike--Provisions cut
short--Friendly discussions with soldiers--A red flag
procession--A Cossack charge--Silence at night--Government
preparations--Revolutionists unwilling to rise--The
Government’s design to bring on the outbreak--The attack
on Fiedler’s house--Revolutionary force and arms--Reported
danger of English overseers--The guns begin--The district
of fighting--The revolutionary plan--The
barricades--Difficulties of the spectator in street
fighting--Interest of the crowd--Casualties begin--The red
cross--Assistance to the wounded--The Government guns 129
CHAPTER IX
THE DAYS OF MOSCOW--II
Reports of the revolution--Guns on the Theatre
Square--Explosion in a gun-shop--Increase in the
fighting--Sledges refuse the wounded--The merciful
soldier--A schoolboy killed--The revolutionist
position--The barricade forts--Barricades never held--The
revolutionist tactics--Varieties in barricade--The troops
protect their right flank--Barricades still growing--Police
in disguise 155
CHAPTER X
THE DAYS OF MOSCOW--III
The beginning of the end--My attempts at
photography--Unsuspected presence of revolutionists--Search
for revolvers--Labels for identification--Fresh fighting on
the Government’s left--But the main movement was
failing--Revolutionists appeal for volunteers--Official
estimate of casualties--Assassination of the chief of secret
police--The Sadovaya at dawn--The police receive rifles--The
barricades destroyed--Business resumed by order--Relief of
business people--Fighting continues in Presnensky
District--Mills held for the revolution--Arrival of the
Semenoffsky Guards--Bombardment of the district--The murder
of Dr. Vorobieff for assisting the wounded--The district from
the inside--Attempts to escape--End of the rising--Various
estimates of dead and wounded--The executions--The slaughter
of prisoners--The flogging of boys and girls--Christmas
Day--The ceremony in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour 169
CHAPTER XI
IN LITTLE RUSSIA
Results of the rising--Revolutionists claim some
success--Some gain in unity--But the movement lost
prestige--Hopes of winning over troops proved vain--Reasons
of this--Consequent elation of the Government--Hopes of a
new loan--Witte laments his lost faith--My journey to
Kieff--Harvest rotting on the platforms--Kieff as religious
centre--Pilgrimages to the catacombs--An intellectual
centre--Character of Little Russians--Their costume--No
thought of separation--Apprehension of Poles--The Little
Russian movement--The recent riots of Loyalists--Attack on
the British Consulate--Persecution of Jews--Crowded prisons
and typhus--The Black Earth--Grain as Russia’s chief
export--Poverty of the villages--Reasons for this--The
country districts quiet 198
CHAPTER XII
THE JEWS OF ODESSA
Joy over the Manifesto--Violent suppression--Trepoff and
Neidhart--The days of massacre--Present state of Jewish
quarters--Habits of Jews--Refusal of concealment--A type of
Israel--Attempts at relief--Difficulties of
organization--Flight of the rich and distress of their
parasites--Dockers and their poverty--The Constitutional
democrats--Their programme--The Jewish Bund--Jewish
disqualifications--The English Aliens Act 215
CHAPTER XIII
LIBERTY IN PRISON
Murder of the student Davidoff--Precautions for the
anniversary of Bloody Sunday--Strike Committee orders a
memorial of silence--The day on the Schlüsselberg
road--The Navy and telescopic sights--Silence in the
workmen’s districts--The Vampire and Freedom--Wholesale
arrests--Methods of imprisonment and sentence--The House of
Inquiry--A letter from prison--The Peter-Paul
fortress--Khroustoloff’s prison--The Cross
prison--Imprisonments and executions--Why Russia has no
Cromwell--The Schlüsselberg converted into a mint--Statistics
of suppression--The committee of ministers--Siberian exile
continued--Meetings of Constitutional Democrat
delegates--Their methods and programme--Their
leaders--Miliukoff still hopeful 228
CHAPTER XIV
THE PRIEST AND THE PEOPLE
Over the ice to Kronstadt--Father John and his shelter--The
service of the altar--His blessing--His miraculous life and
powers--His influence in reaction--A revolutionary
concert--The proletariat of intellect--Russian
democracy--The use of the parable--The bond of danger--The
advantage of tyranny 248
CHAPTER XV
A BLOODY ASSIZE
The Baltic Provinces--Lists of floggings and
executions--Vengeance of the German landowners--They are
weary of town life--Letts driven to execution--The Irish
of Russia--Character of the people--Their songs--Their
religion--Their buildings--Their isolated farms--Disaster
of Russification--The burning of country houses--“We have
condemned you to death”--Mixture of social and national
grievances--Refusal of Germans to appeal to Berlin--The
case of Pastor Bielenstein--A Lettish scholar--A rebel’s
funeral--The assize in the country--Executions ordered by
telephone--The case of a schoolmistress--Reprisals and
rescues 262
CHAPTER XVI
THE PARTIES OF POLAND
Polish tendency to division--The reactionary position
stated--Supposed beneficence of martial law--Suppression
good for Poles--Absurdities of Socialists and
Nationalists--Reconquest of Finland necessary--Poland
essential as barrier against Germany--The Polish
workman--Disasters in Polish trade--Loss of credit--The
landless labourers--Education--Wages--Rent--Polish
brides and demand for ancestral relics--The Realist
party--The National Democrats--A meeting to practice for
elections--A Nationalist programme--The Progressive
Democrats--The National Socialists--The Social
Democrats--The Proletariat Socialists--The Jewish
Bund--Attempts to influence the Army--Executions of
so-called Anarchists and Jews--The Warsaw citadel--Two
brave Jewesses 282
CHAPTER XVII
THE DRAMA OF FREEDOM
The struggle between Freedom and Oppression--The early
hopes--The Government’s uncertainty--The plot to overthrow
Freedom--Its apparent success--The new loan
secured--Difficulty of realizing the actual truth beneath
abstractions--Persistence of the revolution--Summary of
events--Finance and the elections--Execution of Lieutenant
Schmidt--Victory of the Constitutional Democrats--Germany
refuses to share in the loans, but France and England
subscribe largely--Resignation of Count Witte--Reported death
of Father Gapon--Attempt to assassinate Admiral
Dubasoff--Assassination of General Jeoltanowski--Fundamental
Law--New Ministers--Preparing for the Duma 301
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FIRST PARLIAMENT
Baleful prophecies--Provocations--Meeting of Constitutional
Democrats broken up by police--Ministerial
figureheads--Birthday of freedom--Trepoff’s
precautions--Ceremony in Winter Palace--The Old Order
confronted by the New--The Church intervenes--The Tsar’s
address--“Unwavering firmness,” and the “Necessity of
Order”--No promise of amnesty--Officials applaud--The people
silent--The cry of the prisoners--The Duma assembles in the
Taurida Palace--President elected by 426 to 3--Petrunkevitch
speaks first--The demand for amnesty--A languid afternoon in
the “Nobleman’s Assembly”--Golitzin greeted with holy
kisses--Witte and Durnovo side by side--Prayers and
compliments--The Duma at work--Taurida Palace closely
guarded--Difficulties about procedure--Drafting the reply to
the Tsar’s speech--An honourable impatience--Congratulations
from many lands--Telegrams from imprisoned
“politicals”--Russia’s representatives unanimous for
amnesty--Freedom and Justice versus Tradition and the Sword 317
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
“PACIFICATION.” THE KREMLIN OF MOSCOW, CHRISTMAS,
1905 _Frontispiece_
From _Sulphur_ (_Jupel_)
TO FACE PAGE
A DEMONSTRATION BY THE KAZAN CHURCH, ST. PETERSBURG 2
From _The Marseillaise_
“HOMUNCULUS” AND THE S.D. (SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC) RATS 12
From _Burelom_ (_The Storm_)
“AN AUTUMN IDYLL” 40
From _Sulphur_ (_Jupel_)
WITTE AND THE CONSTITUTION 72
From _Sprut_
PEASANT SLEDGES 80
A PRIVATE SLEDGE 80
TOLSTOY’S HOME 90
PEASANTS 90
TOLSTOY IN MIDDLE AGE 96
FIEDLER’S HOUSE 140
EFFECT OF SHELLS 140
A MINOR BARRICADE 146
A MILITARY POST AT MOSCOW 146
“GOD WITH US!” 152
From _Sprut_
BARRICADES ON THE SADOVAYA 162
“THE NEW ERA” 176
From _Sulphur_ (_Jupel_)
“INTERCOURSE IS RESUMED” 182
From _Streli_ (_Arrows_)
DUBASOFF’S ROLL CALL 194
From _Burelom_ (_The Storm_)
A LITTLE RUSSIAN 206
A TRAMP 206
A PEASANT’S HOME 212
THE LAVRA AT KIEFF 212
THE JEWS’ GRAVE AT ODESSA 216
AFTER THE MASSACRE 216
“I THINK SHE’S QUIET AT LAST” 232
From the _Vampyre_
1905–1906 300
From _Sulphur_ (_Jupel_)
PLAN OF MOSCOW 350
The design on the cover is from a cartoon in the Russian
revolutionary paper _Pulemet_ (_The Machine Gun_).
The illustrations are from Russian cartoons and from photographs,
most of which were taken by the author.
THE DAWN IN RUSSIA
OR
SCENES IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
INTRODUCTION
I have not attempted in this book to do more than describe some of the
scenes which I witnessed in Russia during the winter of 1905–1906,
while I was acting there as special correspondent for the _Daily
Chronicle_. For the most part, the descriptions are given in the
same words which I wrote down at the time, either for my own memory or
for the newspaper. But the whole has been re-arranged and rewritten,
while certain scenes have been added for which a daily paper has
no room. I have also inserted between the scenes a bare outline of
the principal events that were happening elsewhere, so that the
significance of what I saw may be more easily understood, and the dates
become something better than mere numbers.
But to realize the meaning of the earlier chapters, a further
introduction is necessary, and it is difficult to know where to begin.
For there is never any real break in a nation’s history from day to
day, and the movement of 1905 was not the first sign of change, but
only the brightest. The story of the undaunted struggle for freedom
in Russia during the last fifty years has been admirably told by
Stepniak, Kropotkin, Zilliacus, Miliukoff, and many other writers. In
books that are easily obtained, any one may learn the course of that
great movement--the changes in its aims and methods, the distinctions
in its parties, and the martyrdoms of its recorded heroes. So for this
present purpose of chronicling a few peculiar or unnoticed events and
situations which would hardly have a place in history at all, perhaps
it will be enough if I begin the skeleton annals with the outbreak of
the war between Russia and Japan in February, 1904.
[Illustration: A DEMONSTRATION BY THE KAZAN CHURCH, ST. PETERSBURG.
From _The Marseillaise_.]
It is true that for some time earlier the revolutionary movement
had obviously been gathering strength. Within two years there had
occurred outbreaks among the peasants, student risings in Moscow, and
a demonstration in front of the great classic building called the
Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg. Some soldiers at Toula had actually
refused to kill the work-people. The Zemstvos, or District Councils of
landowners and upper-middle classes, had ventured to recommend economic
reforms, and a student from Kieff had assassinated Sipiaguine, the
Minister of the Interior. To counteract these evils, heightened by
a period of industrial depression, Plehve had been promoted from the
Governorship of Finland to the Ministry of the Interior; a manifesto
had been issued (March 12, 1903), removing the responsibility of the
village communes for individual taxation, and promoting religious
toleration; and the Jews of Kishineff had been massacred, with the
connivance of the Government, and probably at its direct instigation
(April 20, 1903). The Armenian Church in the Caucasus was deprived
of £3,000,000 of its funds, the public debt of Russia rose to
£700,000,000, about half of the interest on which had to be paid to
foreign countries, and Witte was appointed President of the Committee
of Ministers, while his assistant Pleske succeeded him in what was then
regarded as the far more important position of the Ministry of Finance.
It was obvious that the Government--which we may call Tsardom or
Oligarchy as we please--had in any case entered upon the way to
destruction, and that the revolution was already at work. Indeed, the
Social Democrats had met in secret in 1903, and published a “minimum
programme” demanding a Republic under universal adult suffrage. But
still the disastrous war with Japan hastened these tendencies, and its
outbreak may conveniently be taken to mark a period, for the dates of
wars are definite and the results quick.
The course of that ruinous campaign, unequalled, I suppose, in history
for the uninterrupted succession of its disasters, need not concern
us now. It wasted many millions of money, borrowed by a country which
is naturally and inevitably poor. It revealed an incompetence in the
ruling classes worse than our own in South Africa, together with a
corruption and a heartlessness of greed compared to which even the
scandals of South Africa seemed rather less devilish. It kept from
their work in fields and factories about a million grown men, who had
to be fed and clothed, however badly, by the rest of the population,
and it killed or maimed some two or three hundred thousand of them.
Otherwise the war can hardly be said to have concerned the Russian
people any more than ourselves, so general was their indifference
both to its cause and to its failure. “It is not our war, it is the
Government’s affair,” was the common saying. Tolstoy is a prophet,
and the mark of a prophet is that he speaks with the voice of God
and not with the voice of the people; but in his protest against the
war (published in the _Times_ of June 27, 1904) he uttered a
denunciation of the Government with which nearly the whole of Russia’s
population would have agreed. Of the head of that Government himself,
he wrote:--
“The Russian Tsar, the same man who exhorted all the nations in
the cause of peace, publicly announces that, notwithstanding
all his efforts to maintain the peace so dear to his heart
(efforts which express themselves in the seizing of other
people’s lands and in the strengthening of armies for the
defence of those stolen lands), he, owing to the attack of the
Japanese, commands that the same should be done to the Japanese
as they had begun doing to the Russians--namely, that they
should be slaughtered; and in announcing this call to murder he
mentions God, asking the Divine blessing on the most dreadful
crime in the world. This unfortunate and entangled young man,
recognized as the leader of 130,000,000 of people, continually
deceived and compelled to contradict himself, confidently thanks
and blesses the troops which he calls his own for murder in
defence of lands which he calls his own with still less right.”
While the myth of Russia’s military and naval power--a myth which
for fifty years had misguided England’s foreign policy, checked any
generous impulse on the part of our statesmen, and driven them to
breach of national faith, callousness towards outrageous cruelty,
and every moral humiliation that a proud and ancient people can
suffer--while this overwhelming myth was being dissipated month by
month in the Far East, the characteristic methods by which the Russian
Tsar and Oligarchs sought to maintain their hold upon the wealth and
privileges of State were being revealed in the so-called Königsberg
case. It was discovered that even in a foreign capital like Berlin, the
Russian Government employed a little army of spies, under a recognized
and highly-paid official, to search the homes of Russian Liberals, to
watch their goings, and open their letters. It was also shown that,
even under a comparatively civilized government like the German,
the authorities were ready to bring their own subjects to trial for
alleged verbal attacks upon the Tsar; while a Russian Consul, probably
in obedience to orders from home, would tell any lie and garble any
document to support the charge.
On June 17th the air was cleared by the assassination of General
Bobrikoff, the Russian tyrant of Finland, and on July 8th that deed
was followed by the assassination of Plehve. In all the history of
political murder, I suppose, there has never been a case in which the
victim received less pity, or the crime less condemnation. The pitiless
hand of reaction was for the moment stayed. The birth of an heir to the
uneasy crown inspired the Tsar with such amiability that, as father
of his people, he abolished the punishment of flogging among his
grown-up subjects. Prince Sviatopolk Mirski, who was justly regarded as
something of a Liberal as princes go, succeeded Plehve at the Interior,
released some political prisoners, advocated decentralization with the
development of the Zemstvos, and promised better education, liberty of
conscience, and freedom of speech.
Again the Zemstvoists, taking their courage as moderate Liberals
in both hands, met secretly in St. Petersburg, and drew up a kind
of Petition of Rights to be presented to the Tsar. There were one
hundred and six members present at the secret conferences, thirty-six
of them belonging to the caste of the nobility, and their Petition
began with the complaint that the bureaucracy had alienated the people
from the Throne, and that by its distrust of self-government it had
shown itself entirely out of touch with the people. In place of the
bureaucratic system, the Petition demanded an elected Legislature of
two Houses, together with freedom of conscience, the press, meeting,
and association, equal civil and political rights for all classes and
races, and similar methods of justice for the peasants as for other men.
The Zemstvo petition was issued on November 22, 1904. A month later
(December 26th) it was repeated in still more direct and urgent terms
by the Moscow Zemstvo, which had always taken the lead in reform, being
inspired by its President, Prince Sergius Troubetzkoy, Professor of
Philosophy in the University since 1888. But, in the meantime, student
riots had again occurred in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the censorship
had been renewed, and on the same day as the Moscow petition there
appeared an Imperial manifesto proclaiming “the unshakable foundations
of the Russian State system, consecrated by the fundamental laws of
the Empire,” and announcing the Tsar’s determination to act always in
accordance with the revered will of his crowned predecessor, while he
thought unceasingly upon the welfare of the realm entrusted to him by
God. The manifesto went on to admit that when the need of this or that
change had been proved to be mature, the Tsar was willing to take it
into consideration, and upon this principle he undertook to maintain
the laws, to give local institutions as wide a scope as possible, to
unify judicial procedure throughout the Empire, to establish State
insurance of workmen, and to revise the laws upon political crime,
religious offences, and the press. But the tone of the whole manifesto
was felt to be reactionary, and there was no guarantee that its
promises would be observed. When our own Charles I. made concessions,
the people shouted, “We have the word of a King!” But they soon found
that assurance was a shifty thing to trust to, and since then the words
of kings have counted for no more than the words of men.
But the opening of the next year (1905) was marked by the appearance
of a new element in revolution. Certainly, there had been strikes and
riots in the great cities before; there had been peasant risings and
other forms of economic agitation in various parts. But as a whole the
revolutionary movement as such had been inspired, directed, and even
carried out by the educated classes--the students, the journalists, the
doctors, barristers, and other professional men. It had been almost
limited to that great division of society which in Russia is called
“The Intelligence.” The word is fairly well represented by our phrase
“educated classes”--a phrase which embodies our greatest national
shame. It includes all who are not workmen or peasants, and so is much
wider in significance than the French term “The Intellectuals,” with
which it is often confused. In England, for instance, it would include
the House of Lords, the clergy, army officers, country gentlemen, and
the leaders of society whom no Frenchman would dream of classing among
the intellectual.
It was “the Intelligence” who hitherto had fought for the revolution.
It was they who had suffered scourgings and exile and imprisonment and
madness and violation and the gallows in the name of freedom. It was
they who had endured the horror that most people feel in killing a man.
And, above all, it was they who had devoted their lives, their careers,
and reputations to going about among the peasants and working-people
to show them that the misery and terror under which they lived were
neither necessary nor universal. At length the firstfruits of their
toilsome propaganda, continued through forty years, were seen, and the
revolutionary workman appeared.
He was ushered in by Father George Gapon, at that time a rather
simple-hearted priest, with a rather childlike faith in God and the
Tsar, and a certain genius for organization. His personal hold upon the
working classes was probably due to their astonishment that a priest
should take any interest in their affairs, outside their fees. We have
seen the same thing happen in England, when Manning and Westcott won
the reverence due to saints because they displayed some feeling for the
flock which they were paid large sums to protect. Father Gapon, with
his thin line of genius for organization, had gathered the workmen’s
groups or trade unions of St. Petersburg into a fairly compact body,
called “The Russian Workmen’s Union,” of which he was President as
well as founder. In the third week in January the men at the Putiloff
iron works struck because two of their number had been dismissed for
belonging to their union. At once the Neva iron and ship-building
works, the Petroffsky cotton works, the Alexander engine works, the
Thornton cloth works, and other great factories on the banks of the
river or upon the industrial islands joined in the strike, and in two
days some 100,000 work-people were “out.”
With his rather childlike faith in God and the Tsar, Father Gapon
organized a dutiful appeal of the Russian workmen to the tender-hearted
autocrat whose benevolence was only thwarted by evil counsellors and
his ignorance of the truth. The petition ran as follows:--
“We workmen come to you for truth and protection. We have
reached the extreme limits of endurance. We have been exploited,
and shall continue to be exploited under your bureaucracy.
“The bureaucracy has brought the country to the verge of ruin
and by a shameful war is bringing it to its downfall. We have
no voice in the heavy burdens imposed on us. We do not even
know for whom or why this money is wrung from the impoverished
people, and we do not know how it is expended. This is contrary
to the Divine laws, and renders life impossible. It is better
that we should all perish, we workmen and all Russia. Then good
luck to the capitalists and exploiters of the poor, the corrupt
officials and robbers of the Russian people!
“Throw down the wall that separates you from your people. Russia
is too great and her needs are too various for officials to
rule. National representation is essential, for the people alone
know their own needs.
“Direct that elections for a constituent assembly be held by
general secret ballot. That is our chief petition. Everything is
contained in that.
“If you do not reply to our prayer, we will die in this square
before your palace. We have nowhere else to go. Only two paths
are open to us--to liberty and happiness or to the grave. Should
our lives serve as the offering of suffering Russia, we shall
not regret the sacrifice, but endure it willingly.”
On the morning of Sunday, January 22, 1905, about 15,000 working men
and women formed into a procession to carry this petition to the Tsar
in his Winter Palace upon the great square of government buildings.
They were all in their Sunday clothes; many peasants had come up from
the country in their best embroideries; they took their children with
them. In front marched Father Gapon and two other priests wearing
vestments. With them went the ikons, or holy pictures of shining
brass and silver, and a portrait of the Tsar. As the procession moved
along, they sang, “God save our people. God give our Orthodox Tsar the
victory.”
So the Russian workmen made their last appeal to the autocrat whom they
called their father. They would lay their griefs before him, they would
see him face to face, they would hear his comforting words.
But the father of his people had disappeared into space.
As the procession entered the square, the soldiers fired volley after
volley upon them from three sides. The estimate of the killed and
wounded was about 1500. That Sunday--January 9th in Russian style--is
known as Bloody Sunday or Vladimir’s Day, after the Grand Duke
Vladimir, who was supposed to have given the orders.
Next morning Father Gapon wrote to his Union: “There is no Tsar now.
Innocent blood has flowed between him and the people.”
[Illustration: “HOMUNCULUS” AND THE S. D. (SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC) RATS.
From _Burelom_ (_The Storm_).]
Innocent blood has flowed before and tyrants still have reigned. They
have been feared, they have won their way, and men have served them.
Mankind will endure much in the name of government, but to be
governed by a coward is almost beyond the endurance of man.
On January 24th a new office of Governor-General of St. Petersburg was
created, and Trepoff received the first appointment.
Disturbances continued in Warsaw, Lodz, and Sosnowice, the industrial
centres of Poland, and on January 31st 200 work-people were killed and
600 wounded in the streets of Warsaw.
On February 17th the Grand Duke Sergius, Governor-General of Moscow,
uncle to the Tsar, conspicuous for his cruelty, and, even among the
Russian aristocracy, renowned for the peculiarity of his vices, was
assassinated as he drove into the Kremlin.
This event and other outbreaks that were continually occurring in the
great centres of industry, inspired a remarkable manifesto and rescript
that appeared on March 3rd and were characteristic of the hesitating
fugitive in Tsarkoe Selo. The manifesto took the form of a pathetic
address to the people whom he had misgoverned with such disaster:--
“Disturbances have broken out in our country” (it said) “to the
joy of our enemies and our own deep sorrow. Blinded by pride,
the evil-minded leaders of the revolutionary movement make
insolent attacks upon the Holy Orthodox Church and the lawfully
established pillars of the Russian State....
“We humbly bear the trial sent us by Providence, and derive
strength and consolation from our firm trust in the grace
which God has always shown to the Russian power, and from the
immemorial devotion which we know our loyal people entertain for
the Throne....
“Let all those rally round the Throne who, true to Russia’s
past, honestly and conscientiously have a care for all the
affairs of the State such as we have ourselves.”
In the rescript that followed on the same day a form of Legislative
Assembly was promised in these words--
“I am resolved henceforth, with the help of God, to convene
the worthiest men, possessing the confidence of the people
and elected by them, to participate in the elaboration and
consideration of legislative measures.”
Buliguine, who had now succeeded Mirski as Minister of the Interior,
and was probably the author of the rescript, was appointed to organize
the elections. But a counterblast of reaction swept over the distracted
Tsar; Trepoff was made Assistant-Minister of the Interior and Chief of
the Police, with full power to forbid all congresses, associations,
or meetings, and Buliguine resigned, though he remained nominally in
office till the end of October.
Outbreaks in the country became continually more serious. In June there
was fierce rioting in Lodz, the great manufacturing town of Poland, and
in the Baltic port of Libau. In the same month the great battleship
_Potemkin_ of the Black Sea fleet mutinied at Odessa, threw two
big shells into the town, burnt the docks, and steamed away to the
mouth of the Danube for refuge.
Mid-August brought another manifesto, which began with the usual
precepts of maudlin falsehood--
“The Empire of Russia is formed and strengthened by the
indestructible solidarity of the Tsar with the people and the
people with the Tsar. The concord and union of the Tsar and the
people are a great moral force, which has created Russia in the
course of centuries by protecting her from all misfortunes and
all attacks, and has constituted up to the present time a pledge
of unity, independence, integrity, material well-being, and
intellectual development.
“Autocratic Tsars, our ancestors, constantly had that object in
view, and the time has come to follow out their good intentions
and to summon elected representatives from the whole of Russia
to take a constant and active part in the elaboration of laws,
attaching for this purpose to the higher State institutions
a special consultative body, entrusted with the preliminary
elaboration and discussion of measures, and with the examination
of the State Budget.
“It is for this reason that, while preserving the fundamental
law regarding autocratic power, we have deemed it well to form a
State Duma, and to approve regulations for the elections to this
Duma.”
This consultative Duma was to lay its proposals before the Council of
State, which might submit them to the Tsar if it approved. The Duma
was to meet not later than January, 1906, and was to consist of 412
members, representing 50 governments and the military province of the
Don, only 28 of the members representing towns. The members were to
be paid £1 a day and fares, and were to sit for five years, unless the
Tsar chose to dissolve them. Their meetings were to be secret, except
that the President might admit the Press if he chose.
On September 7th a race-feud broke out between the Mohammedan Tartars
and the Armenians at Baku, on the Caspian, and spread to Tiflis and
all along the southern slopes of the Caucasus. The destruction of the
great oil-works at Baku involved a loss of many millions of pounds, and
further embarrassed the railways and manufacturing districts, which
depended almost entirely on naphtha for their fuel.
On September 25th an assembly of 300 representatives of the Zemstvos of
the empire was gathered in a private house at Moscow to consider their
attitude towards the promised Duma, which was regarded as a concession
to their previous representations during the year. They recognized that
the Duma of the August manifesto would not be either a representative
or legislative assembly, but, regarding it as a possible rallying-point
for the general movement towards freedom, they agreed to obtain as many
seats as possible, so as to form a united group of advanced opinion.
They further drew up a programme of their political aims, including
the formation of a National Legislative Assembly; a regular budget
system; the abolition of passports; equal rights for all citizens,
including peasants; equal responsibility of all officials and private
citizens before the law; the liberation of the villager from the petty
official (natchalnik); inviolability of person and home; and freedom of
conscience, speech, press, meeting, and association.
The programme is important, as indicating what to the average Liberal
politician in England would appear the most obvious abuses of the
Russian system, because nothing is here demanded which has not long
ago been obtained for our own country by the efforts of our upper and
middle classes in the past.
As soon as the assembly broke up, Prince Sergius Troubetzkoy, the true
leader of these Liberal or Zemski delegates, the President of the
Moscow Zemstvo, and for a month past the Rector of the University, went
to St. Petersburg to urge the Government to allow public meetings,
and while speaking on behalf of free speech at the Ministry of Public
Education, he suddenly died. He was only forty-three, and it is
tempting to speak of him as the first of the Girondists to fall. But
all through what I have seen in Russia, I have avoided even a mental
reference to the French Revolution as carefully as I could. For history
is a great hindrance in judging the present or the future.
The manifesto of October 19th, announcing the final conclusion of the
peace with Japan, by which the Russian Government was compelled to
abandon all for which it had striven during many years in the Far East,
was hardly noticed in the gathering excitement of the days.
On October 21st, the workmen again appeared unexpectedly upon the
scene, and delivered their first telling blow by declaring a general
railway strike. The strength of the movement was that it disorganized
trade, made the capitalist and commercial classes very uncomfortable,
and, above all, that it prevented the Government from sending troops
rapidly to any particular point of disturbance. The weakness was that,
as in all strikes, the strikers were threatened with starvation while
their employers suffered only discomfort; that the peasants, being
unable to get their produce to market, began to regard the revolution
with suspicion; and that the Government succeeded in running a military
train between St. Petersburg and Moscow (only a ten hours’ journey)
nearly all the time.
The objects of the strikers were in the main political, as could be
seen from the demands presented to Witte by a deputation on October
24th--
“The claims of the working classes must be settled by laws
constituted by the will of the people and sanctioned by all
Russia. The only solution is to announce political guarantees
for freedom and the convocation of a Constituent Assembly,
elected by direct, universal, and secret suffrage. Otherwise the
country will be forced into rebellion.”
To this petition Witte’s reply was peculiarly characteristic--
“A Constituent Assembly is for the present impossible. Universal
suffrage would, in fact, only give pre-eminence to the richest
classes, because they could influence all the voting by their
money. Liberty of the press and of public meeting will be
granted very shortly. I am myself strongly opposed to all
persecution and bloodshed, and I am willing to support the
greatest amount of liberty possible.... But there is not in
the entire world a single cultivated man who is in favour of
universal suffrage.”
Undeterred by any fear of exclusion from the circle of culture,
the workmen continued their demands for universal suffrage and
a Constituent Assembly, and on October 26th the Central Strike
Committee--or Council of Labour Delegates, as it was properly
called--sitting in St. Petersburg, declared a general strike throughout
Russia. About a million workers came out.
This was the second workmen’s blow, and it shook Tsardom from top to
bottom.
Four days after the beginning of the strike, the famous Manifesto of
October 30th (17th in Old Style) was issued, promising personal freedom
and a constitution. The document began with the harmless necessary
cant--
“The troubles and agitations in our capitals and numerous other
places fill our heart with great and painful sorrow.... The
sorrow of the people is the sorrow of the sovereign.... We
therefore direct our Government to carry out our inflexible will
in the following manner:--
“I. To grant to our people the immutable foundations of civil
liberty, based on real inviolability of person, and freedom of
conscience, speech, union, and association.
“II. Without deferring the elections to the State Duma already
ordered, to call to participation in the Duma (as far as is
possible in view of the shortness of time before the Duma
assembles) those classes of the population now completely
deprived of electoral rights, leaving the ultimate development
of the principle of electoral right in general to the newly
established legislature.
“III. To establish it as an immutable rule that no law can ever
come into force without the approval of the State Duma, and that
it shall be possible for the elected of the people to exercise
a real participation in supervising the legality of the acts of
authorities appointed by us.”
This manifesto was greeted by an outburst of joy unequalled in the
melancholy annals of Russia. Righteousness and peace kissed each other
upon the streets; and so did professors, students, and even working
people. Red flags paraded the squares, generals saluted them, soldiers
joined in the Marseillaise of labour. But the Central Strike Committee
was not overcome by the general hallucination. They rightly refused to
trust the Tsar without guarantees, and they continued to press their
demands for a political amnesty and the convocation of a Constituent
Assembly. They also demanded the restoration of its old liberties to
Finland, and the dismissal of Trepoff. When anti-Jewish riots broke out
at Kieff, Warsaw, and especially at Odessa, they steadily and justly
maintained that the “Black Hundred” or “Hooligans” of the massacre and
pillage were encouraged by the police and the priests, who wished to
make out that the Russian people were opposed to political liberties.
The panic of the Government continued. They could not measure the
strength of this new force among the work-people, or of this new
instrument, the general strike. They were uncertain, also, about the
army, which, together with the police and officials, formed their sole
protection from ruin. Pobiedonostzeff, the aged Procurator of the Holy
Synod, and the embodiment of an obstinate and narrow tyranny in Church
and State, resigned. On November 4th, an amnesty was proclaimed for
political offenders, though certain qualifications and categories were
added.
On the same day a manifesto restored the old liberties of Finland,
abolishing the decree of February 15, 1899, by which the autocratic
principle, the dictatorship, and the employment of Russian gendarmes
had been imposed upon the duchy contrary to its original constitution,
and repealing also the military law of July 12, 1901, which compelled
recruits to serve outside their own country.
On November 9th Trepoff sent in his resignation, and Durnovo, since
infamous for his brutality, took office. The same day a violent but
ill-considered mutiny broke out among the sailors and gunners at
Kronstadt.
From that moment the Government began to recover courage, and we may
mark the gradual revival of reaction. Perhaps it was immediately due
to the refusal of the Liberal Zemstvoists to take part in a ministry
under Witte, unless the promises of the manifesto were guaranteed,
and a Constituent Assembly convened. In any case the change was quite
apparent in a manifesto of November 12th, declaring the present
situation unsuitable for the introduction of reforms, which would only
be possible when the country was pacified.
Next day a ukase proclaimed martial law in Poland, and excluded that
country from the manifesto, on the pretence that the Poles were
plotting against the integrity of the Russian Empire by establishing a
separate nation of their own.
The Central Strike Committee answered this ukase on the morrow
(November 14th) by declaring another general strike in sympathy with
Poland, and Witte, on his side, retaliated by posting an appeal to the
work-people, conceived in his most unctuous and fatherly style. It ran--
“Brothers! Workmen! Go back to your work and cease from
disorder. Have pity on your wives and children, and turn a deaf
ear to mischievous counsels. The Tsar commands us to devote
special attention to the labour question, and to that end has
appointed a Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which will
establish just relations between masters and men. Only give us
time, and I will do all that is possible for you. Pay attention
to the advice of a man who loves you and wishes you well.”
This appeal was immediately followed (November 17th) by a manifesto to
the peasants, reducing their payments for the use of land by one-half
after January, 1906, and abolishing it altogether after January,
1907. These payments were still being made under the land settlement
that followed the emancipation of the serfs in the early sixties, and
their nominal value to the Government was seven million pounds a year.
But the apparent generosity of the remission is diminished by the
consideration that the peasants had already paid the economic value of
the land many times over, and pressure could still be brought upon them
to make up the heavy arrears due to successive famines.
Three days later (November 20th), the Central Strike Committee declared
the strike at an end. This second general strike was felt to have
been a failure. People and funds were still exhausted by the first.
Comparatively few of the great factories came out; the object of the
strike was too remote from the workman’s daily life to persuade him to
endure the starvation of his family for it. So the strike failed. It
produced nothing; it did not frighten or paralyse the Government.
Nevertheless, the Strike Committee remained the most powerful body
of men in the Empire, and their order commanding the cessation of
the strike called hopefully upon the working classes to continue the
revolutionary propaganda in the army, and to organize themselves into
military forces “for the final encounter between all Russia and the
bloody monarchy now dragging out its last few days.”
Such was the situation when, on November 21st I landed at the
revolutionary little port of Reval, and went on to St. Petersburg by
the first train which had run since the strike ended.
CHAPTER I
THE STRIKE COMMITTEE
Away in the western quarter of St. Petersburg, at some distance from
the fashionable centre, stands a rather decrepit hall of debased
classic. In England one would have put it down to George II.’s time,
but in St. Petersburg everything looks fifty years older than it is,
because fashions used to travel slowly there from France. Among the
faded gilding of stucco pilasters and allegorical emblems of the
virtues and the arts, are hung the obscure portraits of long-forgotten
men--philosophers, governors, and generals--who were of importance
enough in their day to be painted for the remembrance of posterity.
Glaringly fresh among the others hangs the portrait of the hesitating
gentleman whom the accident of birth has left Autocrat of Russia,
whether he likes it or not. The hall was dedicated to the discussion
of “Free Economics” by some scientific body, but never before had
economics been discussed there with such freedom as during those
November nights when the Central Strike Committee, or Council of Labour
Delegates, chose it for their meetings.
Admission was by ticket only, and I obtained mine from a revolutionary
compositor, hairy as John the Baptist, and as expectant of a glory to
be revealed. On the first night that I went, the big chamber, with its
ante-room half separated by plaster columns, was crowded with working
people. So was the entrance hall, where goloshes are left, in Russian
fashion, so that the floors may not be dirtied. Some of the men wore
the ordinary dingy clothes of English or European factory-hands, making
all as like as earwigs. Some had come dressed in the national pink
shirt, with embroidered flowers or patterns down the front and round
the collar. But most wore the common Russian blouse of dark brown
canvas, buttoned up close to the neck, and gathered round the waist by
a leather belt.
Many women were there, too, but as a rule they were not working women
from the mills. Some may have been artisans or the wives of artisans,
but most were evidently journalists, doctors, or students, from the
intellectual middle classes, which in Russia produces the woman
revolutionist--the woman who has played so fine a part in the long
struggle of the past, and was now elated above human happiness by
the hope of victory. For Russian women enjoy a working equality and
comradeship with men, whether in martyrdom or in triumph, such as no
other nation has yet realized.
The workmen were delegates from the various trades of the capital
and some of the provinces--railway men, textile hands, iron workers,
timber workers, and others. About five hundred of them had been chosen,
and each delegate represented about five hundred other workers. But
round the long green table in the middle of that decrepit hall, under
the eyes of the hesitating little Tsar’s portrait, sat the chosen few
whom the delegates had appointed as their executive committee. Between
twenty and thirty of them were there--men of a rather intellectual type
among workers, a little raised above the average, either by education
or natural power. A few wore some kind of collar, a few showed the
finest type of Russian head--the strong, square forehead and chin, the
thoughtful and melancholy eyes, the straight nose, not very broad, and
the dense masses of long hair all standing on end. A few seemed to be
bred just a trifle too fine for their work, as dog-fanciers say. There
they sat and spoke and listened--the members of that Strike Committee
which had won fame in a month--just a handful of unarmed and unlearned
men, who had shaken the strongest and most pitiless despotism in the
world.
In the middle, along one side of the table, was their president, the
compositor Khroustoloff--or Nosar, as his real name was--a man of about
thirty-five, pale, grey-eyed, with long fair hair, not a strong-looking
man, but worn with excitement and sleeplessness. For there was no time
now for human needs, and his edge of collar was crumpled and twisted
like an old rag. Yet he controlled an excited and inexperienced meeting
with temper and ease, showing sometimes a sudden flicker of laughter
for which there is very little room in Russian life. Neither for
sleep, nor human needs, nor laughter, was there time, but in front of
Khroustoloff and of all those men lay the prison or the grave, and in
them there is always time enough.
That night, as long as I was there, the meeting was occupied with the
discussion of the eight-hours’ day. One of the executive read out
the reports received from all the factories represented by delegates
as to the hours of labour at present. In some cases, the masters had
conceded an eight-hours’ day after the first strike. In others, they
had come down to nine, in others to ten. Most had absolutely refused a
reduction. These reports, though monotonous and many, were listened to
with the silence that characterizes a Russian meeting. It was broken
only now and then by a little laughter or a murmur of anger. I have
never heard a Russian speaker interrupted even by applause.
The evening before I had attended a meeting where a dull but deserving
speaker, to whom no one wanted to listen, went on for an hour and
twenty minutes in a silence like an African forest’s, with only
an occasional whisper of breezy dresses as the audience changed
their position at the end of some uninteresting clause. Ages of
dumb suffering have given these people the interminable patience of
mountains, and a public meeting is so new to them that they find a
fearful pleasure in speeches which our free-born electors would howl
down in three minutes. Any meeting of British trade-unionists would
have polished off the Strike Committee’s business in an hour, but when
I came away, though it was past two in the morning and the meeting had
begun at six in the afternoon, the discussion was still proceeding
with healthy vigour, and there were plenty of other subjects of equal
importance still to be settled. The Committee, in fact, sat almost in
permanence night and day.
As soon as the reports were all read, the executive gathered up
their papers and adjourned into an upper room to consider their
decision. During their absence, the other delegates broke up into
groups according to trades, for the discussion of their own affairs.
Standing on a chair, a man would shout, “Weavers, this way, please!”
“Engineers, here!” or “Railway-men, this way!” and the various workers
clustered round in swarms. A fine hum of business arose, and a buzz
of conversation with outbursts of laughter too, for all spirits still
were high with success and the confidence of victory. At last, as
the executive remained over an hour in conference, a yellow-haired
young workman with a voice like the Last Trumpet, raised the Russian
“Marseillaise,” and in a moment the room was sounding to the hymn of
freedom. Russian words--rather vague and rhetorical words--have been
set to the old French tune, and even the tune has been altered at the
end of the chorus, to make room for the words, “Forward, forward,
forward!” which come in suddenly, like the beating of a drum. It was
sung in all the streets of all the cities, but I heard it first in the
midst of German territory, upon the Kiel canal. For as I was coming
over, the only passenger upon the Russian boat, we met an emigrant ship
bound for the refuge of freedom, as England still was at that time, and
at the sight of our Russian flag the emigrants all burst into the song,
the men waving their hats and the women their babes in defiance.
After the “Marseillaise,” the workmen turned to national songs, one
of which was almost as magnificent, and was touched with the immense
sorrow of Russia. All had one burden--the hatred of tyrants, the love
of freedom, the willingness to die for her sake. To us, such phrases
have come to bear an unreal and antiquated sound, for it is many
centuries since England enjoyed a real tyranny, and the long comfort
of freedom has made us slack and indifferent to evil. But in Russia
both tyranny and revolt are genuine and alive, and at any moment a man
or woman may be called upon to prove how far the love of freedom will
really take them on the road to death.
A few days before this workmen’s meeting, I had been at an assembly
of the educated classes to protest against capital punishment. One
speaker--a professor of famous learning--was worn and twisted by long
years of Siberian exile. He was the worst speaker present, but it
was he who received the deep thunder of applause. Another had, with
Russian melancholy, devoted his life to compiling an immense history of
assassination by the State. Before he began to speak, he announced that
he was going to read the list of those who had been executed for their
love of freedom since the time of Nicholas I. Instantly the whole great
audience rose in silence and remained standing in silence while a man
might count a hundred. It was as when a regiment drinks in silence to
fallen comrades. But few regiments have fought for a cause so noble,
and few for a cause in which the survivors still ran so great a risk.
The executive returned from their consultation, and at once the
meeting was quiet. President Khroustoloff, in a clear and reasonable
statement, announced that, in the opinion of the executive, a fresh
general strike on the eight-hours’ question would at present be a
mistake. The eight-hours’ day was an ideal to be kept before them;
they must allow no master who had once granted it to go back on his
word; they must urge the others forward, little by little, and in the
meanwhile organize and combine till they could confront both capitalism
and autocracy with assurance. Another member of the executive spoke
in support of this decision, and then the delegates of the opposite
party had their turn. It was the old difference between the responsible
opportunist, who takes what he can get, and the man of the ideal, who
will take nothing if he cannot have all. The idealists pointed to
the evident intention of Witte’s Government to thwart the workmen’s
advance. They pointed, with good reason, to the gradual renewal of
police persecution during the last few days, and to the encouragement
given to masters who declared a lock-out. They urged that it was best
to fight before the common enemy regained his full power, and that
the general strike, so efficient before, was still the only weapon
the workmen had. It was all true. Yet the recent strike had almost
failed, and it was just because a general strike was the workmen’s only
weapon that it should be sparingly used. A second failure within a
fortnight would show the Government that freedom’s only weapon was not
so dangerous after all. In the end the executive had its way; they were
supported by three hundred votes against twenty; and there could be no
question of the wisdom. The weapon of a general strike is too powerful
to be brought out, except for some special and all-important crisis. It
is like an ancient king, more feared when little seen.
Freedom at that moment was just hanging in the balance. One almost
heard the grating of the scales as very slowly the balance began to
swing back again. Already things were not quite so hopeful as they had
been, and many good revolutionists spoke of the future with foreboding.
The first fine rapture of liberty was over, and people who had eagerly
proclaimed themselves Liberals three weeks before, now began to feel in
their pockets, to hesitate and look round. In subdued whispers commerce
sighed for Trepoff back again, and the ancient security of a merchant’s
goods. They pretended terror of peasant outbreaks, and the violence of
“Black Hundred” mobs, organized by the police just to show the dangers
of reform. But it was reform itself that they dreaded, and the name of
Socialism was more terrible to them than the tyranny.
Day by day the police were becoming active again. As family men with
a stake in the country, they could not be expected to see their
occupation taken from them without a struggle. They had the same
interest in the ancient _régime_ as the Russian aristocracy in
Paris or Cannes; and for their livelihood the misery of the people was
equally essential. Whenever they dared, they planted themselves in
front of the doors and drove the audience away from a meeting; and
the audience had to go, for except to bombs and revolvers there was
no appeal. Every day I watched the police hounding groups of tattered
and starving peasants or workmen along the streets, because they had
ventured to come to St. Petersburg without passports, and had to be
imprisoned till a luggage train could take them back to their starving
homes. In spite of the manifesto, the censor of the post-office was
active again. It is a terrible thing for a civil servant to feel that
his work does not justify his pay. So the censor blacked out a cartoon
in _Punch_ representing the Tsar as hesitating between good and
evil, and then he felt he could look the world in the face.
Already the people recognized that as yet they had no guarantee of
freedom. As long as the Oligarchs controlled the police and the army,
freedom existed only on sufferance. No one knew what the army would do,
and no one knew what the fighting power of the revolution was. Those
unknown factors alone terrified the Oligarchs into reform. But all the
promises were only bits of paper. It had long been proved that the
Tsar’s word went for nothing. At the birth of his son he had abolished
flogging, but the taxes had been “flogged out” of the peasants just as
before. Manifesto after manifesto had been issued without the least
result, beyond winning the applause of an English writer or two. So
far the Tsar’s pledges of reform had been no more effectual than his
Conference of Peace and he could only become harmless if he had no
power to harm.
Yet the outward appearance of freedom surpassed all hope and
imagination. Nothing like this had ever been seen in Russia before.
Newspapers dared to tell the truth. Meetings were held which a few
weeks before would have sent every speaker to the cells. The Poles
gathered in a great assembly demanding the overthrow of absolutism and
solidarity for the revolution among all the states of the Empire. Women
and children taunted the patrols of Guards and Cossacks as they rode
the streets. Ladies threw open their nice clean rooms for workmen to
meet in. The students’ restaurants hummed with liberty. The air sounded
with the “Marseillaise.”
“In Russia now, everybody thinks,” said a revolutionist to me, “and
where people think, liberty must come.” Thought and liberty were to
bring him death in a few weeks, but for the moment it seemed impossible
that any reaction could bring the old order back. All the king’s
horses and all the king’s men could not restore that ancient tyranny.
The spring of freedom had come slowly up that way, but at last it was
greeted as certain, and so it seemed to me when in the darkness of
early morning I left that workmen’s meeting still hot with discussion
in the mouldering hall, and tramped home through slush and thawing
snow, watching the rough floes of drifting ice as they settled down
into their winter places upon the Neva.
CHAPTER II
THE WORKMEN’S HOME
The Schlüsselburg road runs nearly all the way beside the great stream
of the Neva, which was still pouring down in flood in those November
days, though it sounded incessantly with the whisper of floating ice.
The road leads from St. Petersburg along the whole course of the
river up to that ill-omened fortress in the Ladoga lake, where so
many of the martyrs of freedom have enjoyed the imprisonment or death
with which Russia rewards greatness. For six or seven miles the road
passes through a series of villages, now united into one long and
squalid street, inseparable from the city, though only a few hundred
yards behind the mills and workmen’s dwellings lie flat fields, and
woods, and dull but open country. This is the largest manufacturing
district of the capital. Its factories had already become historic with
bloodshed, and it was here that the workmen’s party was organized, and
the Council of Labour Delegates first formed.
The mills stand on both sides of the river, but as a rule the
work-people live on the south or left bank, where the road runs; for
there is no passable road on the other side. In summer they pay a
farthing toll to steam ferry-boats. In winter they walk across the ice
to work, guided by little rows of Christmas trees stuck on the ice, as
is the Russian way. But between whiles, twice a year, there come a few
days when they cannot go to work at all. Those days ought to have come
by the time I visited the region first, but the frost was late.
Everything was strange that year. For months together no work had
been done, and though some of the mills had just re-opened after the
second general strike, the road was crowded with shabby men and women,
who gathered at the corners, or trampled up and down in the filth, or
sat stewing in the dirty tea-rooms, quieting their hunger with drink.
Fully 60,000 of them were out of work, for in answer to the strike many
masters had declared a lock-out.
Backwards and forwards among them marched little sections of six or
seven soldiers, their bayonets fixed, their rifles loaded, their warm
brown overcoats paid for by the work-people and the peasants. Groups
of four or five Cossacks clattered to and fro with carbine and sword,
while on the saddle, ready to the right hand, hung the terrible nagaika
or Cossack whip, paid for by the work-people and the peasants. It is
heavy and solid, with twisted hide, like a short and thicker sjambok;
at the butt is a loop for the wrist, and near the end of the lash a
jagged lump of lead is firmly tied into the strands. When a Cossack
rises in his stirrups to strike, he can break a skull right open, and
any ordinary blow will slit a face from brow to chin, and cripple a
woman or child for life.
The Manifesto had not changed the Cossack nature. A week before, at a
workmen’s meeting held to discuss the strike, it was proposed to stop
the steam trams which run along the road. But the Cossacks had received
orders not to allow the trams to be stopped. So down they trotted to
the meeting; a pistol shot is said to have been heard somewhere in the
darkness, and in a moment the horses were plunging through the midst
of a confused and helpless crowd, while swords and nagaikas hewed the
people down. The number of killed and wounded was variously given, as
is usual in massacres.
On one of my later visits down the road, I became acquainted with a
man who had survived a scene even more terrible. As a small patrol of
Cossacks was riding by, a little boy of eight, who had come to the mill
with his mother, shook his tiny fist at them from a window. By command
of their officer, the men rode into the mill yard, dismounted, entered
the machinery rooms, bayoneted the child, and began firing at random
upon the people at their work. Eight were killed where they stood.
The man who told me of the deed escaped through a side door, and hid
himself under the boilers till the soldiers rode away elated with
victory. Then the workmen dragged out the dead, and the boy’s body was
given to his mother.
Tired of being slaughtered like fowls, the workmen themselves were
collecting arms, and had organized a kind of volunteer service, or
“militia,” as they called it. Armed groups crept through the fields and
back lanes from one point of vantage to another. Even in the daytime,
firing was common in the streets, and almost every night the workmen
met the soldiers in sharp encounter. The factories, whether at work or
not, were all guarded by sentries inside and out. The Alexandrovsky
ironworks, which belong to Government, and had been shut down the day
before I was there, were at once filled with troops, and the hands,
some five thousand in number, remained outside to increase the shabby
and indignant crowd upon the street.
[Illustration:
_Art Reproduction Co._
AN AUTUMN IDYLL.
From _Sulphur_ (_Jupel_).]
The ironworkers were the best paid of all the workmen in the district.
The works are in an old red-brick factory, built originally for making
guns, but long used for the locomotives on the straight line from St.
Petersburg to Moscow. Many charming personages in Russian society had
justly regarded that factory as the source of human happiness. But in
their trepidation to enjoy, they had neglected the fount of enjoyment,
and the place had long been sliding down to ruin. Already it was much
cheaper to buy new locomotives from Germany, Belgium, or Zurich, in
spite of the high tariff, than even to repair the old engines here. At
last, I suppose, just the one inevitable day had come when the thing
became too ludicrous even for a Government’s methods of industry. The
gates were shut, and the five thousand hands turned out to meditate on
the source of human happiness.
It was thought at the time that, like the master of finesse who pays
his tailor by ordering more clothes, the management would open again
soon, because one per cent. of the wages had always been stopped for a
pension fund. This fund was estimated at something like £2,000,000, and
the Government might well prefer to go on paying out several thousands
a year in dead loss rather than be called upon for a solid £2,000,000
when nothing more could be flogged out of the starving peasants, and
France was beginning to look twice at a sou before lending it. What
happened in the end I did not hear, but I passed down that road some
months later, and the works were still shut up.
Other mills, which did not rest upon State credit (that is to say,
on drink and the flogging of peasants), and were struggling not to
keep shut, but to keep open, were naturally in a different position.
There are cotton mills, wool mills, paper mills, and candle mills
along the river, many of them run by English capital, and managed by
English overseers. In most of the textile mills, the machinery is
also English, this being almost the only import in which England still
rivals Germany. There is a greater spaciousness about the buildings
and yards than in England, due, I suppose, to the cheapness of land;
though, in fact, our old economic theories of rent are valueless here,
for, in spite of the vast extent of uncultivated land in Russia, the
rents in the capital towns are far higher than in London. But, apart
from this spaciousness and a certain easy-going slackness in the
labour, one might imagine one’s self in a Lancashire or Yorkshire mill.
It was in mills like these that the labour questions arose which were
really the causes of the strike that shook the Russian despotism. Of
course, political questions came in--the war scandals, the demands for
home rule, amnesty, universal suffrage, and a constituent assembly. But
a revolution, like a war, goes upon its belly, and it is difficult to
get working men to move if they are fairly content with their food and
lodging. It is still more difficult to get working women to move.
Till ten years ago the hours in these mills were seventy-five a week,
or twelve and a half a day, not counting the dinner hours. They then
fell to sixty-seven, and the strike of last October brought them down
to sixty-two and a half. For the first week of November (just after the
manifesto), the hands proclaimed an eight-hours’ day, and walked out
of the mills when the time was up. After a week of that, the managers
shut the gates, preferring to pay the hands the fortnight’s wages to
which they are entitled on dismissal, and then to let the mills stand
idle. About a fortnight later, the textile managers agreed to come down
to sixty and a half hours a week, and on that arrangement the hands
came in again. Thus in ten years the workmen had reduced their hours by
nearly fifteen a week, and seven of these had been knocked off in two
months, simply by combination in strikes. As I said, the general strike
is a powerful weapon, though, unhappily, dangerous to those who use it.
At the time there was a general opinion that a nine-hours’ day would
be enforced by an Imperial ukase. Even the employers believed it,
and looked forward to making up the loss by increased duties on
imports, and higher prices for their goods. The workmen would probably
acquiesce, for a strike falls most heavily on themselves, and under the
Russian factory laws any one who incites to a strike or joins in it may
be imprisoned for four to eight months. Till December, 1904, all trade
unions and meetings of workmen were also illegal. During his period of
ill-omened power, Plehve had affected to encourage meetings in this
very district, but his sole object was to ascertain who were the real
leaders among the people, and who were the best speakers. When that was
known, in the middle of the night, knocking would be heard at a man’s
door. He would open it to a group of soldiers or police, and from that
moment he disappeared, spirited away, no one knew where. It was the
Government’s method of protecting vested interests.
Wages nearly always go by piecework, and they vary according to skill.
In the cotton mills a man may earn anything between 15_d._ and 4_s._
4_d._ a day, and a woman between 10_d._ and 2_s._ 4½_d._ In the woollen
mills a weaver makes about 3_s._ 5_d_. a day, and he has two assistants
(generally girls) who make from 1_s._ 10_d._ to 2_s._ 4_d._ each. The
ironworkers, as I said, get a rather higher wage, but the maximum, I
think, in no case is over 30_s._ a week, and I doubt if the average,
including women and girls, is over 15_s._
The mere amount of money in wages is unimportant. A handful of bay-salt
or three yards of cheap cotton may be good wages to an African native.
All depends on what the payment can buy and what work it represents,
and I am inclined to think from what 1 have seen in many lands that in
reality the wage of the working class is much the same all the world
over. The standard of tolerable existence certainly varies a little,
but the wage is always regulated by the lowest standard that will be
endured. Wherever I have consulted an overseer or mill-owner as to
the standard of living in Russia, he has almost always told me that I
must not judge by English ideas, “because the people here are quite
satisfied with black bread and cucumbers.” By cucumbers he meant the
small pickled gherkins in barrels, such as form one peculiar ingredient
in the smell of Petticoat Lane. At the same time all English overseers
were agreed that the Russian workman’s standard of work is far lower
than the English. A Russian will mind only two looms, they told me,
where an Englishman will mind four or even six. It had not occurred to
them that there might be some connection between the standard of food
and the standard of work, nor, indeed, did that concern them much, for
in the end they obtained about the same amount of work for the same
amount of wage.
When I became more acquainted with the work-people’s life and had
been into several of their homes, I found that, as long as they were
in work, most of them had soup every day, because bad meat was cheap.
Beyond the soup, black bread was the duty, pickled cucumber the
pleasure; and the drink was almost unlimited tea--very weak and without
milk, but syruppy with sugar--varied by an occasional debauch on the
State’s vodka, which pays the greater part of the tyranny’s expenses.
On the Schlüsselburg road the work-people live in wooden huts built up
wandering courts or lanes off the main street. I have not seen a family
occupying more than one room. If they rent two or three, they sub-let.
A room costs from 15_s._ to 22_s._ a month, and the larger
rooms are usually divided between two or more families. In some cases
each of the four corners is occupied by a different family, separated
by shawls or strings, and dwelling as though in tents, as used to be
the fashion in the East End. Till quite lately a very large proportion
of the work-people lived in special barracks built for them inside
the mills, but during that year of strikes most of the overseers had
cleared their work-people out because they were dangerously near to
themselves and the machinery, and I did not see the “living-in” system
really at work till I got to Moscow, where it was still general, though
probably soon to disappear.
In the work-people’s rooms there was hardly ever any furniture beyond
the bed, the table, some stools, and a chest for clothes. I never
saw washing things of any kind. Even in winter the family clothes
are washed in the river, the women cutting square holes in the ice
and dipping the clothes into the water below. As to the people, in
accordance with the one salutary rubric of the Orthodox Church, all men
(I am not quite sure about women) must wash before they go to service.
In preparation for this sacred duty, they pay a few pence at the public
baths, sluice themselves down with hot water, and then lie steaming on
shelves, brushing their skin with branches of birch. The effect is very
satisfactory, and the Russians as a whole are a cleanly people, both
in themselves and their houses, compared to ourselves.
The work-people have the further advantage of twenty-three
ecclesiastical holidays in the year, not counting Sundays, and the
masters are obliged to provide a hospital or to pay for medical
assistance, even for women with child. In an English mill across the
river, a clubroom for lectures, concerts, and amusements had just been
erected, but the revolution had arrested culture of that kind. It had
also arrested football, which was just becoming popular. Cricket had
been tried, but was found too mysterious and pedantic, too much like
the British Constitution with all its growths and precedents. The only
native amusements that I could find were cards, knucklebones, and
the fortnightly debauch in vodka when the wages are paid. But at the
time of my first visit, there was some chance that the vodka would be
dropped, for on the previous Sunday night the Strike Committee had
decided that the work-people should for the present give up spirits,
tobacco, and other Government monopolies, not for abstinence but to
deprive the Government of revenue. The truly Nationalist party has
urged the same course in Ireland.
There is one peculiarity which complicates the Russian labour question.
Some of the work-people have now lost all connection with the land,
but a great majority are still bound by the closest links of duty
and affection to their village, and to the little strips of earth
which have been allotted to their family. Probably most of the hands
in any mill have come there in hopes of paying the taxes on the land,
and keeping the family alive in the starving village at home. Between
the village and the factory they are continually passing to and fro.
Sometimes as many as half the hands in a mill will set off to their
villages during the year, and come back again. I have seen the books of
one factory, employing nearly 2000 hands, from which over 1000 had gone
and returned. If a working son on the land is called to the army, a
mill hand walks away to take his place. If labour is short at harvest,
they go. If the village community is re-dividing the land, they go. The
father of the house at home can always send for them, and they go. It
comes of that touching passion for the land which is the great motive
of the Russian people. Mercilessly robbed as they have been, nothing
has yet induced them to believe that land can belong to Tsar, or
Prince, or idle proprietor. Land, they say, cannot belong to people who
do not work it; of course it cannot. The land belongs to the peasants.
If only the good Tsar know what the people suffer because their land is
kept from them, he would give it them back. As Stepniak said long ago,
that simple faith is one of the tragedies of Russian life.[1]
DIARY OF EVENTS
On November 20th, a Peasant’s Congress met at Moscow. There
were 300 delegates including several women. Their main demands
were for a Constituent Assembly and Nationalization of the
land. Sixty followers of Tolstoy were present, and most of
the delegates spoke for revolution by peaceful means. Yet on
November 27th they were all arrested.
On November 26th, a serious mutiny broke out in the army and
fleet at Sevastopol, under the leadership of Lieutenant Schmidt,
who had already been expelled from the navy as a Socialist. For
a few days the Government suffered panic, but the mutiny was put
down without much difficulty.
On November 28th, the post and telegraph hands struck at Moscow
for the right of union. The strike extended through the service
and paralysed business and Government action. The average wage
of the assistants was £5 a month.
CHAPTER III
FATHER GAPON AGAIN
The morning of December 4th was damp and misty, but from an early hour
crowds of working people were standing in the slushy snow outside
the queer old arrangement of two or three huge sheds which is known
as “Salt Town.” It is across the Fontanka canal from the School of
Engineers, not very far from the two churches that commemorate the
murder of two Tsars. I suppose it has been used at some time or other
as a depôt for a Government salt monopoly, and so received its name. In
ordinary peaceful years, it now serves as a suitable place for military
lectures and engineering experiments such as trained the Russian
officers for their overwhelming defeats. But in the stir of revolution,
popular meetings of every kind assembled there, because its gaunt white
walls and iron roofs would hold such large crowds of work-people under
cover, and it supplied accommodation for the coats and goloshes of the
intellectual.
I had already attended an immense all-night meeting there to denounce
the Government for encouraging the priests and hooligans in their
slaughter of the Jews. That very morning of December 4th the school
teachers were assembled in one of the halls to discuss whether they
too should strike and claim the right of union. But the main interest
of the day was centred in the other large hall, where the followers
of Father Gapon--the men who had appealed in procession to the Tsar
himself on the 22nd of January before--were now gathering together
for the first time since that childlike appeal had been answered by
massacre.
The meeting was called for ten o’clock in the morning, either to elude
the police or to save the expense of light. A Russian meeting is, I
think, very seldom less than an hour late, because the Russians are
by nature a courteous people, and it is obviously impolite to begin
before every one who wishes to come has had a chance of being in time.
But long before eleven there was not standing room for another soul,
and fifteen hundred men and women were waiting with that inexhaustible
Russian patience. Their pallid faces, many of them grim with hunger,
looked spectral under the dim twilight of a Russian morning, as I
watched them turned upwards in silence to the platform.
Two whispered rumours were going round. One that the Social Democrats
intended to break up the meeting; the other, that Father Gapon was not
coming after all, and both rumours were almost unique among the rumours
I have heard in wars and revolutions, for both were true.
At last the meeting was called upon to declare whom it would have
for chairman, and one great shout went up for “Barashoff.” I do not
know who Barashoff was, or how he had gained the confidence of the
work-people, but his election was at once taken to prove that the
Social Democrats present were comparatively few. He came forward--a
middle-aged, reddish-bearded man, with no apparent gift of voice or
influence--and I do not know what has become of him since, or what
prison received him. But there he stood beside me on the platform and
announced to the meeting that first they would sing the Hymn of the
Fallen, in honour to the victims of that Bloody Sunday when last they
had met together.
The whole audience rose, and stood in absolute silence till some one
gave out the first note. The hymn consists of only one line, three
times repeated, and its only words are, “To their eternal memory.” Yet
all the church services I have heard were frivolous compared to it.
For it celebrated the martyrdom of men and women whom the worshippers
had known, and whose danger they had shared. I do not know what it is
that gives so profound a solemnity to Russian popular music, or how
it comes that a Russian crowd produces such a deep volume of musical
sound. Perhaps there is an unconscious influence from the old Church
music, always so solemn and grave, so free from sentiment and tune.
More likely the nature of both arises from the monotonous unhappiness
of Russian life, the melancholy of long oppression, and the nearness of
death from day to day; at all events, it must have a different origin
from the comfortable and profane spirit that produces “A little bit off
the top” or “The old bull and bush.”
When the hymn had been sung, we were definitely told that Father Gapon
would not be present, but had sent a letter, which was read. It called
upon the work-people to take courage again, and to set about rebuilding
the unions and clubs which had been destroyed by the massacre. While
the letter was being read, great excitement arose among the audience
because police spies had been discovered among the teachers’ conference
in the neighbouring hall. Spies, disguised as schoolmasters, disguised
as women! Teachers are not a militant race; should not the hard-handed
work-people flow over into the conference and protect the innocent
instructors of the coming State? It is spies that drive men crazed with
hatred, and even the reptile governments that use them shoot them.
That very morning the post and telegraph clerks had proclaimed that
they would never end their strike until the enormous system of spying
into letters, newspapers, and telegrams had been abolished. Of all
the methods by which a cowardly government can harass the people who
feed it, none is more despicable than the entanglement of espionage
with which it surrounds itself. But as to abolition, what would then
become of all those swarms of censors, blackers-out, interpreters,
letter-openers, secret police, cabdrivers, porters, and provocative
agents who seek their meat from Government? Will not all these men
struggle for existence like others, being human creatures, though no
one would suppose so? Or who will pay the rent of all those houses,
like that house beside the Moika Canal where muffled figures hang
carelessly about the doors, and sledges stop for no apparent reason,
and the men and women who come out have acquired the look of vultures?
But for the moment the Government which feeds the vultures was afraid
for its own skin. The police and spies slunk out of the conference
without compulsion, and in the workmen’s meeting the five-minutes’
speeches began. They went with that extraordinary dash and fire which
appear to be the common heritage of nearly all Russian speakers. How
they have managed to inherit such a power is one of the mysteries of
this mysterious revolution. In a land where public speaking has usually
been punished by exile or death, we find a whole race of orators.
Carlyle used to speak of a “great dumb Russia” with admiration, and
foretell a strange time when Russia found her voice. That autumn
she had found her voice, and certainly the time was strange. One
workman after another got up and said his brief say, without pause
or hesitation, inspired by that passion of conviction which only
unendurable wrong can give. A woman also spoke, with similar brevity
and power.
The demands made in those little speeches of condensed flame and
rushing words were for rights which English workmen have long ago won
for themselves. The object of the meeting was to re-establish the
eleven unions of workmen which Father Gapon had instituted before the
massacre of last January. Such unions were hardly to be distinguished
from the trade unions of our country, and there was nothing in the
least Utopian or savage about the Gapon programme. His followers
refused even to call themselves a party. They had no newspaper as their
organ. The _Word_ (_Slovo_), which had once most befriended
them, had lately gone over completely to the reaction. One of the most
applauded speakers at that morning’s meeting denounced the leaders who
urged the workmen to organize themselves into armed bands, whereas
knowledge, he said, must come before arms, and not battalions but
unions must be organized. Only one other purpose remained before the
meeting--to demand complete amnesty for Father Gapon and all political
offenders, especially for those who had taken on themselves the
hateful task of political assassination in the time of darkness before
freedom appeared.
From time to time a Social Democrat raised his arm and burst into a
violent and threatening speech against the meeting. Once there was a
deliberate attempt to empty the hall by a free fight, and the timid
began edging out at the doors, chiefly under the belief that the
yelling democrat who was denouncing the Gaponists was secretly an agent
of the police. It may have been so, but I think he was only a Social
Democrat insisting upon the creed by which alone the Marxists would
drive the world to salvation. This Catholic kind of Social Democrat is
often distinguished by a certain intolerance and pedantry which give
a power and consistency such as religious Catholicism has, but form a
barrier against wider sympathies and human freedom. “No salvation but
by us” is their motto, and when an erring meeting cries them down, they
feel defrauded of their right to redeem mankind.
On the other hand, a speaker who brought greetings from the Belgian
Anarchists was politely listened to, though in the towns Russia has no
Anarchist party now. Tolstoy bears an honoured name such as Rousseau
bore in France, and his portrait is welcome in shop-windows; but among
revolutionists his Anarchism is too gentle, and his Christianism too
dull. Outside his own circle of disciples among the peasants, the flame
of his spirit may kindle many, but his actual followers are few. When
every one is remodelling the State with impassioned zeal, it seems
hardly opportune to raise the question whether it is not better to have
no State at all.
The speeches were over by about one, and then the meeting split up into
groups to reorganize the unions. By an arrangement among one or two
friends, we left the Salt Town separately, and gradually reassembled in
a room above a little restaurant, some distance away. There we found
Father Gapon himself hiding from the police, with a bottle of beer
before him, and a few supporters at his side, rather obviously his
inferiors. At the time he was not afraid of political arrest. Probably
Durnovo himself would hardly have dared to strike at him then. But the
danger was that he might be handed over to the Church as a renegade
priest and imprisoned till death in some monastery for the good of his
soul.
Outwardly there was little of the priest left about him then, unless
it was his evident want of the commonplace kinds of knowledge that
most people have. It was said that his stay in England that summer
had changed him so much that his own friends could not recognize him,
and he had been present at the meeting unobserved. But there was not
really much difference, except that he had cut his hair and beard like
ordinary men, and put on modern clothes instead of the survival of
classical raiment which most European priests prefer. The transparent
eyes of lightish brown, generally looking down or cast a little
sideways--these were the same. So were the nose and thin face, the
thin and delicately arched eyebrows, the thin hands and slight figure,
the blood just showing under the pale brown skin--a rare thing in a
Russian; and, indeed, both by name and race I believe he comes of a
Dnieper Cossack or, some say, a Greek stock. If the Russian police
cannot see these things, Scotland Yard could beat them. The outward
look seemed to reveal at once a delicate and sensitive nature rather
than strength of resolution or fire of purpose--one of those natures in
which we easily detect the child still lying hid beneath the maturity
of manhood. Something of a child’s craft, perhaps, lay there too, and
of a woman’s methods, unwilling to be hated or despised even by the
enemy. Equally childlike was that evident love of pleasure which made
him rejoice in Paris and London as in glorious bazaars where the toys
were all real things, and the dolls were living women, all made to
squeak and shut their eyes.
Yet this was the man who struck the first blow at the heart of tyranny
and made the old monster sprawl. At first, perhaps, his heart was
simpler in its ignorance, and pleasure, being unknown, did not move
him. But when theorists condemned him for opportunism, as they did
daily, I remembered that he, at all events, knew the work-people in
their daily life and not as an abstract proletariat, and that he, at
all events, had accomplished something. It is much to be regretted,
but it sometimes happens that the opportunist is the only man who does
accomplish something.
The conversation naturally ran upon the meeting, and upon a danger to
the movement that would very likely arise from the unbending attitude
of the Social Democrats, who with impracticable pride hated a Social
Revolutionary more than a Grand Duke, just as true Catholics enjoyed
burning a Protestant more than a pagan. To Father Gapon the great
danger before the country appeared to be the immense conflict between
the Social Democrats, representing the town work-people, and the host
of peasants, numbering over four-fifths of Russia’s population. But as
he spoke, warning voices were heard, a danger appeared before us all,
and suddenly the picturesque little figure had vanished, and the rest
of us were drinking beer over a sleepy game of cards, till with a yawn
we rose, and one by one made our way down the busy street.
That afternoon Father Gapon escaped into Finland, and France swallowed
him for a time.
CHAPTER IV
THE FREEDOM OF THE WORD
In those happy weeks when freedom still was young and living, two
things ruled the country--speech and the strike, the word and the blow.
The strike was everywhere felt. No letter or telegram went or came.
Each town in Russia was isolated, and the whole Empire stood severed
from the world. Banks sent their money to Europe by special messengers,
like kings. Telegrams were carried a twenty-four hours’ journey to the
frontier. Almost every night I was down at the Warsaw station watching
the passengers, to see if any could be trusted to take a letter home.
When I travelled further into Russia, I organized an elaborate private
post by stages, engaging hotel-porters, students, lady-doctors,
tram-conductors, and barmaids in my service. On one occasion the scheme
worked with real success, and brought me a halfpenny paper which
cost me three pounds. Later I found it best to give my own letters
to Lancashire women, going home for safety--wives of the managers or
engineers in cotton-mills--and they posted them under their skirts.
At St. Petersburg, the well-to-do classes, who were losing most by
the postal strike, made a heroic effort to assist the Government and
themselves. Having first seen that strong patrols of horse and foot
were stationed at all corners of the General Post Office, and at every
door, they organized a volunteer service of sorters among their own
number, and one saw elegant young men and white-haired gentlemen who
had passed an honoured existence in avoiding work, now struggling to
make out how it was done. Enthusiastic girls, in the prettiest of furs
and the smallest possible goloshes, hastened by eleven o’clock to
their stools in the stuffy office, and sat there till four, with the
self-sacrificing zeal of young ladies at a church bazaar. One must do
something for one’s country when the lower classes are giving so much
trouble. So with a smile and a flash of rings, they plunged into the
honest toil of sorting the stacks of letters which had been arriving by
half a million a day; and some of the letters reached the right address.
Other strikes were of almost equal interest. In Moscow the cooks
struck, and paraded the streets with songs never heard in the
drawing-room. The waiters struck, and heavy proprietors lumbered about
with their own plates and dishes. The nursemaids struck for Sundays
out. The housemaids struck for rooms with windows, instead of cupboards
under the stairs, or sections from the water-closets. Schoolboys
struck for more democratic masters and pleasanter lessons. Teachers
struck for higher pay and, I hope, for pleasanter pupils. All had
one’s sympathy, as all rebels necessarily have. There was a solidarity
about the grievances of all, and each movement proved how far the
revolutionary spirit had spread. The only danger was that the people
were making a good thing too common. The strike was the guillotine of
the Russian revolution in those days, and even the guillotine had once
been worked too hard.
But at the back of the strikes and all the revolutionary movement
lay the motive force of speech. In Russia, even more than in other
countries, was seen the power of the creative word. A strain of
unwonted idealism has long been audible in all Russian literature, and
has led to the hope that when Russia’s hour came she would advance
on finer and higher lines than the more material and self-satisfied
peoples of Europe. The hour seemed now to have come, and the hope to be
justified. The people were drunken with ideas. After these centuries of
suppression, all Russia was revelling in a spiritual debauch of words.
Meetings were held almost every night. Entrance could only be gained by
ticket; but crowds fought at the doors to hear discussions on the first
principles of government, taxation, or law, just as eagerly as English
people fight for a place at a football match or an indecent farce. To
Russians the power of the word was all so new and delightful. I myself
remember the first and only time I listened to a debate in the House
of Commons. It was the day when Mr. Wyndham was treading “with fairy
footstep” through the mazes of Irish statistics. I knew those mazes at
least as well as he did, but I have never heard anything so interesting
as that debate. And for Russians to listen to a man speaking was like
an escape from gaol.
I had noticed it in the Strike Committee and in Gapon’s meetings.
Without practice or tradition in public speaking, Russia was suddenly
found to be a nation of orators. At all the meetings it was the
same: speaker after speaker rose, and not one of them faltered for a
moment. There was no muddle, or shyness, or hesitation--none of that
weary up-and-down cadence, like riding over ridge and furrow, none of
that harking back and beating round the bush for words to which our
sporting legislators of the shires have long accustomed us at home. In
some cases, no doubt, the speeches were dull; but often, even without
understanding a thousandth part of what was said, one could tell how
true an orator the speaker was from the breathlessness of his hearers,
from the feeling of diffused unity in the crowd, and from the deep gasp
of applause which greeted the end.
The high level of thought in the speeches might be sneered at as an
idealist level by dull people who do not believe in ideas. But strength
was given to the speakers by the continual danger of the moment and the
reality of the horror waiting at the door. As though apologizing for
his impertinence in taking any part in such a mighty thing as politics,
a workman said humbly to me once: “I know nothing but the street, the
factory, and the prison. But I would die for the movement.” When his
turn came to speak, of course he spoke well. With such a training, he
could hardly fail to speak well; and as to law-making, his life was a
far more genuine preparation for it than English universities.
There was a similar outburst in newspapers as in speeches. Hitherto
most Russian journalists who were not mere hirelings, writing in
support of the bureaucracy, had been obliged to work underground, or to
write abroad and trust to the ruses of war for a circulation in their
own country. During the six weeks after the Manifesto the change was
astonishing. For a time there was not a country, except England, where
the freedom of the press was so complete. A new paper appeared almost
every other day. Now and then a number or two would be confiscated, and
sometimes the paper would cease to appear for a while. The first and
most notorious case of this suspension was when a little satiric paper,
called _The Machine Gun_ (_Pulemet_), printed a copy of the
Tsar’s manifesto with the impression of a bloody hand stamped upon
it, and the superscription, “Signed and Sealed.” This was seized as
an insult to the dynasty. The editor was imprisoned, the price of the
cartoon went up from five farthings to almost as many pounds, and, when
the paper appeared again, its fame was established.
But at the time a cartoon of that kind was mainly prophetic, and most
of the papers said what they pleased, and said it with seriousness and
self-restraint. Among the very best was the workmen’s little paper
called _The Russian Gazette_, sold at one farthing. It had been
started soon after Father Gapon’s petition, and since the Manifesto
only one number had been confiscated. Written in the common workman’s
language which all could understand, it had a very large circulation,
but its price kept the funds low, and its news from outside was small.
In politics it called itself Social Democratic, but being concerned at
first hand with the real workmen and their interests, it touched solid
ground, and its tone was the same as one heard at the meetings of the
labour delegates.
Next in revolutionary influence came the _New Life_ (_Novaya
Zhisn_), generally known as Maxim Gorky’s paper. He certainly
supplied the money and its general policy. Sometimes he wrote a
long letter or address in it, and his present wife, the actress of
his plays, was nominally editor. But, even when Gorky was in St.
Petersburg, which was very seldom, the paper was really conducted by
the poet Minsky and a few other Social Democrats of high education
and theoretic knowledge. The sternest and most official organ of that
sect, it followed Marx with doctrinaire exactness, and its teaching
was impeded by the stiffness and pedantry that characterize the
Social Democrats even in England. No one could question the skill and
enthusiasm of its attacks upon the oligarchy and capitalists, but it
often devoted more space to sour depreciation of other good Socialists
who doubted if Marx had said the last word in human history. It was
like a really clever staff officer who, on the morning of the battle,
goes from brigade to brigade telling the soldiers what fools all the
other officers have made of themselves, and what an immense disaster
will ensue if his own plan of attack is not adopted. So it often
happened that the truest friends of the movement were in despair at
the vanity and exclusiveness of the _New Life_, and irretrievable
opportunities passed by while its staff of editors were arranging the
future of humanity in neat little circles and squares, as though they
were the Creator and men were as obedient as the stars. If you work on
German first principles, you are likely to arrive at queer conclusions,
because mankind was not made in Germany. But still there was no denying
the paper’s honesty and zeal, nor its great influence within its own
wide circle of well-disposed and intelligent people.
_The Son of the Country_ (_Syn Otetchestva_) was an old paper; it had
been running off and on for nearly a century; but, since the manifesto,
it had become extreme in its Liberalism, and could be grouped as a new
paper among the Social Democratic organs. All Russians admitted that
it was particularly well written, and being far less pedantic than the
_New Life_, it was read by every advanced party and promised to become
one of the strongest papers of the revolution.
While I was still in St. Petersburg, at the end of November, some of
the famous exiles, who had begun to return to Russia under the promised
amnesty, started a paper called the _Beginning_ (_Natchalo_).
It was distinctly Social Democratic, and perhaps the leading spirit on
it was Vera Sassoulitch, who had failed in an attempt to assassinate
Trepoff’s father during the most gloomy period of tyranny, twenty
years before. She had returned from Geneva, old and grey and wrinkled,
but almost any night she was to be seen sitting out the revolutionary
meetings, talking, writing, or stitching with unflagging energy, and on
her face and in her pale grey eyes a fixed and beaming smile, as though
at the fulfilment of hopes for which she and so many others had been
willing to give their lives.
Not definitely connected with social democracy, but extreme in its
opposition to the Government, there was another new paper called _Our
Life_ (_Nacha Zhisn_), which was started in September and at
once was recognized for its excellent news and management. It has since
increased its reputation, and become one of the leading papers in
Russia.
But at that time perhaps the very best of all the papers, both for news
and leading articles, was _Russia_ (_Russ_). It had been
founded three years before, but began to redate its numbers from the
Manifesto of October 30th. During the war, it won a reputation by an
overwhelming exposure of army scandals, and under the movement it was
almost universally read for its progressive policy and fearlessness of
speech. At the time, it was edited by one of the sons of Suvorin, the
famous editor of the _Novoe Vremya_. Such divergence of political
views must have strained the conversation at the family dinner-table,
and perhaps it was really a relief at home when the son was shut up in
prison, and the paper appeared under the new title of _Molva_.
The two Jewish papers--the _News_ (_Novosti_) and the _Stock Exchange
Gazette_ (_Birshevza Viedomosti_)--were both old, one being nearly the
oldest paper in Russia, and the other having run twenty-five years,
but both had become very Progressive or even revolutionary. For in
Russia, Jews are inevitably revolutionists, however much against their
own nature, and the Stock Exchange paper was one of the most advanced
political organs in the Empire, and had the best news.
At that time, two other Progressive papers had just been
started--_Dawn_ (_Rassiojet_) and _Russia Renewed_ (_Obnovlionnaya
Rossiu_), and at Moscow, Professor Miliukoff was on the point of
bringing out his new paper called _Life_ (_Zhisn_) of which I may
speak later on. But there seemed no end to the number of excellent
journalists that Russia could supply, just as there seemed no end to
the number of excellent speakers. When I think of that sudden outburst
of talent, I remember the saying of an Englishman who had lived thirty
years in Russia and professed a good-humoured contempt for the whole
people from the Court to the dustmen; “But unquestionably,” he always
added, “they are the most intelligent race in the world.” In reality,
however, it was intensity of conviction and present sense of wrong
which converted those inexperienced men into such effective writers
and speakers. Where conviction is sincere, habit and training are best
away, just as really sincere and original dramas should be performed
only by actors unhabituated to the stage.
To oppose these battalions of progress, there were only three or four
journals on the reactionary side, and it is significant that none of
these were new and nearly all were subsidized. First came the _New
Time_ (_Novoe Vremya_), almost the only Russian paper which is
well known by name outside Russia. It is the _Times_ of Russia,
steadily on the side of the Government, the reaction, and the moneyed
classes. Scornful of enthusiasm, deaf to every idea, incredulous of
every hope, always ready to impute the vilest motives to reform, it
stands like an impenetrable barrier on the road of human progress.
Proclaiming itself the champion of stability, and taking law and order
for its motto, and the price of funds for its test, it succeeds in
pleasing the financier and the official, and its cynical disregard of
humanity is matched by its unquestioned influence for evil. A certain
dignity of tone, combined with the excellence of its foreign news, has
given it a reputation for sobriety and truth, but against the rights of
freedom it is virulent in its animosity, and against a leader of the
people it will welcome any libel without reserve. To discover where
justice lies, one has but to take the opposite view to its own, and to
agree with it is a danger-signal that one’s sense of right has gone
astray. Yet in moments of deep indignation against some governmental
shame, it will affect the popular tone and act the reformer’s part with
whines and deprecations. The scandals of the Japanese war were too
flagrant even for its compliant worship of birth and rank, and after
the Manifesto had granted freedom of speech it began to demand that
freedom with righteous solicitude.
On the same side, though inferior in skill and reputation, stood
the _Citizen_ (_Grashdanin_), heavily subsidized by the Government,
and possessing, it was said, a particular influence over the Tsar’s
perplexed little mind; and the _Petersburg News_, also subsidized, but
indignant none the less about the war scandals and the Grand Dukes.
Last of this group came the _Word_ (_Slovo_), once famous for its
violent attacks upon errors in high places, and for its fearless
defence of freedom, especially on behalf of the Old Believers. But
after the Manifesto appeared, the tone of the paper changed, and
instead of joining like others in the joy of victory, it grew more and
more sullen and distrustful of progress. Whether money was the motive
of the change, as rumour said, I did not discover, but the paper’s
influence had to be counted among the reactionary forces, and it was a
strong paper.
Even more significant than the printed daily papers were the satiric
and illustrated sheets, which appeared as suddenly and in greater
numbers. Perhaps the best managed and most constant was the _Observer_
(_Zritel_), but the _Signal_ (same word in Russian) was almost as
good, and below them came the _Arrows_ (_Streli_) and the _Libel_
(_Strekoza_). The _Vampyre_ (same word in Russian) came later, and
so did the _Sulphur_ (_Jupel_), which was the most artistic of them
all, but so bloody and savage that it survived only three numbers. The
character of nearly all the cartoons was, indeed, bloody and savage
rather than humorous. The satire was hardly ever kindly, as it has
become in England now that politics are so seldom a matter of life and
death. Sometimes, it is true, in those early weeks, Witte was treated
with a raillery that might be called gentle. He would be represented as
a cook trying in vain to make the dinner come right; or as a chemist
watching an empty bottle labelled “Constitution;” or as a brood hen
sitting on an egg with the same label; or as an old nurse cherishing
a sickly little figure; or as an acrobat balancing on a slack-rope,
while Trepoff held one end, and the red flags of the revolution surged
below; or as a cunning old tailor threading his needle to stitch up
the two-headed eagle, which lay dead or stuffed on his board, while
an inverted imperial diadem held the flat-iron, and the candle stood
in a vodka bottle representing Witte’s spirit monopoly. But as a rule
the design was far more savage, and the savagery grew as the reaction
became stronger, till after the Days of Moscow all the cartoons might
have been printed in blood, and most appeared in that colour. Then
we were shown the skeleton of death stalking through the devastated
streets, or the skeleton of hunger crawling upon the stage from the
flies, or the Kremlin floating in blood like an island, or Dubasoff
as butcher in a human meat-shop, or foul monsters brooding over
the corpses beneath the gallows of freedom. Right through its past
history, all Russian art that counts has been either horrible or
melancholy--a thing of skeletons and vampires and desolation. The
subjects chosen by painters are cruel scenes from war or history, and
dreary views of the steppe. The subjects chosen by writers are almost
invariably sad. It is part of the unbroken melancholy which pervades
all Russian life, and is no less visible on the faces of the people
than in the sound of their music. And all this sorrow and savagery
and blood lie at the door of a Government which has kept the people
poor and depressed, exposed to the constant peril of the scourge, the
prison, and secret death.
[Illustration: WITTE AND THE CONSTITUTION.
WITTE: “I’ve bought a pipe, and now I can’t play it.”
From _Sprut_.]
On the reactionary side, I think, the only satiric paper was the
_Harlequin_ (_Chout_) and though it was fairly clever, there
is an eternal law which forbids the service of satire or letters or any
other form of art to the enemies of freedom.
The crowd of Liberal and revolutionary papers was but the visible
sign of a grace that took many forms. In reality, perhaps, there
were even more parties than papers, and certainly there were many
parties that had no paper to represent them. The Anarchists, as I have
shown already, could hardly be called a party, at all events in the
towns, and no paper was occupied with the abolition of the State as a
fetish, when all were insisting upon the strengthening of the State
as against the government of the few. But even such a large party as
the Social Revolutionists had no organ of their own. Next to the
Social Democrats, they were the most powerful of the advanced parties.
Probably they were even more numerous, but their organization was not
so complete, and as they devoted themselves mainly to the peasants,
their voice was not so loud in cities. They were the Terrorists of the
time; they were what Europe confusedly calls the Anarchists, and it was
they who kept the agents of the Government in peril of their lives. Yet
they had no paper of their own.
Neither had a large and growing party of the Left Centre, which we may
call the Radical as distinguished from the Socialists. They issued a
programme which nearly all the advanced parties would have accepted
when the time for business came. Like all the rest, they demanded
first a Constituent Assembly elected by universal suffrage, and beyond
that their ideal of the Russian State consisted in a single chamber, a
ministry chosen from the majority, home rule for Poland, Finland, the
Caucasus, and the Baltic Provinces, the right of referendum, separation
of Church and State, expropriation of Crown and Church lands and of
private estates beyond a fixed maximum, free education, and a general
militia for defence. Moderate as these demands were, nearly all the
revolutionists, except the more starchy among the Social Democrats,
would have been content to fight for them and welcome them with joy;
but the Radicals had no special organ for their views.
As in all movements of intense and vital interest, the danger to reform
came from division. All were united in their final purpose, but as to
methods and strategy the divisions of parties were many and violent. It
was the same thing as in a restaurant of Polish students to which I was
often invited. There was a long, low room, furnished only with benches
and tables. At one end was a piano; at the other a counter where the
student could buy excellent meals at all hours of the day and night for
very small payment. Though the university had long been closed owing
to the disturbances, the place was always crowded with young men and
girls, living in perfect comradeship and much at their ease. One night,
a young girl, with clear grey eyes, a demure little face, and pale hair
tightly braided, was giving me a very satisfactory lecture in German
upon the minute distinctions between all the Polish parties. I heard
afterwards that in her zeal for knowledge, she had gained the necessary
passport to St. Petersburg by going through the form of marriage with
a student whom she had never seen since the ceremony. It is not an
unusual device, and I have known girl-students who have even taken “the
yellow ticket” as prostitutes in order to reach a university town.
In the midst of her disquisition, she suddenly burst into an attack
upon two or three girls at another table who were suspected of
betraying true comradeship by ordinary flirtation. “I suppose they
think themselves rather pretty,” she said, “but neither logically nor
psychologically do I understand their behaviour.” At that moment a few
notes sounded on the piano, and to distract her wrath I suggested she
should ask for some Polish music.
“Oh, I couldn’t speak to that end of the room,” she replied; “the other
party has captured it, and the piano besides.”
“But you hold the kitchen end,” I remarked consolingly.
“I am sorry to say our possession is not exclusive,” she answered, with
a look that was bloodthirsty in its conviction of righteousness. Then
she took a shining revolver from her pocket, examined its action, said
good-bye to her friends, and stalked through the enemy’s camp without a
sign either of fear or pardon.
She was herself a Social Democrat of the most attractive though
sternest type, and as such, she believed in international fraternity.
But “the other party” were Polish Revolutionists, or Democratic Poles,
or something just wrong, and they followed the old-fashioned faith of
nationality; and so the room was split by an invisible but impassable
barrier. To me it all seemed rather a pity, when I thought of the long
years of conflict which must pass before they reached the separating
point in their ideals, and how few would live to see a single item in
their programme fulfilled. Yet I know that at the first note of the
revolution, Social Democrats, Polish Revolutionists, Democratic Poles,
flirtatious girls, and all would be ready to die together for Poland’s
freedom. And so probably they will have to die.
It was the same throughout the length and breadth of Russia in those
happy weeks. Divisions are the evidences of life, and Russia was
seething with life like the world in the days of creation. But one
thought exhilarated all young and happy minds--the thought of liberty.
And if to a middle-aged man and a stranger in the country it was a joy
then to be alive, to the young and to the Russian it must indeed have
been very heaven.
DIARY OF EVENTS
_December 6._--General Sakharoff, who had succeeded
Kuropatkin as Minister of War, and had lately been appointed
Governor-General of the Saratoff district on the Volga, was shot
in his office at Saratoff by a woman, a Social Revolutionist,
who said, when she was arrested, “Now he can cause the peasants
no more suffering.”
_December 7._--The Strike Committee (Central Labour
Committee in St. Petersburg) called on the work-people to
withdraw their money from the savings-banks. They rightly
believed that bankruptcy was the best way of overthrowing the
Government.
_December 9._--Khroustoloff, the President of the Strike
Committee, and three other leading delegates were arrested at
the Printers’ Union and imprisoned.
At this time severe fighting was renewed in the Caucasus between
the Tartars and Armenians.
There was also a violent outbreak of revolution in Riga, and the
Letts of the three Baltic Provinces of Esthonia, Livonia, and
Courland, rose against the Government, and burnt some of the
country houses belonging to German landowners who had inherited
estates from the Teutonic Orders of Knight and other Prussian
conquerors in the Middle Ages.
_December 16._--The Council of Workmen’s Delegates (Strike
Committee), combined with the Committee of the Peasants’
Congress, the Committee of the Social Democratic Workmen’s
Party, and the Committee of the Social Revolutionists, issued
another manifesto on Government finance. The following extracts
show its tendency:--
“The Government is on the verge of bankruptcy. With the capital
obtained by foreign loans, it has built railways and fleets
and fortresses, and supplied itself with arms. The foreign
sources of capital are now dried up. The Government orders have
ceased, and the merchants and factory-owners, accustomed to
enrich themselves at the expense of the State, are closing their
offices. No one is sure of the morrow.
“The Government has wasted all the State revenues on the
army and the fleet. There are no schools, and the roads are
neglected. Troops throughout the country are disaffected,
impoverished, and hungry. The Government has robbed the State
savings-banks. The capital of small investors has been played
with on the Bourse. The gold reserve of the State Bank is
insignificant compared with the demands of the State loans and
commercial transactions.
“The Government covers the interest on old loans by contracting
new loans. Year by year it publishes false estimates of the
revenue and expenditure, so as to show a surplus instead of the
real deficit.
“Only after the fall of the autocracy can a Constituent Assembly
put an end to this financial ruin. The national representatives
must then liquidate the debts as soon as possible.
“There is but one way out of this abyss--the overthrow of the
Government, and the removal of its last weapon. We must take
from it the last source of its existence--its financial revenue.
“The Government is issuing orders against the people as though
Russia were a conquered country. We have decided not to allow
the payment of debts contracted by the Tsar’s Government, since
it has openly waged war against the whole nation.
“We call on you to withdraw your deposits from the savings
banks, and to refuse to pay taxes, or to take banknotes, or to
subscribe to loans.”
This manifesto showed how clearly the leaders of the working
classes realized that the control of finance is the basis of
political power.
The Government recognized it too, and took immediate measures.
On the 14th the Tsar had proclaimed “his inflexible will to
realize with all possible speed the reforms he had granted.”
On the 16th came a Government message denouncing “the groups who
are threatening the Government, society, and all the population
who do not share their views,” and threatening imprisonment
against all strikers and inciters to strike.
That evening the hall of the Free Economic Society, which I
described in the first chapter, was surrounded by troops and
police. Three hundred men and women were arrested, and two
hundred and sixty-four of them were imprisoned, including twenty
of the Executive.
At the same time the editors of all the papers which had
published the Committee’s manifesto were arrested, and their
papers suppressed. Of the leading dailies, only the reptile
_Novoe Vremya_ continued to appear.
_December 18._--An entirely new council and executive were
appointed for the Strike Committee, and at once they determined
on another general strike. “The Government has declared civil
war,” ran the decree, “and, as it wants war, it shall have it.”
In the mean time, on December 8th, I had gone to Moscow, and it
was to Moscow that the centre of revolution now shifted. But
before I take up the narrative of the rising in that city, I
will describe a few days’ visit I made from there into the open
country and the villages where peasants live. The change in the
order of date is unimportant, and the story of Moscow can then
follow continuously.
[Illustration: PEASANT SLEDGES.]
[Illustration: A PRIVATE SLEDGE.]
CHAPTER V
THE OPEN LAND
Under the waning moon, before the dawn of a December day, I drove out
of the town of Toula in my tiny sledge--so close to the snow that
the great black horse with his high yoke looked monstrous in the
twilight. It is a typical Russian town, about a hundred miles south of
Moscow, and as nearly as possible in the centre of the country. Two
great roads cross each other there, and pass on to the points of the
compass. Oldish churches, surrounded by a fortified wall, make a kind
of Kremlin. Ancient houses conceal cavernous shops in the thickness
of their own walls. Across a wooden bridge stands the Government
small-arms factory, with workmen’s villages beyond. Strange figures in
filthy rags moved up and down, beggars and shaggy peasants, high-school
boys, and fur-capped girls. It has long been rather a revolutionary
little town, and during the strike, ten days before, nineteen workmen
had been shot upon the street.
In spite of solemn warnings, I had come out from the cities to see
something of the country, having with difficulty induced a ruined
German-Russian to venture with me as interpreter, for the sake of
bread. As usual, the danger was nothing compared to the fear. What
danger there was in the villages came from the police agents and
officials, who hounded on the peasants with the cry that every stranger
was a revolutionist conspiring against the Tsar to rob them of God and
the land. For in those progressive days the police were dreading lest
they should lose their livelihood of flogging and brutality at fifteen
shillings a week.
My road went uphill to a high and bare plain, over which the snow was
driven by the wind in showers so blinding that the horse kept turning
round and appealing to us as reasonable beings to return. Horizon,
road, and every mark were lost in whirling grey. But, after we had
struggled on for two or three hours, the snow ceased to fall, and the
wintry sun appeared low in the sky, making the distant ridges of the
wide country shine with pale crimson or gleam like a far-off sea.
Most of the land was bare and open ground, the snow blotting out the
“stripes” where the peasants grew their crops in summer. But as we went
further, lengths of forest came into view, looking brown at a distance,
though generally made up of young silver birch, their silky white stems
flecked with black. Birch woods supply the fuel of the country; next to
food, the first necessity of the peasant’s life. There was some oak,
but very little fir or pine. The birch in this region is the favourite,
either because it grows best or burns best; and it is almost the only
fuel in Moscow.
The peasants’ wooden sleighs passing to and fro bore loads of sawn
birch, dragged by miserable little ponies, so caked with mire that
their coats looked like a crocodile’s armour. At their side floundered
the peasants in sheepskin jackets, with the wool side turned inwards.
The jacket was gathered with a belt round the waist, and the skirt
stuck out all round, reaching to the knees. Then came the high
top-boots of felt or bast, rarely of leather. Men and women were not
to be distinguished, except that, instead of a cap, the women usually
wore a handkerchief or shawl knotted over head and ears. There was no
special grace about the costume; but even the rich ladies of Russian
cities find it hard to appear graceful when padded round with fur and
wool six or seven inches deep. At the best, they can only appear rich.
Beside the road at one place stood a mouldering wooden inn
(_tractir_), where passers-by could get thawed and have a glass
of tea at three farthings. The owner of the estate, being something
of a philanthropist or a teetotaller for others, had forbidden beer
and spirits, so that the innkeeper was pale with anxiety how to pay
his £4 rent, to say nothing of the taxes. Should he borrow, and go to
ruin that way, or allow himself to be flogged to prove his poverty? I
suggested that times were changing, and flogging might cease, but he
only smiled with the politeness of superior knowledge. “No flogging, no
taxes,” was to him the law of government.
In one corner hung three great icons, or holy pictures of the saints,
glittering with tin and brass--very different in size and expense from
the miniature icon which hangs in every bedroom of the wealthy Russian
hotels, as a kind of apology to God, like our grace at a City dinner.
Otherwise, there was no ornament in the house, except one of those
ill-omened iron mugs, for which the crowd crushed each other to death
on the coronation day of the present unhappy Tsar, nine years before,
when the plain of Khodinsky Polé, on the north-west outskirts of
Moscow, stood thick with suffocated peasants.
I next passed a great smelting works, newly finished, its fine furnaces
and machinery never used, but already deserted and allowed to go
to ruin. I could not discover whose money had been devoted to this
characteristic fraud, or into whose pockets it had passed. Then came a
few small gardens and summer residences built on the Crown land; for
most of the land in that district is part of the Tsar’s vast estates,
amounting to a fortieth part of the whole of European Russia, not
counting the landed property of the Imperial family. But all the
houses were deserted and empty, and one was burnt, and smouldered still.
Driving further on, I came to a large country house, where one of the
ancient families of the Russian nobility was still living in the midst
of its own land. I happened to be bringing them letters from friends,
as the post was not working, and I found a house-party there, beguiling
the winter day with much the same occupations as a house-party in
England--doing embroidery, playing battledore with racquets and a
soft ball, pushing a marble up a kind of bagatelle-board, examining
their guns, and taking the dogs for walks in the woods. At a wandering
luncheon of various courses, they maintained a quiet converse, marked
by the gracious silliness, the “cheerful stoicism,” which is the
justification of the aristocrat’s existence.
It was all a fine piece of self-reserve, for inwardly their mood was
serious and apprehensive. They had just heard that the country-house of
a friend and neighbour had been burnt to the ground by his peasants,
though the family had escaped with their lives. One of the ladies had a
son in the army, and they had just heard of a terrible riot and mutiny
in his garrison town. Another lady’s son had married a rich heiress,
and they had just heard that the three country residences of her
parents had been utterly destroyed by the peasants, and now she was
rich no more. From every side came tales of loss and danger, and no one
could say what the end would be.
For themselves, they were just waiting helplessly to see what would
happen. Polite, charming, highly educated, well dressed, healthy, fond
of sport and country life, full of good will and high intentions,
they were so like our own country squires and aristocracy at their
best--so like the people who used to be held up to us as the school
of manners and the producers of the fine old English stock--that only
the dreariest of Social Democrats could have refused them sympathy.
They were themselves fairly conscious of the absurdities in their own
position, but the only protest or complaint that they made was to
say they were getting a little tired of perpetual parallels between
themselves and the aristocrats of the French Revolution, whose heads
were cut off so rapidly.
In the afternoon my sledge took me further into the unlimited and
desolate country, till at last we came to a village fairly typical of
that district--not a rich part of Russia nor yet so starving poor as
the famine provinces which lay close by it. The village was built in
one long street, with about forty separated cottages on each side.
A few of the cottages had bits of brick in the walls or round the
windows, but wood was almost the only building material, and the
roofs, though sometimes of flat iron plates, painted green, were
generally thatched. In this particular village there was no school
and no church, but from the high ground above it I could see a church
about two miles off, and that, no doubt, was near enough. There were
two shops and an inn, all just like the other cottages. Each house had
a separate wattle shed near it, for fodder, stores, and perhaps to
shelter the beasts in summer. In winter they have to be brought into
the dwelling-house for warmth.
By the invitation of a peasant I went into his cottage. The man was
rather above the ordinary type, being tall and straight. But he had
the thoughtful and quiet look of the average peasant, as well as the
long, dark hair and shaggy appearance. His wife was quite the usual
woman--short, ungainly, and possessing no visible beauty except,
perhaps, patience. On the faces of both was the green look of hunger,
almost invariable in the peasants I have seen. The outside door of the
house opened into the cattle-room, where a sickly cow was dragging out
the winter. There was room for a horse, but the people had been obliged
to sell their horse that autumn to pay the taxes and their debts to the
Koulak or village usurer. From the Koulak, too, I suppose, they would
borrow the money to hire another horse in the summer, as they said they
intended. For no peasant can get through his work without a horse.
A wooden partition separated the cattle from the dwelling-room, the
house being designed exactly like an Irish cabin, except that the
white brick construction of the stove projected on both sides of the
partition, thus warming the cow and the family both. As every one
knows, the peasant’s stove is a large and wonderful edifice, full of
mysterious holes and caverns for cooking and baking, and even for the
dry roasting process which serves the family as a bath. Close beside it
were two broad, wooden shelves on which the inmates slept--the parents
above, the five children underneath. There was no bedding of any kind,
except one worn coverlet or shawl on each shelf.
The children had made their shelf into a day-nursery as well as a bed,
for they were all rolling about on it and biting each other, imagining
a game of wolf, I think, though wolves are not common there. All were
bare-legged, and quite naked but for loose red shirts reaching to their
knees. Of course, they went out sometimes, but there were not enough
clothes to send them all out together at once in winter. The furniture
of the home was a wooden box, which was the seat of honour, a short
bench, a table, and a small wooden loom, on the universal model of
primitive manufacture. Both man and woman could weave, and they were
making yards of a coarse stuff dyed with red madder, exactly the same
as the women make for their petticoats on Achill Island.
Probably the loom brought in an important part of the family’s income,
for the sale of the horse showed that they could not live off the
land alone. Yet the man boasted that his bit of land, on which he
grew potatoes, oats, and rye, was his absolute property, and when I
tried to ask him whether the village community did not redistribute
his land with the rest every twelve years, as I had read in books, he
became very violent and showed no scientific interest at all in the
sociological importance of the Mir. The working of the Mir was the only
thing I thought I did understand when I came to Russia, and it was
disconcerting to find that the first peasant I spoke to had never heard
of such an arrangement. I still do not know what mistake he or I can
have made. He may have been only insisting on the peasant’s touching
faith that the land is the natural possession of the man who cultivates
it, and can never be taken from him, even by the Tsar. Anyhow, he was
terribly afraid that I had come to shake that belief in some way, and I
thought it best to turn the conversation to the cow.
As to the Tsar’s recent promise to remit next year half the annual
payment still due to the Treasury for the original purchase of the
land, this peasant, in common, I believe, with all others, thought
nothing of it. To them the manifesto was so much “dirty paper.” They
knew very well that even if half were remitted, the Crown agents would
come down upon them for arrears. They also knew dimly that since the
liberation of the serfs more than forty years ago, the peasants have
paid the extreme value of the land twice over. So they have ceased to
concern themselves about any manifesto which does not surrender to them
the mass of land which they regard as rightfully theirs.
While I was in the cottage, an old man came up with a canvas bag over
his shoulder, and knocked at the door. Though obviously in the sink of
poverty, he was not a professional beggar, but only one of that large
class of peasants who are driven by age or misfortune to go round the
villages and ask for scraps to keep them alive till better times.
Accordingly he came in as if for a friendly call, laid his bag on the
table with its mouth open, and joined in the conversation. When we were
going out again, the woman slipped some squares of black bread into
the bag as though by stealth, and he took it up and walked off without
further remark on either side. It was the perfection both of appeal and
kindliness.
[Illustration: TOLSTOY’S HOME.]
[Illustration: PEASANTS.]
At parting, I looked again at the peasant and his wife, in their clean
poverty, with the marks of their almost passionate labour upon them
and their five children growing up round their knees, and certainly it
did seem incredible that these were just the people who are marched
off to the village police-court, are tied face downwards to a sloping
bench, have their clothes turned up, and are flogged with whips or
rods by officials and police because they cannot pay the taxes for the
Japanese war, or for the interest on the French loans.
Yet, in the last resort, it is upon violence almost as brutalizing and
indecent that all Empires are founded, and I was all the more ready
to welcome what Tolstoy said to me next day, when he received me--as
generously as he receives every one--in his “Bright Home” (_Jasnaia
Poliana_) as the country-house is called. He told me that, among the
many other plans of work which he could not live to finish, he was then
engaged on a book to be called “The End of an Age.”
“You are young and I am old,” he said, “but as you grow older you will
find, as I have found, that day follows day, and there does not seem
much change in you, till suddenly you hear people speaking of you as an
old man. It is the same with an age in history; day follows day, and
there does not seem to be much change, till suddenly it is found that
the age has become old. It is finished, it is out of date.
“The present movement in Russia is not a riot, it is not even a
revolution, it is the end of an age. And the age that is ending is the
age of Empires--the collection of smaller States under one large State.
There is no true community of heart or thought between Russia, Finland,
Poland, the Caucasus, and all our other States and races. Or what have
Hungary, Bohemia, and Styria, or the Tyrol to do with Austria? No more
than Canada, Australia, India, or Ireland have to do with England.
People are now beginning to see the absurdity of these things, and
in the end people are reasonable. That is why the age of Empires is
passing away.
“They tell me, for instance, that if the Russian Empire ceased to
exist, swarms of Japanese would overrun our country and destroy our
race. But the Japanese also are reasonable people, and if they came and
found how much better off we were without any Empire at all, they would
go home and imitate our example.”
The whole argument, which ran on with a half-ironic simplicity of this
kind, was magnificent, not so much for its daring as for its quiet
confidence in human reason. I remembered how for the last twenty years
all the brazen trumpets of vulgarity had been sounding the note of
Empire over us as the one great and stirring purpose of existence.
And here was this rugged old man calmly telling me, as though it
were something of a platitude, that we had just come to the end of
an age--the age of Empires. There he sat in the familiar grey shirt
without coat or collar, the belt round the waist, and the high leather
top-boots (for he had just tramped round his land in the snow), quietly
following out the exact logic of his principles, no matter where it
might lead him. He was seventy-seven, and in terms of years one was
forced, as he said, to call him old. The spirit had retired more deeply
into the shrunk and wrinkled form. But under the shaggy brows, the
grey-green eyes still looked out with the clearness of profound thought
and fearless simplicity which have made him the greatest rebel in the
world.
As to the present condition of his own country, he believed, as is well
known from his writings, that the return of the land to the peasants
is the only possible cure for Russia’s misery. He told me that he
would accept Henry George’s method of nationalization, or any other
which gave the peasants a true hold on the land they work. He quoted
Kropotkin’s investigations into “intensive culture” to prove that,
with improved methods, there is plenty of land in Russia to maintain
an immensely increased population. As things stood, less than a third
of the cultivated land was held by peasants or village communities,
and less than a quarter of the cultivable land was used at all. The
Tsar should at once restore the land to the peasants. With their long
experience of the communal system, they could then manage very well
for themselves without any State at all, as they had successfully
proved in the Siberian colonies; for communism ran in the Russian
blood, and its ideal had never been lost in the country.
When I suggested that a town question had also arisen now, besides the
claim of peasants to the land, he admitted that town influence was the
greatest danger. “Towns,” he said, “are the places where mankind has
begun to rot, and unhappily the rottenness spreads. The mistake of our
Liberal politicians in the towns is that they are always preaching the
blessings of some English or American constitution. But constitutions
of that kind, having once been realized, have already become things
of the past. They belong to a different age from ours, and an ideal,
whether in statesmanship or art, is never a thing of the past, but
always of the future. For Russia as she exists now, we ought to aim at
something entirely different from your worn-out methods of government.”
So he conversed through the winter morning, eager to speak, and as
eager to hear. He asked much about Central Africa from which I had
lately returned, and much about the new national movement in Ireland,
nor should I have been surprised if he had continued the conversation
in Gaelic, so fresh and vigorous was his interest in the world. Only
when I told him rather carelessly, that the intellectual movement
there was producing a large number of poets, his face fell, and he
turned to other things, merely remarking that poets were very little
good. In passing, he said he had been pleased to find that his fellow
Puritan, Mr. Bernard Shaw, thought very lightly of Shakespeare, in whom
he had never himself discovered any satisfaction, though he had read
him once all through in English, and twice in German.
But it was not his interest in the common affairs of the world that
gave him his true attraction. Apart from all this, there hung over
him that separate and distinguishing grace which our fathers called
sanctity and considered a thing to be worshipped. It was the grace of
a toilsome and abstemious life, unflinchingly devoted to one high aim,
and sacrificing all worldly pleasure and success to an ideal which
could never be reached. I believe the modern name for it is fanaticism.
I say one high aim, for I see no reason to agree with the many critics
who draw a sharp dividing line in his career and in the process of
his mind. All the principles of his later teaching are to be found
illustrated in the two great imaginative works of his earlier manhood,
and if there is any fault to be found with a life so courageous and
inspiring, I should seek it only in a rather inhuman and remorseless
consistency of reason--a logic which, having for instance, condemned
the pleasures of sense, would doom the human race to rapid extinction
because life cannot be maintained and handed on without pleasure. But
such returns to the strict Christianity of earlier centuries ought not
to astonish people who call themselves Christians, especially as there
seems no danger at present that the logic of their teaching will be
followed in human action. And, in any case, I should rather leave it to
others to reveal such limitations as they may find in so beneficient
and gracious a personality.
[Illustration: TOLSTOY IN MIDDLE AGE.]
CHAPTER VI
THE STATE OF MOSCOW
On the morning of Saturday, December 9th, the day after I had arrived
in Moscow, I happened to be passing the unfinished buildings of the
empty University. Minute snow was lashing through the air before a
bitter wind, but it thawed as it fell, and people in goloshes went
slopping about among the filthy puddles of the street.
Trailing in disorder through the dirt and wind, mixed up with the
market people and the little open cabs like sledges that were always
dashing up and down with men and women in furs, came a loose string
of soldiers, slowly making their way westward. They had just passed
the canvas booths where butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers and other
loyalists set upon the students with knives the month before; they had
reached the point where the soldiers from behind walls fired blindly
into the thick of the unarmed procession which accompanied the funeral
of the student Baumann. There they halted, because the cross road which
passes the great Riding School Barrack and cuts the University in half
was blocked with traffic, and then a few passers-by began to look at
them curiously.
They were not to be called a column, nor were they organized as an
advanced party. They were not organized at all; but a few cavalry came
first, their hairy little horses throwing up a steam into the wind;
then a few straggling infantry--not more than half a battalion--covered
with filth, their uniforms torn and patched, some in low, flat caps
like our own men, some in high, furry caps, matted with mud and snow.
And under the caps were faces yellow, thin, and as though bemused with
wonder. Behind the infantry followed a rambling line of various kinds
of cart, and inside the carts were stretched muffled and pallid forms,
their heads or arms or feet bound up with dirty and blood-stained
bandages.
These were the soldiers returning from the war, the van and first
instalment of that great and ruined army coming home. At last they had
completed the 5000 or 6000 miles of their journey from the starving
East, across the frozen lake, and through the long Siberian plains, and
were alive in the heart of their own country again. And this was how
they were received. Certainly, the Moscow municipality had intended to
arrange some sort of festivities at the station. They had intended to
give little presents to the men--something in the shape of chocolates
and cigarettes that comfort the hearts of heroes. They had prepared
little decorations for the officers, with the inscription, “To the
defenders of the country.” But whether these festivities were ever held
and these little presents given, no one could tell me. The papers had
announced that the army from the Far East would begin to arrive on the
Sunday. The paternal Government took care that they should arrive on
the Saturday.
Probably the town officials retained for themselves their little
offerings to patriotism, and will wear the war decorations with pride
at family parties. So little interest was taken in the whole thing that
the evening papers continued to announce that the army would begin to
arrive on the morrow. The market people and cabdrivers stopped for a
moment to look at them before hurrying on through the snow, and no
further notice of any kind was taken of the defenders of the country.
So they drifted westward, down the dirty streets, and disappeared. On
reaching the barracks, the Reservists among them were discharged, and
the crowds of beggars who, with threats and curses, violently demanded
the milk of human kindness at every corner, were increased by many
tattered figures. They limped about in traces of departed uniforms,
and as they passed, people said, “A soldier from the war.” One night
I saw two or three of them seated on a curb-stone beside a fire which
had been lighted in a street. One was swaying gently backwards and
forwards and continually repeating, “At home and alive! at home and
alive!” The others took no notice, but stared like imbeciles into the
flames.
Some were drafted back by rail to their villages, and the terror
of comfortable people was that they would there spread the tale of
mismanagement, corruption, and misery till all the peasants would rise
in fury and sweep upon the cities in ravenous and overwhelming hordes.
Sometimes a dim rumour reached us from the Far East of a distracted
army, mutinous and starving; maddened with hardship and the longing for
home, but unable to crowd into the worn-out trains that crept along
those thousands of miles of single line, choked with stores and blocked
by continual accidents and strikes. If they should all come home--all
the 500,000 or 600,000 of them at once? The comfortable citizens--and
even in Moscow there were such people--shuddered in their furs and
thanked Heaven for the difficulties of that narrow road.
On the other hand, a big manufacturer told me he was delighted to see
the army returning. “For now,” he said, “the Reservists on garrison
duty here will be dismissed, and we can always trust the Line to obey
their officers and shoot in defence of law and order.” At the time I
hoped he was over-sanguine. In Russia there is no caste of soldiers
as with us. All come from the people, and in a year or two will
return to the people. The Line are exactly the same kind of men as
the Reservists, only younger. Of course, it might happen that, being
younger, they would more likely obey, for to most people obedience is
the easiest thing to do, and a young man in uniform is almost sure to
fall into it. But for the moment that was to me just the one question
of the future; would the Line obey their officers and shoot in defence
of law and order?
There were rumours about the disaffection of a good many battalions.
The Rostoff regiment got up a little mutiny on its own account one
day, and planted guns at the corners of their barracks, but they were
soon won back by promises of bodily comfort. For the rest, the troops
patrolled the streets in mounted and unmounted parties day and night,
but no one knew whether they represented a Government or not. Their
chief duties were concentrated round the great block of Post Office
buildings. For all day long large groups of postal clerks and officials
on strike were gathered upon the pavements there, like working bees
around a ruined hive, and in the neighbouring boulevard gardens, where
girls and children skated, they assembled in eager controversy.
On the Monday morning (December 11th), I saw there a feeble little
attempt to rush a mail-cart starting for the provinces, or for the St.
Petersburg station, under mounted escort. In a moment two Cossack
patrols wheeled round and dashed at full gallop into the crowd,
striking blindly at the nearest heads with the terrible nagaikas
or loaded whips which I described before. Where the patrols had
passed, men, women, and little girls, lay felled to the ground or
stood screaming with pain while blood ran down their faces. Pushing,
stumbling, and scrambling for life, the crowd fled in panic before
the stroke of the hoofs and the whirling whips. Then I knew that
until they could face violence with some sort of organized front, the
revolutionists had better stay at home. Against twenty men in uniform,
five hundred had no chance. As a gigantic Caucasian cried in scorn the
night before to a meeting of peaceful and scientific Social Democrats,
“The party that commands force is the Government.” Who would command
force was at that time the most important question in Russia, and no
one was certain how it should be answered from day to day.
In the ordinary affairs of life we enjoyed liberty tempered by
assassination. The advance from tyranny supported by execution was
immeasurable, and it had all been accomplished in about six weeks. In
that old city, the natural centre of Russian life both by position and
trade, were gathered some 1,100,000 souls who had never known liberty
before, either in politics, economics, or thought. It was very natural
that they should not know exactly what to make of the change at
first. The surprising thing was to see how rapidly their instinct for
organization and self-government developed, especially in the working
classes. Whether one ought to trace this faculty to the old habit of
the village community among the peasants, I am not sure. But I think it
certain that the feeling for association and common action--the feeling
of “mutual aid” as Kropotkin calls it--is very widely extended among
Russians.
Every one was then waiting for the next step in history, and the
wildest rumours flew. At every corner and in every restaurant stood
prophets foretelling the fates, and winning the momentary applause of
delight or terror. But, except for such rewards, the time of prophets
was not more valuable than usual, and for ordinary people, whose
perceptions are blind to futurity, the real points of interest were
still the postal strike and the rapid formation of unions. The loss
to friendship and business owing to the cessation of letters was so
severe, that the leaders of finance and commerce in Moscow drew up
a petition to Witte and Durnavo, urging them to grant the economic
demands, especially the right of union, even if no political demands
were considered. The Government replied with a manifesto dismissing one
thousand of the postal strikers offhand, and making all strikes among
Government servants a criminal offence.
The hardship was great. Many of the strikers had served fifteen years
or more, and were entitled to pensions, which they now lost. Many
lived in Government quarters, from which they were now evicted. The
Progressives certainly did all that they could to assist them. At all
lectures and meetings, such as were held in various parts of the city
every night, the bag was sent round for aid to the strikers. At one
lecture I counted seven bags--chiefly students’ caps--going round for
various righteous causes. In one of the most moderate of all Liberal
papers--the _Russian News_--a strike fund was organized for the
women and children, and it reached about £5000 before the Government
clutched it and put it in its own pocket. In all Progressive papers you
read advertisements that Mr. or Mrs. So-and-So would undertake to feed
so many strikers for so many days, or to house the children. I knew
three Socialist families of quite poor people who took in one or two
children of strikers every day to share their dinner. The noticeable
thing was that the children were fed, no matter what party of Socialism
their parents belonged to. All the workers knew that the strike so far
had been the people’s only weapon. The Government had two--hunger and
the rifle.
Nearly every night meetings were held for the new unions which were
springing up on every side. The whole of Moscow, which is built in
concentric circles round the Kremlin or eminent citadel overhanging
the little river, had been divided off into wedges, or “rays,” as
they were called, and each ray sent so many delegates to the central
committee--corresponding to the Council of Labour Delegates in St.
Petersburg--which superintended the whole labour question, and had to
decide the moment for strikes. But besides the central organizations,
almost every trade was forming its own union of defence.
First came the great Railway Union, which controlled the powerful
instrument of the railway strikes, and had its headquarters in Moscow,
because the city is the obvious centre of all Russian railways. Perhaps
next in size, though hardly in importance, came the peculiar union of
Floor Polishers--a class of workers unknown in England, because we
are not clean enough to have parquetted floors. But in Moscow they
were said to number thirty thousand in the union. There were other
large unions besides--the tailors’, the metal-workers’, the waiters’,
the jewellers’, and a very strong printers’ union called “The Society
of the Printed Word,” said to be the oldest in Russia, and rising
almost to the dignity of a knightly order by its title. The Union of
Bathmen and Bathwomen, a very large class of labour in Russia, is also
old, and in those weeks they came to the very satisfactory decision
of declaring a boycott against the editor of Katkoff’s famous old
clerical and reactionary paper, the _Moscow News_ (_Moskovskaya
Viedomosti_). No minister of the union would wash the editor of the
_Moscow News_ at any price.
One evening I was present at the formation of two new unions in very
different classes of labour. First I went to an immense meeting of
tea-packers in a summer theatre, attached to the Aumont, a music
hall of easy virtue. But the theatre had now been boarded up into a
meeting-house as more suitable for the times. Packers of the Chinese
tea that comes overland are naturally a large class in Moscow, for the
tea is still the Russian national drink, in spite of the deadly blend
from Ceylon which is slowly being introduced. The packers are said
to number about six thousand, and forty companies sent deputies to
the meeting, though some of the companies employed only eight or ten
hands. It is an unhealthy trade, the dust leading to consumption; and
of all the many meetings I attended it was only here that I found the
voices feeble and toneless. Wages run from half a crown a week for boys
and girls up £1 a week for the best men. But in the trade there is an
ancient peculiarity that the wife of the owner or manager has to supply
a free midday dinner for the hands, and, as one of the delegates said,
“Apparently she cooks it in hell.”
The other new union was formed at a meeting of shop assistants,
conducted with that suavity and grandeur of manner which one always
notices at meetings of this class. It comes from watching the grace of
the shopwalkers, who alone carry the dignified and charming traditions
of the old noblesse into modern life. The meeting was occupied for
many hours in discussing whether the union should attend only to the
assistants’ interests, or should enter into wider life as a political
force. The Social Democrats urged them to be bold, and, as usual,
they had their way. They were far the most strongly organized party;
they had their speakers ready at every meeting, and they played their
“minimum programme” of quietly progressive measures with great effect.
Their opponents were unprepared, and on this occasion were almost too
polite to argue. I came away soon after midnight, but it was obvious
that the Shop Assistants’ Union would be a Social Democratic force
before dawn.
Mid-winter is the height of the season for learning, art, and pleasure,
but Moscow was neither gay nor learned. Reading and fiddling seemed
equally irrelevant. So were painting, poetry, love-making, and all
the other pleasant arts. In the big restaurant of the Métropole, it
is true, an orchestra still maintained a pretence of joy, and poured
out its vapid tunes to the rare guests who sat like shipwrecked
sailors scattered on a vasty deep, and struggled to be gay. But, like
a middle-aged picnic on the Thames, the thing was too deliberate a
happiness, and too conscious of its failure. “We must keep our spirits
up, you know,” I heard a youth say to an elderly gentleman as he poured
out the champagne. But it was no good. The elderly gentleman had
obviously dined well daily for many years, and was overwhelmed at the
solemn thought that at any moment dinners might end for ever. Day and
night he was living in “the haggard element of fear.”
The University was closed. Her seven thousand students were scattered,
some to their homes, some to their lodgings in the city, where for
the most part they swelled the army of the Social Democrats, and
spent their time discussing maximum and minimum programmes and the
socialization of productivity. They were also collecting arms.
“It was impossible to keep open. The students would insist on turning
the quadrangle into a Fort Chabrol,” said Professor Manioukoff, the new
Rector of the University, a learned economist and advanced politician,
who, being prohibited from studying grievances nearer home, had won
fame by specializing on the Irish land question. So the University was
closed, the professors were compelled to pursue research without the
due endowment of fees, and their wives and babies had to manage upon
half the family income.
Many of them took to lecturing, not for pay, but because it was the
only thing they could do for the Movement. One night I listened to
one who lectured for nearly two hours on the comparative history of
amnesties during the last few centuries, with a very close application
to the present time. He still called himself a Professor, though he had
been exiled from his Chair for so many years that his name had long
been forgotten, and, like most of the exiles, he came back to a world
which regarded him with a considerate but uneasy pity, as we should all
regard the dead if they returned. For nearly thirty years he had lived
in Bulgaria, surely not too far away to be remembered, and now he was
lecturing again in Moscow, an old man, lame and blind, dressed in a
frock-coat and worsted slippers. His nice little granddaughter guided
his steps, kept his water-glass full, reminded him every half-hour
of the flight of time (which he bore patiently), and put him right
about his dates, which made the audience smile. Otherwise, the large
lecture hall, packed with the intellectual, listened intently, but
showed no sign of approval until the end. The portrait of the Tsar had
been carefully removed from behind the chair, and only the gaunt iron
staples showed where it had hung.
Another evening, in one of those dubious theatres which had just
been converted to decent use, I heard a Professor deliver an immense
discourse upon the first principles of Social Democracy before an
audience half composed of working people. They also listened patiently,
but the moment of real excitement came when the lecturer ceased, and
three young soldiers sprang upon the stage and shouted that, on the
highest economic principles, they too had struck, and would Cossack
it no more. “I have flung away the uniform!” shouted one, who was
apparelled in a long dressing-gown. “No more fools of officers over
me!” shouted another. “And they fed us like swine!” shouted the third,
who was just economically drunk. The applause that rocked the audience
was one of the grandest noises I have ever heard. If only all the army
would follow the example of those three gallant musketeers! But that
night they vanished from the blaze of glory, and I heard of them no
more.
Vanished too were the Zemstvoists, the men who, in July, had impeached
the Government in an overwhelming series of accusations. Since the
death of their hero, Prince Sergius Troubetskoy, their heart had failed
them, and in November, when they met again in congress and their chance
had come, they wasted the precious days in discussions upon Witte’s
character, just like a suburban essay society discussing Hamlet. But
time was going fast just then, and before they had settled Witte’s
psychology to their satisfaction they were forgotten. They had meant
so well by their counsels of moderation and attempts to imitate the
British Constitution, but rushing time had left them lonely. Yet
Moscow was rather strong in Liberal papers, which the bourgeoisie were
glad to accept as protests against the extremes of socialism. The
_Russian News_, for instance, edited by white-haired Sobolevski,
with a grey-haired staff, was a strictly moderate paper, as I have
said, though its writers had become so inspired by the youthfulness
of the time that their articles would have sent them a year before to
meditate in prison or exile upon the license of governments.
Then again, the first Sunday I was in Moscow, Professor Miliukoff
brought out his new paper called _Life_ (_Zhisn_) on simple
and moderate lines. He began with a long and earnest appeal for the
unity of Progressive parties against the common enemy of Absolutism.
“Let us all combine,” he cried, “into a bloc, and present a solid front
to the ancient tyranny and new reaction. When Absolutism is overthrown,
there will be time enough to discuss the divergent lines of our own
programmes.” Every one respected Professor Miliukoff, and was cheered
by his eternal hopefulness. The advice was obviously sensible. Its
only fault was that it was sensible to commonplace--just too obviously
sensible for times of high exhilaration, when the position of the
moderate man is always painful and usually neglected. Neither workmen
nor Social Democrats cared in the least for a Liberal alliance. They
knew that, in any case, the Liberals would join them in the fight
against Absolutism, and to the truly revolutionary spirit Liberalism is
always suspect. A significant cartoon came out that week, called “The
Hare at the Hunt.” The lion of the proletariat has sprung upon the Bear
of tyranny; but in the foreground the Hare of the bourgeoisie is seen
hastening up and delicately nibbling at one of the dead Bear’s ears, as
much as to say, “Please, give me a little bit too!” A little bit might
be given to the Moderates, but the proletariat were determined to keep
the lion’s share.
One day, for the sake of comparison with the proletariat of St.
Petersburg, I went over a large and very rich factory, which almost
holds a monopoly in candles, and the darkness of Northern Russia for
six months in the year makes a candle monopoly valuable. At the end of
October a serious riot had occurred there, and the front of the mill
was still a wreck of bricks and broken glass. The strikers had then
demanded a 50 per cent. rise in wages, an eight-hour day, a lodging
allowance of 6_s._ to 10_s._ a month, pensions of half wages
after fifteen years’ work, and pensions of full wages after twenty-five
years. When I was there, they had just begun work again on a rise of 16
per cent., an eight-hour day in three shifts, and a lodging allowance
of 4_s._ 6_d._ a month. That lodging allowance arises from
the general old custom of living-in. Hitherto all the single men and
single women had lived in barrack dormitories inside the mill, with
a room for meals, gas, heating, and washing-troughs provided. These
blocks of lodgings--“spalnya,” as they are called--dismal and crowded
as life in them must be, were perhaps as comfortable and much cheaper
than the accommodation to be had outside. But they lacked the one
great charm in life--the charm of liberty. At the time of the strike,
the hands demanded the right of receiving friends and relations from
outside into the premises. The managers complied, and that evening
the whole place was crammed with enthusiastic advocates of family
affection. A mass meeting, eloquent of revolution, was held in the
mill yard, and the devotees of friendship paraded their red flags in
front of the managers’ quarters with trumpet and drum. Next day the
managers withdrew their amiable concession, cleared the dormitories
of men and women, and turned them neck and crop out into the road to
fend for themselves. The lodging allowance was given to prevent further
riots and to soothe the conscience. In the matter of money, it is no
compensation for what the workmen lose, but liberty is thrown in, and
liberty counts so high that I think the workers had the best of it in
the end, and probably the old barracks will gradually disappear.
In the last twenty years the rate of pay has gone up fourfold, while
the cost of living has only doubled. A good workman in this mill now
received from 24_s._ to 30_s._ a week, which appeared to
be the maximum wage, and since the strike a woman’s wage had risen
to 8_s._ a week, with the same lodging allowance as the men, or
about 9_s._ 2_d._ a week in all. The standard of food was
perhaps a little higher than in St. Petersburg, for, except during
fasts, the family expected some sort of meat or stew every day. But
this was a particularly rich mill; it prided itself on its high wages,
and the Englishmen of its management delighted to display a paternal
benevolence to the innocent unfortunates of a lower race. It was
certainly remarkable that all the hands had gone back, except those who
could not be summoned from their villages owing to the breakdown of the
post.
Of course, the prolonged post strike, which had continued for nearly
three weeks then, was inconvenient for everybody. Revolutions are
generally inconvenient, especially for business people. But it was
rather too much when that ancient champion of tyranny, the _Novoe
Vremya_, took this opportunity for working itself up into such a
glow of righteous indignation because the strikers were depriving
mankind of humanity’s glorious right--the right of communication and
speech--the right of corresponding with fellow-men afar off, and
calling on others to associate in their joys and griefs. What had the
_Novoe Vremya_ cared about that glorious right a few months
before? What protest had it ever raised against a censorship that pried
into letters, and chuckled over lovers’ secrets, and tracked men down
to death through the words of their friends? Or what communication with
their fellow-men had been allowed to exiles and prisoners--exiles and
prisoners who had been wiped out from human existence for exercising
that glorious right of speech? In reading leading articles like that I
have sometimes detected limits beyond which even hypocrisy ceases to be
decent.
But in times of revolution we must expect and tolerate much wild
absurdity among people who are afraid of losing their money, and among
the startled cowards who have suddenly realized what revolution is. In
a letter to his own paper, the _New Life_, about this time, Maxim
Gorky said that people had been writing to him from all over Russia to
ask why it was that the patient workman and the dear, gentle peasant,
whom the advanced thinkers used to worship as a saint, had suddenly
shown themselves so very disagreeable and dangerous. There was a
crudity and innocence about the question which takes us back more than
half a century in Western social history, and Gorky’s own answer sounds
to us almost as much a truism as a chapter of Charles Kingsley seems
now. He merely repeated the weary old truth that in ordinary times the
rich and governing classes have never taken the smallest notice of the
worker and the peasant. When have they ever turned from their games of
ambition or pleasure to consider the poor? In what way have they shared
their life, except in the distribution of doles, which are given for
their own comfort? If a bad time had now come for them, and if a worse
was coming, that was only the natural turning of a wheel which had been
slow to turn.
In our country we have long been familiar with such statements. We have
long known that the rich man’s charity is but a ransom for himself, so
that he may follow enjoyment with undisturbed content. We have long
known that the sympathies of comfortable people are limited by their
own comfort. We have also learnt how vain it is to preach such truths,
if preaching is to end in words. But what to us has become true to
satiety may still be a bewildering paradox to less experienced and less
sophisticated nations, and the extraordinary influence of writers like
Gorky in Russia seems to arise from the simple-hearted earnestness
with which thoughtful Russians have received their doctrine. What to
us appears so painfully true that we had almost forgotten it, may dawn
upon them as a fine paradox of revelation.
The teaching in Gorky’s new play, _The Children of the Sun_ would
be rather less familiar to us, for it strikes at the intellectual
classes, who generally regard themselves as above criticism, whereas
the rich have become case-hardened to sermons and abuse. It was then
being performed in his own theatre--the best theatre in the world,
airy, admirably planned for hearing, entirely free from the curse of
decoration, and provided with a large hall where the audience could
discuss revolution during the welcome pauses which extend Russian
entertainments through the night. The drama is Ibsenite--a humorous
tragedy, with plenty of ironic laughter, though it fades away into a
paltry German suicide. But the political point is that the central
figure--an excellent man of science, simple, sweet tempered, and
devoted with all his heart to the creation of life by chemical
means--declares that intellectual people like himself are in reality
toiling for the poor, no matter how indifferent they may appear to the
poverty of others. They are the children of the sun--the almost divine
beings who shed light in the darkness of the world. The simple-hearted
chemist is himself a true saint of intellect. When, with the consent
of his wife, a rich and lovely lady flings herself round his neck and
offers him all her love and a complete laboratory, he accepts the
laboratory with rapture, but asks if the love is not superfluous.
Nevertheless all his innocence, his devotion, and his real kindliness
of heart do not help him in the least when the peasants, infuriated for
liberty, come storming down the village and almost choke the life out
of that Child of the Sun in his own back garden.
That was likely to be the fate of many excellent people, who were
pursuing culture without extravagance. Many who deserved no worse than
the rest of us poor intellectual and decently clothed men were caught
up in the whirling skirts of revolution and carried shrieking they knew
not where. From every side came rumours of burnings and slaughters.
The country was spoken of as a wilderness of destruction, into which
none dared penetrate. For many days in vain I sought for a guide and
interpreter to accompany me among the peasants. To enter a village was
sudden death, and not for three pounds a day would a townsman go with
me, till at last I found one whose poverty consented.
In Moscow itself we were still revelling in liberty. We lived under an
anarchy almost fit for the angels, who by their divine nature are a law
unto themselves. But, unhappily, as I said, our liberty was tempered
by assassination. For some weeks the average of street murders was one
a day. Barefooted, long-haired beggars, the very heroes of Gorky’s
tales, the ragged supermen of misery, sprang out from dark corners, and
I always thanked them heartily for their mistake in regarding my money
as more valuable than my life. People walked warily, and kept one eye
behind them, turning sharply round if they heard even the padding sound
of goloshes in the snow. Often at night, as I went up and down the
rampart of the Kremlin, and watched those ancient white temples with
their brazen domes glittering under the moon, I noticed that the few
passers-by skirted round me in a kind of arc, and if they came upon me
suddenly they ran. My intentions were far from murderous, but all were
living in that haggard element of fear. They had not yet realized that
the only decent way to live is to take life in one hand and possessions
in the other, and both hands open.
CHAPTER VII
THE OLD ORDER
St. Nicholas’ Day of December 19th had long been awaited with
expectation, both of triumph and fear. It was the Tsar’s christening
day--one of the four festivals which were given to St. Nicholas every
year, because, on his way to see Christ, he stopped to help a peasant’s
cart out of the mud and made his clothes all dirty. It had been
rumoured with confidence that the work of the great Manifesto would
then be completed--that the Tsar himself would come to Moscow, and from
the very shrine of the Empire issue the charter of a free Constitution,
and, like a generous father, distribute the Crown lands among the
peasants. It was a splendid opportunity for heroic concession--such
concession as would have gathered nearly the whole mass of the people
round its author in enthusiastic devotion. But there was nothing
heroic about the poor little Tsar--“Homunculus,” as the satirists
called him--and the mood of concession had passed away. It was a time
for reaction now, the imprisonment of labour leaders, the arrest of
editors, the closure of meetings, the incitement to murder.
For a week past the day had been looked forward to with terror by most
Progressives, and especially by the Jews. Christians had been preparing
for themselves large crosses of wood, iron, or even cardboard, which
they hung round their necks, so that when the religious mob attacked
them, they might fling open their furs and reveal their Christianity
visible upon their waistcoats.
But the children of darkness were a-tiptoe for the slaughter. Only
the day before the festival, the patriotic organization of the Black
Hundred, called the Hooligans or the Order of the Men of Russia
according to sympathy, had issued a manifesto inciting to the final
extermination of all Jews and foreigners in the city. Their common duty
to God and the Tsar commanded all true men to unite in clearing Holy
Russia of the accursed stranger. At the same time, the more moderate of
the priesthood, mindful of an accepted distinction between religion and
murder, wrote a letter to the papers, appealing to the faithful to act
like Christians and not to kill the Jews. But such advice was a mere
bewilderment to the simple man. To kill Jews is to act like Christians.
Why complicate matters by raising the doubt? Ages of history had proved
it.
So the Jews and many of the foreigners fortified their houses and hid
themselves. All Moscow, indeed, was fortified in a manner, for new
shutters and hoardings now protected doors and windows of all shops and
many houses which were left open before. In the evening I went through
the streets, and all was gloom and silence and fear. In one place on
the Boulevard a slightly drunken soldier, who had been boasting of
his revolutionary convictions, was surrounded by a little knot of
loyalists, beguiled down a side court, and quietly slaughtered. At the
door of a little restaurant in my own street I found a shouting mob.
They had set upon a student and beaten him senseless. The restaurant
people had dragged his body, almost naked, into the house and laid it
across two chairs in a cellar. Through holes in the shutter you could
see it lying there, in a shirt that oozed blood, while a girl student,
who had been with him, knelt with her arms round his neck and cried
aloud. At the sound of her crying, the mob yelled with exultation, and
fought for a place at the shutter.
Morning came, intensely cold, but clear and bright. Before nine o’clock
large crowds had begun to gather on the Kremlin--that triangular
citadel of old cathedrals and palaces in the centre of Moscow,
surrounded by an ancient crenellated wall, looking steeply down over
the river on the south side. The priesthood had asked leave for a
special ceremony of prayer on account of Russia’s troubles, and the
new Governor-General, Admiral Dubásoff, who had arrived only two days
before, could not decently refuse a prayer meeting to the patriotic
ministers of peace, especially at a time when the Government was only
longing for disturbances as an excuse for military assassination.
The prayer meeting was fixed for the great open space called the Red or
Splendid Square (Krasnaya) lying between the Kremlin proper and the Old
Town, which is surrounded by a similar wall. But the church services
for the saint’s day had first to be held in the cathedrals, and by ten
o’clock the sacred banners from all the great shrines of Moscow began
to assemble on the height where the three cathedrals, the bell tower,
and the great palace stand. A sacred banner is a metal plate, generally
about three feet square, hanging out sideways from a pool like a flag,
except that it is quite stiff. The people like to think of it as gold,
but that would not prevent it being brass. The plate itself is fretted
in various designs, and at the centre is an icon, a representation
of some saint or religious scene--St. George with his dragon, the
Resurrection, or the Ascension--sometimes painted on board, sometimes
worked in silver and other metals. The banner is further adorned with
rich enamels, and rattles a fringe of metal tassels. I counted nearly
a hundred of them glittering in the frosty sun, as they entered the
Kremlin gates in groups and passed the piled-up lines of guns which
Napoleon left behind him, and the new white palings round the little
shrine where the Grand Duke Sergius met his end.
It was impossible to estimate the number of people who swarmed on
every open space and crowded the steps of all the churches. There
were many thousands, and all were bowing and crossing themselves or
kneeling in the snow with adoration before every shrine and at every
saint that passed. All classes were there, and sometimes a lady, deep
in furs, would signal to her servant to put down a cushion or piece of
mackintosh on the particular spot where she wished to worship. But, as
is natural in a religious ceremony, on the whole it was a crowd of the
poor. Many peasants had come in from the country, conspicuous for their
wild hair and leather coats. But the greater part were simply the poor
of Moscow--the pious, the patriotic, the criminal poor--all who are
the natural enemies of change. They went from shrine to shrine, they
crowded round the Great Bell, they climbed the brass-domed tower for
the view, they filled the cathedrals till it was impossible to stir
inside, and from the outside we could only listen to the deep chantings
that boomed through the open doors. And all the time the crossings and
bowings and prostrations in the snow never ceased.
The Governor-General and other great officials and soldiers had a
specially short service, in accordance with their dignity, in some
chapel up the Lion staircase, where no unhallowed or ununiformed foot
is fit to tread. But by eleven all the services were over, and with
infinite effort the holy banners were drawn up in two lines beside the
Great Bell. Their main poles being supported by four smaller poles,
they began to move slowly and with difficulty towards the gate into
the Red Square. It is the Holy Gate of the Saviour, under which every
Russian takes off his cap, so sacred for centuries has been the picture
above the arch.
Small bodies of Cossacks, and of infantry with fixed bayonets, were
stationed along the route or accompanied the procession, to protect
the heavenly powers. When at last the glittering banners had staggered
by, there came a group of priests in robes stiff with gold and
many-coloured embroideries, thrown over their ordinary fur coats, and
helping to make them warm as well as beautiful. And behind them came a
party of earthly saints in apparel still more marvellous. I think they
were bishops, but they may have been archimandrites. They wore hats of
brass or gold, shaped like Byzantine domes, and sprinkled with gleaming
glass or precious stones. Some of the saints had hair hanging far down
their chests and backs; others were less devout in shagginess.
Last of all, supported by an extra strong detachment of Cossacks, came
the banners of the most sacred shrine in Moscow, accompanying the
picture of the Iberian Virgin herself, which had been brought out for
the occasion in its wooden case from its own rich chapel at the Iberian
gate. As she passed--this famous virgin, copied from the Virgin of
Mount Athos centuries ago--the crowds on each side bowed before her
like corn when the wind blows.
So the procession moved under the Gate of the Saviour, and gathered
on the round stone platform where Ivan the Cruel used to enjoy the
executions. It stands in front of Ivan’s many-coloured church, built
by the Italian whose eyes (as the old myth says) were put out that he
might never design another so gay. The service of special prayer was
there performed, and as the clocks struck twelve and the guns began
to fire a salute, the religious part of the day came to an end. The
banners went back into the Kremlin; the Iberian Virgin was carried in a
four-wheeler to her shrine; the bishops and archimandrites drove away
to lunch in huge coaches drawn by four black horses abreast.
Then the moment came which all had awaited--the moment for which the
prayers to God had only been the excuse. Now or never was the time for
slaughter and enrichment. A fervid orator sprang on the balustrade
of the stone platform, and with athletic gesticulations and rousing
appeals to heaven and the Tsar, strove to lash the crowd to the
proposed heat of fury. Other patriots were busy extolling the beauty
of domestic virtue, and distributing photographs of the Tsar with his
baby-boy upon his knee. The people cheered and shouted, and began to
rush up and down, like caged wolves just before feeding-time. Then
raising the Russian hymn, the orator, still threatening the bright
infinity of space with his fists, set off to march up the whole
length of the square. The crowd swarmed after him, thousands strong.
They trickled through the two little arches of the Iberian gate, and
gathering together again, swept in one great tide up the main street
called the Tverskaya.
They were going to slaughter the Jews, and exterminate the students,
and purify the city. No end to the horrors they were going to perform.
But they reached the square in front of the Government House, and
there they stopped to make speeches, calling again upon heaven and
the Tsar, and urging the Governor-General to take vengeance upon all
revolutionaries and other enemies of the country.
The Governor-General appeared in uniform upon the balcony--tall and
pale, white haired, with long white moustache, and a narrow, pointed
beard. It was Admiral Dubásoff, hitherto only known as Russia’s
representative in the inquiry about the Baltic Fleet’s victory off
Hull; afterwards to be better known as the Butcher or the Admiral of
the Street. In a loud voice he addressed the crowd, telling them how
delighted he was to see so many Russian citizens still on the Tsar’s
side, and promising to telegraph to the Tsar with what confidence his
Majesty could rely upon the unshaken loyalty and unflinching courage of
ancient Moscow.
It was a little unfortunate that just at that moment, before the cheers
could even begin, some one at the corner of the square near me raised
the cry, “The students are coming! The students! The students!” Like a
wind, terror swept over the crowd, the sledges dashed away in flight,
and, plunging, falling, and crashing into each other, the people rushed
down any street and hid round any corner for their lives. I have seen
many fine panics, from the Greek war downwards, but never anything
quite so ludicrous as that stampede of bloody-minded patriots. For
nothing whatever had happened, and when at last the terrified loyalists
took heart to look behind them, they saw the square peaceful, silent,
and almost empty. One by one they crept back into courage. They even
tried to rekindle their patriotic zeal and resume their murderous
aspect. But it was no good. The Governor-General had gone indoors to
dispatch his telegram in praise of their courage. That unhappy run had
spoilt the whole massacre, and gradually the orators ceased to rage,
and every one went home for dinner.
CHAPTER VIII
THE DAYS OF MOSCOW--I
Next day (December 20th), I had determined to start for the Caucasus,
because very severe fighting was reported there, and it was said,
I believe truly, that in some places the Georgians had set up an
independent government of their own. Accordingly I sledged to the
station, took my ticket, and registered my luggage to Baku by
Rostoff-on-Don, occupied my place in the heated train, hung up my fur
coat and snow boots, and prepared to endure the full blast of a Russian
carriage for the four days and nights of the journey. As is the way in
Russia, the train filled up nearly an hour before it was time to start,
and we all sat contemplating each other and wondering what our manners
would be like on the way. There were a large number of peasants and
country people in the train, packed together into family sections with
their children, and baskets, and bedding. Next to me sat a cleanly old
man and his wife, who held their goods upon their knees with a sturdy
resignation, as much as to say, “Now let Heaven do its worst.”
So we waited, and taking out a book I was far away in the city of the
“Lys Rouge” upon the Arno, when I became dimly conscious of a feeling
of uneasiness in the carriages, as when a motor breaks down and the
City men fret. Doors were opened and heads put out, and footsteps
passed up and down the corridor. Distant shouting and questions
were heard. The man opposite me packed up his lunch and went out. I
followed, and saw a party of railway men just uncoupling the engine,
which puffed away for twenty yards and then stood still. With a long
diminishing hiss, the steam of the heating apparatus rushed out from
the pipes and left the train to grow cold, like the dead.
“Strike?” I said, going up to the workmen. “Yes, general strike at
twelve o’clock,” they answered, and I gathered up my book and coat.
The rest of my luggage could not be recovered then, and next night it
went wandering down the line upon the train, and was no more seen. For
Christmas was coming, and many trains that were wandering upon the road
supplied seasonable gifts for the peasants’ needs. Hundreds of nice
geese and ducks they gave them, loads of vegetables, barrels of sugar.
For miles beyond the city, the railway was like an enormous Christmas
hamper, full of good cheer, and many a starving peasant recognized for
the first time the true significance of the holy festival.
As to the cleanly old man and woman, they sat there still, clutching
their goods. It seemed that nothing short of the Last Trumpet could
induce them to stir. They had taken their tickets, and their confidence
in railways was unshaken. They looked at me with the sympathetic
tolerance we show to a crank who questions gravitation or maintains
the earth is flat. The peasants in like manner sat still and cherished
their young. It seemed incredible they should not go after they had
taken all that trouble to get started for home, and had settled down
into their lairs in the nice warm train. I left them still seated
there, amid expostulations growing shrill. But in the next fortnight I
had to return many times to the station, and day after day I found them
encamped in the waiting-rooms, one family living on a table by day and
under it at night, another resolutely holding a leather bench, and two
or three nested behind the bar. To keep them alive, the railway issued
a dole of about a shilling a day for the grown-ups, and they cooked
their tea and bits of food at the stoves or inside the locomotives.
But it was not a happy way of spending life. Children sprawled and
fought and wailed; mothers tried in vain to wash and clean; men tripped
over girls asleep upon the boards. And it was worse when, a few days
later, scores of soldiers dribbled in somehow from the war, unwashed,
bewildered, and wretched, and were thrown into the station among the
peasants, to live there as best they could. The smell of men’s tents
in the morning in war time is not pleasant, but it is Arabia compared
to those waiting-rooms.
When I got back that Wednesday from the station to the middle of the
city, I found the general strike already proclaimed. All the banks were
shut and barricaded. If any shops were still open, parties of strikers
or revolutionists went into them and compelled the owners to put the
shutters up. The schools were closed, the work-people walked out of the
mills, clerks left their offices, and several hundred thousand men and
women were turned loose into the streets with nothing to do. Such gas
as was in the retorts was allowed to burn itself out, but electricity
was cut off at once, both for light and for the trams, and so was the
water for a time. People began to store it in baths and pails; they
even searched the roofs for clean snow and melted it down; but next
day the water supply was restored on the ground that it was essential
for the existence of the poor. Bread was essential too, and a few
bakeries were allowed to keep working; but even that afternoon women
were standing in line outside the bakers’ shops, and in the following
days they began to gather there long before dawn. In the hotels, and
I suppose in most well-to-do homes, bread sank from white to grey,
vegetables disappeared, the price of meat doubled, unknown portions of
animals were seen, beer ceased to flow, and the suffering rich almost
learnt how the poor die daily.
I went up the Tverskaya, already mentioned as the chief radius of
Moscow for shops and cafés. It was full of wandering and uncertain
crowds. Where the circle of Boulevards crosses it by the Strastnoi
convent, I found a troop of horse drawn up in front of the poet
Pushkin’s statue. They were facing a thick and excited crowd, from the
midst of which a white-faced orator came forward and, standing at the
very nose of the officer’s charger, addressed him with impassioned
harangues, imploring him to abandon the cause of tyranny, and no
longer to trample over the corpses of his fellow-countrymen. The
officer listened with genial politeness, and sometimes even answered an
argument or raised some objection with a smile. His pleasing manners
encouraged hope. The women of the crowd began to say nice things to
him, and all through Russian life there is a familiarity among the
classes which we have never reached. A friendly sympathy pervaded the
air. Could it be possible that the troops would “fraternize”? Ah, how
often revolutionists in all countries had told me the troops would
fraternize!
But the officer gave an order, and the detachment wheeled off, two
deep, down the Boulevard to their barracks, the crowd clapping their
hands, the women waving their scarves and blowing kisses to them in
cheerful mockery as they went. Two were left behind, waiting for a
third whose horse they held, and on them the orator now turned his
eloquence, while the rest laughed and cheered, and tried to pat their
horses. But they were only two common peasants with broad, red faces,
and had no pretty answers to make.
They only sat there looking straight before them while the taunts grew
louder and the people began to crush threateningly upon them. I was
close at their side and could see their fists doubled tightly round the
loaded whips on their saddles. But at that moment their comrade came
back, and all three galloped after the others amid a storm of derision
and angry cries.
Hardly had they gone when from a tea-house opposite three red flags on
poles emerged and were marched into the square. Uncertain what to do
next, the boys who were carrying them started down the Tverskaya, and
the crowd followed in a dense mass, shouting the “Marseillaise.” They
reached the open space in front of the Governor-General’s house where
the loyalists had held their panic the day before. But hardly had they
passed the porch, when a squadron of Cossacks swept into the crowd
behind from a side street at right angles and pursued the red flags at
full gallop, whirling their nagaikas and riding down all before them.
The procession scattered like leaves. The squadron divided, part
charging down the main street, and part across the square. In a few
seconds nothing remained upon that open space but some men and girls
stretched upon the snow, and the three long strips of red cotton which
lay as the emblems of freedom before the Governor-General’s door. The
police carried off the wounded to the cells; an infantry battalion was
brought out to line the square, and many days were to pass before I
could cross it again.
That night, all the main streets stood in absolute darkness, only the
narrow side-streets being lit with a glimmer of gas. No sledges ran.
Here and there a beggar shuffled out upon me from his lurking-place, or
a figure visible for a moment disappeared silently. No women walked;
on them too the strike had fallen. Houses and churches stood black and
lifeless, like an abandoned city which time had not yet ruined.
The next day was ominously quiet; no business was done; no newspapers
were published; people kept indoors; even the restaurants and provision
shops were shut, and in the Hotel Métropole the music ceased. Instead
of that melancholy orchestra, a battery of eight guns lay hidden there
now; the guests were turned out, and it was said the Governor-General
himself had made the hotel his headquarters. Others had seen him take
refuge in the sacred enclosure of the Kremlin, where the ancient gates
were all shut and guarded. Even in the Old Town they brought planks
and beams, and nailed up nearly all the gates. Troops were posted at
the Nicolai or St. Petersburg station and the line kept open for the
arrival of reinforcements. The engines were worked by soldiers and
the whole length of the road watched by pickets who were provisioned
from the trains. The Government dared not trust the ordinary Moscow
garrison, but if outside troops could only be spared from the other
capital, all might be well.
A large meeting of the strikers assembled at the Aumont or Aquarium and
called upon the revolutionary bands or “militia” (_drouzchina_) to
begin. They pointed to the shameless reaction of the past two weeks, to
the imprisonment of the labour leaders in St. Petersburg, the arrest of
all Progressive editors, the refusal of the Tsar to make the expected
concessions on his name-day. He had made no concessions, he had only
sought to buy the loyalty of the troops by promises of better food.
It was evident that the Government was forcing civil war upon the
people, and unless the revolutionists would act at once, the workmen
would throw up the game, go back to their work, and abandon all hope of
change for ever.
The revolutionists hesitated. They were not ready--they would not be
ready till February--not really ready till April. They were ill-armed,
had only eighty rifles as yet; a good many revolvers certainly, but
not enough bombs. Besides, if the Government wanted a rising, they
obviously ought not to rise. It is a bad strategist who lets the
enemy dictate the time for battle. The strike had been proclaimed in
St. Petersburg, certainly, but the leaders were all in prison, and
already it was seen to be a very half-hearted affair. Both the strike
and revolutionary action should be simultaneous in all the large
cities, if the great end was to be won. Christmas was near, and all
the work-people liked to save up a little money for the festival.
Every one bought a bottle of vodka, if nothing else. The peasants
would be turned against the revolution if the railway remained blocked
over Christmastide, and they could not sell their produce. Already
threats had come in from the country, prophesying horrible deaths for
the railway men unless the strike ended at once. There was just time
to appease the peasants now, for the Russian Christmas Day was still
sixteen days ahead. So they hesitated, appealing for delay and a better
opportunity.
But the Government had determined that neither delay nor opportunity
should be given. Their one thought was the urgent need of money.
The power that commands force is the Government, and the power that
commands money can command force; that was their just and simple
argument. Their one hope was to stir up an ill-prepared rebellion,
to crush it down, and stand triumphant before the nations of Europe,
confidently inviting new loans in the name of law and order, so as to
pay the interest on the old and “maintain the value of the rouble.”
For this object it was essential that people should be killed in large
numbers. The death of every Progressive went to establish the credit
of the Treasury, and unless the slaughter came quickly, the officials
could not count upon their pay. The only alternative was national
bankruptcy in the face of the world, and no more hope of pleasant loans
again. So troops and police were stationed round the Aquarium meeting
and met the crowd as it came out with showers of blows from clubs and
whips. At all costs the people must be goaded into violence, or the
Government’s strategy would have failed.
The final stroke was given the next day (Friday, December 22nd) and
it proved entirely successful. It was evening, and a body of some
two hundred of the revolutionary bands, including several women, was
gathered in a flat belonging to a leader named Fiedler, I think a
lawyer. He lived in the top floor of a tall white house, just opposite
the British Consulate, and not far from the post office.
The place had long been watched by spies. About ten o’clock, as the
bands were debating war and peace, a knock came at the door and a
summons to surrender. They looked out of the window, and the street
below was full of dark forms with gleams of steel. So it had begun in
earnest at last! “And there shall be no drawing back,” thought one of
their number, and seizing up a small bomb from the table, he threw it
with all his might among the dark figures below. It burst with a flash
that revealed the waiting troops, and an officer rolled in the dirt,
never to be loved by women again. Two men also were wounded. Some said
two officers were killed; some said twenty, and hundreds of men. But
to have been in a town where men are really killed sheds a reflected
glory, and the more numerous the dead, the finer the reputation of
survivors.
The flash of that bomb was a signal for war. The enemy was ready. They
had made their preparations for the event, and answered bomb by bomb.
While the meeting was breaking up in confusion, rushing from room to
room, some peering into the street, some fighting their way downstairs,
a shell came whizzing through the corner window and burst against the
opposite wall. From the description and the hole it made, I think it
was a segment or percussion shell, but it was followed rapidly by
case-shot, and at so short a range it is possible that nothing but case
shot was used. For the guns had been placed in a main street, at not
much more than fifty yards’ distance, and commanded an uninterrupted
sight of the whole top story. At once the fatal disadvantage of the
revolutionists was seen. Probably there was not a man among them who
could have thrown a bomb fifty yards clear; but to the Government’s
guns it was a childish range even for case-shot, and without cause
for pride they could throw shrapnel and percussion bombs up to four
thousand yards two or three times a minute.
The bombardment of the house continued for about half an hour, the
shells crashing through the windows and against the brickwork, but not
doing very much damage except to furniture and glass, for most of the
revolutionists were crowded together on the staircase, and many were
escaping through backyards and over walls. A few, however, with great
gallantry remained and kept up a revolver-fire from the windows to
cover the retreat of the others. Four or five of them were killed by
shell-fire, and fifteen were badly wounded. It was said next day that
Fiedler was among the killed, and I was told how he had stood outside
a window in defiance and been blown to pieces. I was even shown bits
of his coat and trousers still sticking to the window-frame; but I was
not quite convinced, especially when I heard of his being shot in gaol
a fortnight later. In such cases it is hardly ever possible to discover
the truth from either side. Even eye-witnesses are generally too
excited or too terrified to see, and the Russian Government lives
upon the lie.
[Illustration: FIEDLER’S HOUSE.]
[Illustration: EFFECT OF SHELLS.]
Towards midnight, a hundred and twenty revolutionists, including ten
girls, surrendered. A high official told me next day that the girls had
been released, but it is not thus that the Government treats girls,
and I know now that he was lying or repeating a lie. As to the rest,
he admitted they would be shot, because the prisons were already too
full to hold them. The loss of over a hundred was a very serious thing
for the party of progress. All manner of estimates of the revolutionary
fighting strength have been made. Some of the best authorities said
they refused to put it over 15,000 men. A very careful onlooker, who
certainly had special opportunities of knowing, fixed on 1,500 as
the just figure. The revolutionists themselves maintained, and still
maintain, that only 500 were engaged on the barricades. In that case,
they had lost a sixth part of their force at the first stroke, and they
could not afford to lose a man. For myself, I believe no estimate of
numbers in wartime, unless given by the man who issues rations--and
to the revolutionists no one issued rations. But to me it is utterly
incredible that only 500 were opposed to the Government troops during
the following nine days. Five hundred is only half a battalion, and
every colonel knows how tiny a handful even a full battalion is when it
comes into action. They may mean that only 500 were adequately armed,
but in that case the estimate is too high. The revolutionists were said
to have possessed two or three machine-guns, though I never saw them
or heard them, and attribute the rumour to the identity of the word
for machine-gun and repeating rifle (_Pulemet_). But by their own
admission they had only eighty rifles, with very few cartridges, and
the remainder were armed with various kinds of revolver, especially the
so-called “Brownings” of Belgian make. They are good enough weapons,
and will kill at a hundred yards if they hit at all. But few revolvers
can be depended on over twenty yards, and I have never found them much
good, except as a moral influence, or for the re-assuring comfort of
suicide _in extremis_.
Five hundred could not have done the work. That night the face of
a third of Moscow was changed. The morning brought rumours of an
assault on the Nicolai station with the loss of 200 men; of assaults
on the Government house and the Prefecture of police; but, worse than
all, of a serious rising in some cotton and lace mills south of the
city, and the probable danger of several English overseers and their
families. Driving out early in a sledge to the beginning of the open
country, near the place on the river where the Russian people once
built a house for their painter Verestchagin, I found a few families
of Lancastrians and Nottingham men, anxious and apprehensive indeed
but not surrounded by bloodthirsty mobs as we had heard. The hands on
strike had been marching with red flags up and down the road as usual
the day before and singing the “Marseillaise,” when they were set upon
in front and rear by Dragoons and Cossacks with the usual results. Now
they were hanging about their factories or living-barracks, indignant
and dangerous with the sense of wrong, but outwardly quiet, and only
cursing and threatening us with fists and stones as we went about
among them. Not that the English overseers were hated. In themselves
they were popular, but as the rulers and the best-paid workmen, with
separate houses of their own, they were marked as the representatives
of overwhelming capitalism.
As I looked out over the silent mills to the open country and wretched
villages beyond, the sound of a big gun suddenly came from Moscow.
Turning round, I saw the great city glittering with domes and crosses,
distinct with towers and lines of brilliant light under the frosty sun,
while all the church bells were booming and tinkling for the vigil of
some feast. Again came the sound of a gun, and then again, and I had
known from the first there was no mistaking it. I had not then heard of
the attack on Fiedler’s house, for one of the peculiarities of Russian
life is that the Last Judgment might be in progress in one street
while, unaware of your danger, you continued increasing your record of
sins in the next. But now there could be doubt no longer; the open war
had begun.
In half an hour I was crossing the bridge and climbing the Kremlin hill
to the Red Square. Crowds of well-dressed people, clerks, and shop-boys
were hurrying past me away from the city. In spite of the strike, they
had walked in by habit that morning, or merely to see what was going
on. But guns in the street were a breach of business habits, and now
they had seen enough and preferred to lunch at home. Similarly, I
think, Brixton would be unusually full at midday if the shells were
bursting in Cheapside; and it was in the Cheapside of Moscow that the
guns were then at work.
If we may take Moscow as a circle with the Kremlin for centre, it was
on the north-west segment of the circle that the revolutionists made
their most serious attack. Certainly, there were other attacks as
well--two on the St. Petersburg station, against which the whole effort
of the rising ought to have been concentrated; and one attack was made
on the Rezan station close by. The rumour came in every morning for the
next week that both had been burnt to the ground, though when I visited
them, I always found them untouched. Other attacks were also made,
and there was a certain amount of fighting on the south side of the
wandering little river. But the main interest lay in that north-west
segment, of which the Tverskaya, the Dmitrovka, and Petrovka are the
main radii, while the Boulevards enclosing the “White Town” form the
nearer of the two concentric arcs, and the Sadovaya, or garden circle,
the further. The Sadovaya, which runs round the whole city, was a real
circumference or boundary to the fighting area during the first few
days, and if one started from the red triumphal arch near the Nicolai
station, and followed the arc westward and south till the river was
reached, the whole scene of action would be included in that segment.
But concentric circles make the most puzzling plan on which a town
can be built, because it is difficult in walking to allow for the
almost imperceptible curves. Only in Moscow and Monastir have I seen
such arrangements of streets, and only in those two towns have I ever
hesitated about my way.
The revolutionists had chosen this segment for attack because it
contained the Government house, the Prefecture of Police, the great
Central Prison, from which the exiles used to start for Siberia, and at
least three important barracks. As far as they had any definite plan
at all, their idea seems to have been to drive a kind of wedge into
the heart of the city, supporting the advance by barricades on each
side, so as to hamper the approach of troops. The point of the wedge
was to be driven down the Tverskaya as far as the Government house,
and if once that position had been gained, they probably hoped that
the rest would be easy. Accordingly, during the night they had thrown
up barricades across all streets leading into the Tverskaya beyond the
circle of the Boulevards, and in all streets parallel to it. By morning
the point of the wedge had nearly reached the open space where the
Boulevard runs and the Pushkin statue confronts the Strasnoi Convent.
[Illustration: A MINOR BARRICADE.]
[Illustration: A MILITARY POST AT MOSCOW.]
That was the main and serious line of attack, as the revolutionists
designed it. But at the time it was hard to understand their purpose,
for in street fighting one can get no view, the firing comes from many
sides at once, and you are open to equal danger from friend or foe.
There is no front or rear, and you feel you are nothing but flanks. To
every point of the compass you are exposed; there is no obvious line of
advance, for the enemy may always be behind you. And there is no line
of retreat, for at any moment your communications with your base may be
cut, and you may be shot at for hours from street to street before you
can get home for food or sleep. But the greatest difficulty in grasping
the situation at once arose from the mere numbers of the barricades
which had been already thrown up since the previous night. Over a large
part of the district barricades had grown up quite at random. They
appeared in every lane. Miniature barricades crossed the footpaths on
the Boulevard gardens. They were especially thick in the Tsvietnoi,
or Flower Boulevard, and often so flimsy that a push would knock them
over. As signs of spiritual grace, nothing could have been nobler, for
they were the work of high-hearted young men and girls, who, having
read that barricades are the proper things in revolution, hastened to
build them anywhere and anyhow. Tubs, shutters, gates, iron railings,
telegraph poles, and front doors were hurriedly piled across a street
or path, and left standing there as a menace to tyrants. So they were
a menace to tyrants. Every bandbox there proved the deep-rooted hatred
to tyranny. But not one of them would stop a bullet, and there was no
possibility or intention of defending them for a moment. They were the
work of splendid children learning to make war, and when at last they
were torn up and burnt, one passed over their smouldering ruins with
the regret we feel for broken toys.
The very multitude of these barricades (early next morning I counted
one hundred and thirty of them, and I had not seen nearly half) made
it difficult to understand the main purpose of all the fighting, when
I found myself suddenly plunged into the middle of it that first
afternoon. Alone, and very ignorant both of the language and the
town, I could not at first discover any design on either side, beyond
setting up barricades and knocking them down again. It seemed as if
the Government might have left the revolutionists alone, and simply
issued a proclamation to the citizens of Moscow: “Keep your streets
blocked up if you like. We should have thought it inconvenient, but
it really makes no difference to us.” Like most other people, I had
no experience of street fighting to guide me, and it was with this
sense of uncertainty and bewilderment that I made my way from point to
point towards the part of the Tverskaya from which the sound of guns
came. To get into the main street itself was impossible, for every
approach was guarded by sentries, who cried “Halt!” and then fired
with inconsiderate rapidity. To the crowds of peaceful citizens, such
behaviour was novel and pleasantly exciting. They gathered in thick
groups behind the shelter of any street corner, or up the passages, and
even in the porches of big shops and banks. Every now and then some one
would snatch off his cap and dash across an exposed street as though
he were finishing for a hundred yards. The crowd held their breaths
and watched eagerly, hoping to see him fall, as an audience hopes to
see the tight-rope girl break her neck. But when he reached safety and
waved his arms, they cheered and another started.
By similar means, except that national vanity made me walk instead
of running, I reached the Petrovka (the Lombard-street of Moscow,
parallel to the Tverskaya, and below it down a hill), and made my
way along it till I came to the Boulevard near the Trouba where the
Ermitage restaurant stands. Looking up to the left I could there see
the Pushkin statue, and watch the flash of the guns in position on the
high open space that commands the cross roads of the Tverskaya and
the Boulevard in both directions. Up the hill the Boulevard was quite
empty, but in the hollow at the foot a few people were hurrying to and
fro. Some were model citizens, who would rather die than break through
the habits of every day; some were women who had to provide the Sunday
dinner anyhow. But most were possessed by the curious instinct which
drives even the gentlest men and women to witness fighting and death
against their will.
Hoping to discover the true position of the revolutionists, I started
to cross the Boulevard myself, keeping under cover of the snowy trees
whenever I could. In the middle I saw a girl coming towards me--an
ordinary workgirl with a shawl over her head. Apparently she also had
come for curiosity, for all her rosy face was smiling with excitement.
But as I looked at it, a little red splash fell upon her cheek, and
instantly the side of her neck and the knot of the shawl turned red.
She stood still, drew in her breath with a gasp, and then sat down in
the snow crying. I jammed my handkerchief against the wound, but the
bullet had only just touched her as it fell, and seeing there was no
hole in the face I signalled to her to run, and away she went into the
Petrovka, screaming for a sledge.
Going on, I had to leave the trees and cross the open road. At the
entrance to a yard there, I found a small group of people leaning over
another woman, who had just been hit and was lying helpless on the
pavement, her eyes white and her breath coming and going heavily. She
was a well-dressed girl in a long fur coat, possibly a revolutionist,
but more likely a sympathetic spectator. The bullet had struck through
her skirts, and a man was trying to stop the terrible bleeding by
twisting two handkerchiefs round the leg. We carried her unconscious to
a large house about a hundred yards up the hill, where a red-cross flag
was flying. It may have been a permanent hospital, for the ambulance
stations, afterwards organized by the Zemstvo or Town Council, were
not ready then. The soldiers did not fire at us, though we had come
into close range. All through those early days of the fighting, the red
cross was respected, and people who were carrying the wounded, even
without the ambulance badges, were not often fired at. A change came
later on, and even to red-cross girls no mercy was shown. This change
was due to a special order from Admiral Dubasoff.
When I turned from the hospital door, I found my position excellent
but uncomfortable. The protection of the wounded had brought me safely
up close to the very centre of the situation; but now that protection
was withdrawn. I could not stand still, and to go back meant a long
retirement down the open road fully exposed to fire from end to end.
The only chance was to go on, and as the entrance to the next street
was only about fifty yards away, I gathered up my fur coat and ran
for it. Turning sharply round the corner, I found myself in the Mala
Dmitrovka, a wide street down which the electric trams run in quiet
times. It looked painfully open and empty. Lamp-posts had been knocked
down and laid across the road, telegraph wires had been cut and strewn
on the pavement or tied into entanglements, and the overhead strands
for electricity hung in festoons, threatening the heads of horsemen.
I saw at once that I had reached the zone between the contending
forces, an admirable position for the military student, but otherwise
unpleasing. Still, if I could only go on, I should discover the main
revolutionary body, and that was my object. So keeping close to the
houses on the left side, I started along the road at a trot. Only one
other creature was in sight--a man of the bank-clerk type, who was
walking rapidly in front of me, crouching down to protect his head.
Once he looked behind to see if I were dangerous, and I was rapidly
gaining on him when, all of a sudden, he sank together and lay down on
the pavement.
Before I could reach him, he was up again and was leaning against a
house, trying to take cover behind a down-spout. He could only speak
Russian, but he pointed to his thigh, and I saw the blood running out
over his boot and beginning to soak through the trouser-leg. I looked
round for help, but the blinds in all the houses were down, and the
gates barred and padlocked. Pointing in the direction by which we had
come, I made him understand there was an ambulance near, and putting
one arm round my neck, he began to hop back along the street down which
we had advanced so fast. Neither of us was now in the least anxious
about danger, and we listened to the guns and rifles with entire
indifference. But the pain of the movement and the loss of blood were
overcoming him; he was turning green, and at last I was obliged to
rest him on a doorstep. I tried binding his leg over the trouser, but
that did not stop the flow, and the cold was so intense that I did not
like to take his trousers off. He was falling into unconsciousness,
and I tried in vain to make him crawl a few steps further. Again I
looked round at the houses, and this time I saw some faces watching me
from a window. I waved to them, and presently the front door opened,
and three men and a girl came out, bringing a chair. On that we
soon carried him down the road to the Red Cross room, and I was left
standing outside the entrance again. I then discovered that from first
to last we had been exposed to sharpshooters posted on the tower of the
Strastnoi Convent, close by, and all running and cover had been useless.
[Illustration: “GOD WITH US!”
From _Sprut_.]
But it was now getting dark. Under the protection of the wounded,
I had approached nearer the revolutionary position than I thought
possible at starting, and for once virtue had been something better
than her own reward. To have put her to the test again would have been
wanton, for one cannot count on always finding an object of protective
philanthropy. So I made for the trees, and walking down the Boulevard
through the deepening twilight, I ran straight into a half-battery
of four guns that was coming up to the relief of the guns beside the
statue. The scouts, who were thrown out over the space, seized me and
searched me down, but raised no further objection to my existence.
That night I had an engagement in the west of the city, but the streets
between were so carefully guarded that I had to creep in the dark
through the Old Town and round by the Kremlin along the deserted river
bank to get there, and then it was impossible to come back, for a minor
state of siege had been declared, and the soldiers were shooting at
anything that moved. A “minor state of siege” only implies that if you
lose your life, or anything else during the time, you have no claim on
the Government for compensation. It is a convenient arrangement for
a bankrupt Government engaged in re-establishing its credit by the
slaughter of its own people.
CHAPTER IX
THE DAYS OF MOSCOW--II
The next day was our Christmas Eve--a Sunday. I had stayed the night,
as I said, in the west of the disturbed district, and in the early
morning some revolutionists came into the house, and reported large
numbers of killed--rooms crowded with people all blown to pieces by
the shells, walls bespattered with blood, and other horrors, which one
always hears in war, and which are sometimes true. They also said they
had just taken part in an assault upon a body of unmounted dragoons,
who were cautiously approaching a barricade when the revolutionists
opened fire upon them with revolvers from the houses on both sides, and
killed ten. The men themselves were worn with sleepless excitement.
They remained muffled up in their overcoats, and kept one hand
fingering at the revolvers in their pockets.
Soon after daylight, the church bells began to ring for Divine service,
and the big guns sounded again from the Tverskaya. Finding that
sentries were still driving back every one who approached that part of
the town, I went round by the University and reached the great Theatre
Square in front of the Hotel Métropole. The battery of eight guns,
which had been hidden inside the hotel, was now fully displayed across
the square, apparently in readiness to bombard the Opera House. But,
in fact, the guns were placed there only for reinforcement and to keep
up a panic among the crowd, who came out now and then and watched them
with interest from the opposite side, and then rushed away in sudden
terror. Crossing the square in front of the battery, I was going up the
street at the side of the hotel when I found a party of dustmen and
police loading a cart with some bodies that lay upon the street. The
things hardly looked human, they were so small and still and shapeless.
Their faces were burnt away; their clothes black, and so charred that
they crumbled into cinders like burnt paper as the body was heaved into
the cart.
I then saw that in the side of the hotel a vast black space had been
blown out, like the entrance to a smoky cavern. It was the site of a
gun-shop, which I had often examined with some curiosity and wonder;
for a gunmaker’s is a dangerous trade in revolution. From a man who
lived exactly opposite, I heard the story afterwards. Late on the
Saturday evening a party of revolutionists went boldly across the
street, and broke into the shop with hammers and axes. Other people
appeared, and a small crowd had gathered, when a detachment of
soldiers came round from the hotel and fired into the middle of them.
They ran; but the soldiers went back, and the crowd gathered again.
This happened twice, and then the soldiers, being evidently terrified
themselves, left the place alone. The revolutionists appear to have
departed with their plunder, but a number of people remained searching
about for what they could get, lighting matches and using long rolls
of paper as candles. Just at midnight there was an immense explosion,
and all that was left of the shop, together with the people in it, was
blown into the street. The eye-witness described the ground as littered
with dead, many of them in flames. Those were the charred bodies I saw
being removed; the others, who were killed and wounded by the soldiers,
had already gone. But it seemed to me probable that the explosion was
purposely caused by the revolutionaries, either to create terror, or to
destroy the powder they could not use. What arms were actually obtained
I cannot say. Many sporting guns had been in the window, but I had
never seen any rifles or revolvers, though I had looked carefully, with
this probability in view.
My own little hotel was close by, and after calling there, I went on
to the nearest point of the circular Boulevard, only a hundred yards
beyond. Here there was a clear view over the valley by the Ermitage
and up the opposite hill to the Pushkin statue. A good many people
had taken cover behind the trees, and were watching and listening, but
the terror had much increased and there remained none of the sporting
spirit of the day before. Death was too near and obvious now. Almost
every instant a bullet came whizzing over the valley and was heard
cutting through the trees or falling with a tiny hiss in the snow.
At the corner of my street, close to a white monastery with a great
classic tower, they had opened a back yard as a refuge for the wounded,
though it did not fly the red cross, I think because it was privately
managed by the revolutionists for their own people. The line of wounded
who were hurried into it, dazed and groaning, was almost continuous,
and all were received, whether revolutionists or not. Under an open
shed inside I found a pitiful row of the dead lying on the stones, some
terribly shattered by shell-fire, some killed by the rifle, so merciful
when it strikes the brain or heart. We had helped in a man who was
streaming blood from a shot in the neck, and we had hardly laid him
down when a poor red-bearded peasant, all shaggy and caked from the
fields, was dragged inside, his face dull white except at a great hole
by his nose. But he was already dead and was put beside the others.
Between the stones of that yard for the first time I saw men’s blood
trickling as in a gutter.
Hitherto many of the wounded and dying had been galloped up to the
ambulance yards in sledges, but now I saw a driver who was hailed for
a wounded girl turn sharp round and dash out of sight.
Another sledge was seized, but this driver also lashed his horse and
tried to get away. He was dragged out of the sledge, and his arms were
bound with his own whip, while two men, supporting the girl between
them, brought her up the hill to the yard. Soon afterwards the sledges
disappeared altogether, and for some days none could be had. It was
said the drivers were afraid of having them taken for barricades; more
probably they were only afraid of being shot, and in any case it was
not profitable to carry the wounded. I believe the Government also
forbade them running lest they should help revolutionists to escape.
Leaving the yard, I went down the hill and along the Petrovka, where
the guns had battered two or three houses to pieces because a revolver
had been fired from the windows. I had hoped to get into the Tverskaya
by a little lane at the back of the Opera House, but the pickets were
still keeping up a random fire down all those cross streets, and many
passers-by were struck. One soldier deliberately aimed at an oldish
man who was going along the Petrovka like myself. The man fell into a
pile of snow by the edge of the road and kept on struggling to rise.
But each time, when he had nearly got up, he lurched heavily forward
again and fell on his face like a drunken man. The soldier who had hit
him came up with another soldier and looked at his wound. Then they
shouted to an ambulance cart that was passing the end of the street,
and lifting the man carefully on to it, they sent him off to the Hotel
Métropole, at the back of which, I think, the Zemstvo were establishing
their main ambulance depôt for soldiers and civilians alike. It is
not often that a man who has done his utmost to kill another can so
speedily do his utmost to keep him alive.
Unable to reach the guns from that side, I then determined to get in
front of them and try to discover again what the revolutionists really
intended. So I turned back and after some difficulty reached the
main street of the Dmitrovka (Bolchaya Dmitrovka) which runs closely
parallel to the Tverskaya. There I found a woman stooping over a body
which lay on the curb-stone. It was a boy of about fifteen, dressed in
the school uniform of a little blue cap and long grey overcoat. He had
come out to see a battle--a real battle with men shooting bullets and
slashing with swords. His little boots were close together, pointing
upwards; his white-gloved hands thrown out upon the snow like a cross;
and through his mouth was the dark red hole where the bullet had struck
him. The woman had seen him fall and had come from her house. Two or
three others now gathered round, and she brought out a red and white
table-cloth in which we wrapt him. So we carried him to an ambulance
room in a lane beside an ancient red-brick church close by. But he was
dead before we reached the door.
When I came to the Boulevard again, I was close to the Pushkin statue,
so often mentioned because hitherto it had been the advance position
of the guns. But now they had been taken forward further along the
Tverskaya, and the square was empty but for a few sentries. The
sharpshooters had also been removed from the Strestnoi bell-tower, but
the Russian common people will long remember the impiety which placed
them there, and a fine satiric cartoon represents them as they fired
upon the crowd below, with the inscription, “God with us!” The Mala
Dmitrovka, where the clerk had fallen in front of me the day before,
was absolutely empty now, and I passed right along it without any
interruption except for the wire entanglements. It brought me out, as
I had hoped, upon the Sadovaya, or Garden Boulevard, which forms the
outer circle round Moscow, as I described before, and reaching the
point of intersection I saw at once that I had come to the very centre
of the revolutionist position.
The four arms of the cross-road were all blocked with double or even
treble barricades, about ten yards apart. As far as I could see
along the curve of the Sadovaya on both sides, barricade succeeded
barricade, and the whole road was covered with telegraph wire, some of
it lying loose, some tied across like netting. The barricades enclosing
the centre of the cross-road like a fort were careful constructions of
telegraph poles or the iron supports to the overhead wires of electric
trams, closely covered over with doors, railings, and advertisement
boards, and lashed together with wire. Here and there a carriage or
tramcar was built in, to give stability, and from the top of every
barricade waved the little red flag. A similar fort had been built
at the intersection of the Sadovaya with the Tverskaya, only a short
distance to the right, and the whole of the road between was thronged
with excited people, who hastened backwards and forwards, stood in
eager groups at all the corners, and kept peering down the Tverskaya
to discover if the guns were yet in sight. But the troops were
advancing slowly, if at all. At intervals the guns fired--generally
two in rapid succession--and we could hear the crash of the shells as
they plunged into the houses or brought the brickwork rattling down.
Every now and then came a quick outburst of rifle-shots--perhaps
of revolver-shots--and a bullet or two went humming overhead. Each
barricade was being assaulted separately, the guns firing first, and
then the soldiers creeping up with rifles.
[Illustration: BARRICADES ON THE SADOVAYA.]
But it was not from the barricades themselves that the real opposition
came. From first to last no barricade was “fought,” in the old sense
of the word. To be sure, we afterwards saw photographs of enthusiastic
revolutionists standing on the very summit of the barriers, clear
against the sky, and waving red flags or presenting revolvers at space.
But no such things happened, and the photographs were a simple kind of
“fake.” The barricades were never intended to be “fought.” The only
tactics of the revolutionists were ambush and surprise. Afterwards I
heard stories of them lying down across the street in front of the
advancing troops, and meeting case-shot and rifles with revolvers that
cannot be trusted over twenty yards. Such stories are too ludicrous
to be denied. The revolutionary methods were far more terrible and
effective. By the side-street barricades and wire entanglements, they
had rid themselves of the fear of cavalry. By the barricades across
the main streets, they rendered the approach of troops necessarily
slow. To the soldiers, the horrible part of the street fighting was
that they could never see the real enemy. On coming near a barricade
or the entrance to a side street, a few scouts would be advanced a
short distance before the guns. As they crept forward, firing, as they
always did, into the empty barricade in front, they might suddenly
find themselves exposed to a terrible revolver-fire at about fifteen
paces range from both sides of the street. It was useless to reply,
for there was nothing visible to aim at. All they could do was to
fire blindly in almost any direction, and perhaps the bullets killed
some mother carrying home the family potatoes half a mile away. Then
the revolver-firing would suddenly cease, the guns would trundle up
and wreck the houses on both sides. Windows fell crashing on the
pavement, case-shot burst in the bedrooms, and solid shell made round
holes through three or four walls. It was bad for furniture, but the
revolutionists had long ago escaped through a labyrinth of courts at
the back, and were already preparing a similar attack in another street.
Among all those excited groups it was quite impossible to distinguish
the sympathetic spectator or even the spy from the fighting
revolutionist. It all seemed to me like an Aldershot field-day, in
which the regulars on one side were fighting with ball cartridge
against the usual crowd of onlookers, some of whom were secretly armed.
Leaving the central forts, I went for half a mile further along
the continuation of the Dmitrovka, which here takes the name of
Dolgoroukovskaya, and from end to end I found it crowded with
work-people of the better class, all intensely excited and alert, and
apparently all enthusiastic for the movement. But even when a man tried
to work up trouble because I looked foreign and fairly well-dressed, I
could not distinguish for certain which were the real revolutionists
among them. The whole long street had been admirably barricaded, and
as it runs out towards the Petrovsky Park and the open country, it
seemed likely that it had been specially prepared as a line of retreat
in case of disaster. Barricades were erected every thirty yards, and
in one place the whole of the electric train had been drawn at right
angles across the road in three lines, making far the largest barricade
then existing in the world. Naturally the revolutionists were proud
of it as a triumph of engineering art. Four red flags flew from its
summit, and upon the largest flag some girl had stitched the white
letters, “For Freedom.” But there was another barricade which seemed to
me simpler and finer in conception. Some revolutionists, probably boys,
had piled a great wall of snow across the road, and then by pouring
buckets of water upon it under the freezing sky, had converted it into
an almost solid rampart of ice, which I doubt if any bullet could have
penetrated. That was the barricade of genius.
When I returned to the central forts on the Sadovaya, the firing of the
big guns had slackened, and I found out the reason afterwards. At the
time I thought it was because the early dusk of mid-winter was falling,
and having waited for a while to watch some revolutionary Red Cross
parties set out in different directions, I made a short cut for home
by way of the Flower Boulevard (Tsvietnoi). But as I was going along
its valley towards the Ermitage, four big flashes in front, looking
very orange in the twilight, warned me that guns had been brought down
there to demolish the series of little barricades running across, the
gardens where I was. I think the troops were afraid of a flank attack
on their right if they advanced further without clearing this ground,
and, indeed, the barricades throughout the quarter were still rapidly
increasing. Men and girls were throwing them up with devoted zeal,
sawing through telegraph-poles, wrenching ironwork from its sockets,
and dragging out the planks from builders’ yards. I could still find
no directing spirit--no general or staff to give orders for the whole
army, as it were. But there must have been some sort of agreement in
actions like this, and probably, if I had been able to converse like
the rest, I should not have remained ignorant. But the foreigner,
however well disposed, is inevitably suspected, and even offers of help
in carrying and building are very coldly received, or rejected with
threats. Yet I was much less likely than a Russian to be a spy, and no
one could suffer greater mortification than being thus excluded from
the party of revolt.
When I reached the hill where my hotel stood, I found that even in
our own insignificant street, two barricades were being erected--one
very conveniently placed just below my window--and the side streets
leading down into the Petrovka were similarly blocked. The soldiers had
evidently fired up these streets whilst the building was going on,
for a bullet passing through a hotel window and wall and ceiling had
left a memorial which the inhabitants continued to contemplate with
pleasurable awe. The hotel cook also, having a moment of leisure in his
kitchen, had run out into the yard to enjoy the battle, and leaning
forward round a corner to gain the best possible view, had received a
bullet through the heart. Now stretched in the stable, he cooked no
more.
Late at night a strange figure appeared in the hall and stood thawing
in front of the fire. It was dressed like a peasant, but surely
no peasant since Adam’s fall ever looked quite so comfortable and
self-satisfied, and no peasant’s clothes were quite so clean since
Adam’s first day in hides. After warming himself and peering about for
a little while with twinkling eyes, he took off the peasant’s raiment
bit by bit, and stood before us in full uniform, a police-officer
revealed. He had not come as an avenger, but with wrath restrained he
only demanded figures regarding the dead, and he even stooped to take
a special interest in the cook. There is a peculiar quality about the
Russian official--a kind of friendliness in brutality, a brotherliness
in slaughter--which springs from the sense of human kinship. Presently
the hired assassin showed himself quite benign and communicative.
He displayed revolutionary leanings. He informed us that if only
the insurgents could maintain the fight for three days longer, the
soldiers would be overcome. Already they were worn out with constant
watching and harassing marches hither and thither without relief. The
news, if true, could only mean that a large part of the garrison could
not be relied upon by the Government, for otherwise there were plenty
of troops in the city to supply reliefs. I believe the garrison then
numbered eight infantry regiments (much undermanned, it is true), two
Cossack regiments, one and a half of dragoons, and two brigades of
guns. In all, the numbers were then estimated at eighteen thousand--not
very many, it is true, but surely enough to hold a city against
ill-armed insurgents. Something must evidently be strange in the temper
of the men. So that peasant police-officer discoursed, and the hearts
of his hearers were full of hope or dismay according to their inborn
quality.
Towards midnight there was a sudden outburst of rifle-fire outside my
window. A party of soldiers were assaulting the little barricade, which
I had already come to regard with a sense of personal property. They
poured bullet after bullet into it, but still it held out as long as
it could, and only surrendered at last because it had no defenders.
Bringing up copies of some suppressed organ of liberty as kindling, the
soldiers then set it on fire, and it burnt slowly till dawn.
CHAPTER X
THE DAYS OF MOSCOW--III
In many battles there comes a moment when little or nothing appears
to have changed, and yet you suddenly realize that all is over but
the running. Such a moment came on the morning of Christmas Day as
I went up the Sadovaya towards the central revolutionist position
where I had been the afternoon before. The barricades were still
standing, the Sodovaya was still covered with such a network of wire
about four feet from the ground that one had to walk under it bent
double like a hoop, and no horse could have moved. The guns had not
come perceptibly nearer, and in the centre of the town I had seen an
officer stopped and deprived of his sword by half a dozen men with
revolvers, who threatened to strip him naked, as another had been
stripped the day before. There were rumours of all manner of wild
enterprises on foot--attacks on stations, on prisons, on barracks. All
these were favourable signs. Yet as I went along, I suddenly realized,
“instinctively” as it is called, that the tide had turned, and that
the highest moment of revolutionary success lay behind us.
I was so convinced of this that, wishing to photograph the barricades
before they disappeared, I went all the way back to the hotel for my
kodak. There was a brilliant sun, and as the firing had not yet become
severe, I walked leisurely through the main position, selecting in my
mind the best places; for I had only one roll of films left, the rest
having gone down the line. As on the previous day, a good many people
were moving about in groups, besides the usual number of women passing
up and down unconcernedly, since children must be fed, revolution or
not. But from a number of unconscious signs, I felt the place was to
be abandoned, and it appeared likely that the fighting revolutionists
had already gone. So I began taking the views, and had just secured a
fine construction of doors, benches, barrels, railings, shop-signs,
and trees, when I found myself surrounded by a group of young men,
evidently displeased. I soon perceived I had fallen into the midst
of my friends. They were very quiet about it, and only one of them
spoke. He was a dark Pole of about twenty-five, dirty and red-eyed
with sleepless fighting, and he appeared to be informing me that I
was a spy and must at once give up my camera. To make his meaning
plainer, he stealthily drew a revolver from his coat pocket, and held
it close against my side, whilst he repeated his demands in the same
low voice. In two or three unknown tongues I appealed to him and
the others, who had now closed in all round me, ready with the same
stealthy argument. I smiled my hardest, assuring them I was at least as
good a revolutionist by nature as they, and would rather explode the
universal spheres than betray a stick of their barricades. I think they
understood the smile, for their manner became less anti-social. But
there was a movement among the crowd, and as I tried to escape in it,
they again grew painfully insistent. In the end I had to give up the
roll of films, and with that they appeared content, for they graciously
let me keep the camera. But by their action their finest barricades
lost a chance of immortality.
The incident only proved how impossible it was to know where the
revolutionists were stationed, or in what force. There was nothing
to distinguish these men from the numbers of others with whom they
were mixing quite freely. It is true that, after this experience, I
recognized them almost by intuition. As though by a law of nature,
they assumed the conspirators’ habit--the hat drawn down to the eyes,
the long coat with the collar turned up, the hand constantly feeling
in the pocket, the quick look of suspicion glancing every way. After
a few days I think I could have picked out the leaders simply by
their pale and intellectual faces, or their appearance of nervous and
bloodshot excitement. But the possession of a revolver was the only
admissible evidence, and that required search. By the soldiers it was
taken as sufficient evidence for death without phrase, and any one
caught with a revolver in his pocket had no further chance. Of course,
the revolutionists were aware of this, and knew that death was as good
as surrender. Whilst I was among them that morning, for instance, an
English officer only a few streets away saw five men suddenly come upon
a strong picket. They were summoned to halt, but, instead of halting,
they walked quietly on, taking no notice. One after another they were
shot down, till only one was left, and he also walked on, taking no
notice. Then he was shot, and there was an end of the five. No doubt
the more usual form of courage would have been to rush upon the picket
and die fighting. But they may have been out of cartridges, and in any
case it would be hard to surpass their example in passive bravery.
In expectation of sudden death like theirs, all the students, both
men and girls, had stitched little labels inside the backs of their
coats, so that, when they were killed, their parents might possibly
hear the news and know the pride of having produced an adventurous
child. I think most of the revolutionists had done the same, but the
dead were piled up and carted into the country for burial with such
indiscriminate carelessness, that I doubt if the precaution was of
very much avail. And, indeed, it was not the revolutionist who suffered
most during the days of combat, but the sightseers and the ordinary
passers-by.
For myself, I was very unfortunate all that day. The guns began firing
heavily again about eleven, and I tried many devices to reach their
main position on the Tverskaya by passing from lane to lane in their
rear. I even reached the Pushkin statue, from which I could see the
limbers of the guns waiting under cover. But the continual threats of
bayonets and rifles on every side, and the violent searching by the
sentries became strangely demoralizing. Certainly the process of search
that day was pleasingly simple in my case, because what underclothing I
still possessed had gone to the wash, and all the shops were shut. But
my kodak excited the utmost suspicion; all the more, perhaps, because
it was empty now.
Tired of all this, I turned down the main Boulevard westward for an
interval of peace, but again I was singularly disappointed in my hope.
The further I went, the more disturbed and dangerous the atmosphere
of things became. Something was evidently happening down that way.
Troops were marching hastily about, and two guns passed at full gallop.
At one place I heard an officer’s voice shouting some order, and the
few people on the pavement near me began to run for their lives. I
saw no reason to run till two soldiers came dashing at me through the
trees with fixed bayonets. Then running was too late, and, seated on
a railing, I awaited them, feeling that the centre of indifference
was reached at last, and life and death were equal shades. But
something induced them to respect so obvious a foreigner, and having
again searched me and taken half a crown each as their reward for
international amenity, they conducted me past an angle of a church and
waved adieu.
Then I discovered the reason of all this excitement. New barricades
were rapidly appearing across many of the streets leading down into
the Boulevard from the right-hand, or north-west side. I continued
along the circle almost to the point where the Boulevard ends, close
to the great cathedral of the Saviour near the river, and all the way
I saw signs of fresh conflict and heard sudden outbursts of rifle or
revolver-firing. It was only after two or three days that I understood
the real significance of this movement, by which the revolutionists
were preparing for their final stand in the extreme north-west of the
city. But at the time I thought they were merely attempting a feint
upon the Government’s left, just as they had tried on the right the day
before. It seemed probable, also, that the movement was intended to
cover their withdrawal from the main position where I had lately left
them. And that, indeed, was their object, though they hoped rather to
change their centre than to abandon the contest altogether.
Yet the crisis, as I had felt in the morning, was really over. When
I passed through the middle of the city again, and out to my own
quarter, the crowds were still running to and fro in panic round the
Theatre Square, men and women were still falling unexpectedly in the
streets, there was as much to do as ever in helping the wounded, and
the ambulance yards were continually being filled. But the life seemed
to have dropped out of the rising. People were talking with terror
of a great peasant invasion, hundreds of thousands strong, that was
already marching to deliver their Little Mother Moscow, and hew us all
to pieces. With better reason they said that Mischenko, the hero of
the Japanese war, was coming as military governor with 7,000 Cossacks.
Hour by hour the citizens were agitated by new alarms, and the cautious
began to think enough had been done for freedom, and to remember
that something, after all, was due to the sacred stove of home. That
night the revolutionists issued appeals calling for volunteers at six
shillings a day and a revolver, the term of service to be limited to
three days. For Russian fighting, or indeed for fighting in any land,
the pay was magnificent. Even in nations like our own the risk of life
is not valued above two shillings, and though the Russian soldier’s pay
was raised for this occasion, it only amounted to threepence three
farthings. It was certainly safer for the moment to be a revolutionist
than any other kind of citizen, because revolutionists generally
knew which was the enemy and where he lay, but I do not think many
volunteered for the sake of the pay or the mere delight of firing a
revolver. Even if any recruits were gained by such inducements, their
fighting, not being inspired by revolutionary spirit, was not likely to
be glorious.
During the next two days, there was very little outward change in the
position, except that the feeling of disaster grew, and most people
began to recognize the winning side and arrange their own behaviour
accordingly. The guns still sprinkled bullets over the barricades and
wrecked the houses on each side. The soldiers continued their slow
and perilous advance from street to street. People fell at random;
the hospital and ambulances were crowded beyond limit. On the Tuesday
evening an official estimate put the killed and wounded at between
8,000 and 9,000. In ordinary wars all numbers are exaggerated, but in
civil war the Government would probably not overstate the number of
their victims, and when I went up on Tuesday, the troops had advanced
very near to the Sadovaya, the firing was very heavy, and many were
hit. But the sense of disaster and failure lay over all, and on that
day, for the first time, I heard revolutionists beginning to
describe the whole movement as a dress rehearsal and to congratulate
themselves upon the excellent practice in street fighting which they
had enjoyed.
[Illustration:
_Art Reproduction Co._
THE NEW ERA.
From _Sulphur_ (_Jupel_).]
On the Wednesday I was unable to go out, except only to cross the
Theatre Square. And there I found a group of soldiers who had just
taken part in an execution in the middle of the place. Some inmate of a
hotel opposite the Métropole, possessed by a crazy spirit of slaughter
or revolt, had fired a pistol at large from his window. The battery was
placed in front of the hotel and the surrender of the man demanded. The
proprietor gave him up without dangerous hesitation, and in a minute
or two he was shot in front of the window from which he had fired. One
would have liked to discover the kind of mania that seized him, but his
death made that impossible.
The evening of the same day--or perhaps it was the evening
before--another execution was carried out, more terrible in its
circumstances, but better deserved, if any execution is deserved.
A band of revolutionists--the English papers, getting news chiefly
through St. Petersburg, said three hundred of them, but that is
absurd--made their way by some means unobserved to the house of the
chief of the secret police, close to the gendarmes barracks. Knocking
at the door, they demanded to see Voiloshnikoff, the chief himself.
He came out to them, his wife and children looking on with terror in
the background, and in spite of the entreaties and tears of woman and
child, they placed him in front of the door and shot him on the spot.
No doubt he had done many atrocious things, and had cared little enough
for the entreaties of women and children himself. But most people
regarded this act of wild justice as inhuman, and regretted, not the
paid criminal’s removal from the world, but the manner of it.
An hour or two before daylight next day (Thursday, the 28th), I had
to go to a house on the further side of the Sadovaya to help bring
provisions and toys for an English family which had taken refuge in the
hotel after spending some dull days in cellars. As we walked through
the streets standing in silence audible under the transparent darkness
of the morning, we saw the pickets squatting round orange fires of
planks which they had kindled in the middle of the road. But beyond
searching us once or twice, they did not interfere with our purpose,
and the only real danger came from the police, who had that morning
received brand new rifles--light-coloured things like toys, with fixed
bayonets--which they hugged in both arms, or held horizontally over
their shoulders, to the peril of all bystanders, while in their hearts
they longed to put them to their natural use, with all the tremulous
bravery of girls out rabbit-shooting.
But before we reached the Sadovaya, we had passed all the pickets,
and hardly any one was visible on the streets. Some of the barricades
were on fire or gently smouldering; the rest stood deserted. The
pavements were strewn with glass and bricks. Houses on both sides were
ruined with shell. Some were burning, and in two or three the beds and
furniture were being thrown out of the shattered windows. We noticed
how wild the shell-fire had been, for houses quite a hundred yards
from the main streets were struck, evidently at random. But all was
unguarded now. When daylight found us leaving the English flat with our
load, there was still no one visible, and I think a battalion might
have marched through the district in fours without receiving a shot.
Even the red flags had been removed from the barricades, to be kept,
one hopes, for another occasion, and almost the only sign of life was
that here and there I observed a dvornik (the door-keeper who watches
the Russian home) cutting down the network of telegraph wire with
a hatchet and rolling it up. He reminded me of some trusty servant
methodically putting away the stage properties on the morning after
private theatricals.
For the rest of that day the guns and soldiers were engaged in clearing
the quarter of barricades, entanglements, and all. It was an easy task
now, though the firing was more violent than ever, as the progress
was more rapid. For the revolutionists had received orders from their
committee that morning to abandon the street fighting and scatter to
their homes or out into the country, continuing the propaganda and
holding themselves ready for the next opportunity. Some escaped, at
least for the time. Some refused to obey, but continued the fighting,
as we soon discovered. Many were seized, and for days afterwards small
parties of soldiers or police in every street drove some unhappy
creature in front of them with his hands tied. What became of these
prisoners, we only suspected at the time; we found out later. On this
part of the Moscow rising, there is no more to chronicle but massacre.
And so the barricades and their defenders faded into history, and law
and order were restored.
That Thursday at noon, a decree went forth from Admiral Dubasoff
commanding all shutters to be taken down, all doors opened, and
business to be resumed on pain of martial law. Then the heart of the
shopkeeper was glad. For eight days all shops had been shut; banks
were closed, merchants did no business, and, as the German song
says, no mill wheel turned around. It is always hard not to smile
at the money-making classes whenever the great passions of human
existence appear upon the surface and shake their routine. Yet we
need not make light of their sufferings. They had suffered at the
heart. For months past they had been deprived of the profit which
is their single aim. For more than a week they had taken absolutely
nothing, and the whole credit of the country was so shaken that they
could not hope for advance of capital. Their occupation was gone,
and no return of it seemed likely. Besides the ordinary bankers,
merchants, and shopkeepers, we must include among them the hotel and
restaurant keepers, the theatrical managers, actresses, music-hall
people, prostitutes, and all such as live by pleasing or amusing the
wealthy. We ought further to include artists, musicians, authors,
lawyers, journalists, and professors, but as a rule their profits are
so small that their losses would hardly count in the universal ruin.
To take a single instance of the immense injury to trade, the mere
damage to house property from the shells and bullets was estimated
at £10,000,000, and all of it was dead loss, except to the builders
and glaziers. The Sytin printing works, wantonly destroyed by the
Government for printing the Liberal newspapers, was valued at £300,000.
There was no reason to be surprised, therefore, at the comfortable joy
which welcomed the Government’s ruthless decree. Perhaps it might seem
a little indecent, while the dead who had fought for freedom were still
lying in frozen layers at the police stations, or were being thrown
neck-and-crop upon sledges for their unknown burial. But we must make
a large allowance for business habits, which tiresome revolutions
interrupt. Think of the feelings of our own City men if suddenly the
morning train which for years they had caught successfully, stopped
running and shells rained from Holborn Viaduct to Aldgate Pump! With
what common sense they would welcome the restoration of any tyranny,
with what scorn decry the fallen sentimentalists who had cared for
freedom! So in Moscow, returning law and order met a greasy smile, and
many extolled the Governor-General and officers for the vigour of their
action. Skin for skin; yea, all that a man hath will he give for his
livelihood.
So “intercourse was resumed,” and the shop-keeping heart rejoiced.
But on Friday morning an uneasy feeling stole abroad that all was not
quite satisfactory yet. About two miles west of the Kremlin there is an
isolated manufacturing district called Presna or Presnensky. A little
stream with two or three ponds, running from the back of the Zoological
gardens into the Moscow river, separates it from the main town, and to
the north of it lies that ill-fated Khodinsky Polé, the plain where the
crowds were crushed to death at the Tsar’s coronation. The district is
about a mile square, and various factories stand there, for cotton,
furniture, varnish, boiler-making, and sugar. Some of them are under
English management, and in English commerce the place is known as Three
Hill Gates, because the country beyond gently rises into slopes that
would pass for hills in Russia.
[Illustration: “INTERCOURSE IS RESUMED.”
From _Streli_ (_Arrows_).]
It gradually became known that a large number of work-people--ten
thousand of them it was said--were holding this district, and had set
up there a little revolution of their own, under an organized system
of sentries, pickets, and fighting force. A few students and educated
girls had come over to them from the revolutionists of the barricades
disguised as mill hands; indeed, a girl of eighteen was described
as their most powerful leader, and in all probability those streets
which I had seen barricaded on the extreme left of the Government
advance on the Wednesday, were blocked to give time for the Presnensky
preparations. But in the main it was a work-people’s affair, and on the
Friday they held undisturbed possession of the district, their sentries
marching up and down with revolvers and red flags, while they naïvely
boasted themselves confident of terminating the exploitation of labour
and establishing Social Democracy at a stroke.
But law and order were already at their work of disillusionment. That
very day the fashionable regiment of the Semenoffsky Guards, under
command of Colonel Min, already notorious as a slaughterer of the
people, arrived from St. Petersburg, though the revolutionists made a
gallant attempt to stop the railway by tearing up the lines. In the
evening a cordon of troops was drawn round the district, and batteries
were placed on five positions, at ranges of 1000 to 2000 yards. One
stood on a high bank near a bridge over the little stream I mentioned;
another was a point nearer the Zoo, where the gunners had to fight for
the position, and burnt down several rows of small houses; a third was
in the cemetery, where they met with no opposition; a fourth far away
on the lowest slope of the Three Hills; and the fifth must have been
stationed somewhere down by the Moscow river, but I did not discover it.
The district was thus surrounded by batteries, and at dawn on Saturday
the guns opened upon the mills and neighbouring houses. There were no
guns to reply, and the gunners consequently made “excellent practice,”
plumping their shells down where they liked, crashing through the
windows, or raising red clouds of brickdust from the battered walls.
It was about as leisurely and safe a piece of slaughter as ever was
seen. The large furniture factory was soon alight, and burnt quickly
to the ground. So did the fine house of its owner and manager, a
German-Russian named Schmidt, who was justly suspected of holding
Liberal opinions, and was afterwards shot for the crime. The Marmentoff
varnish works on the top of the hill also took fire, and its tanks
continued to burn for many days and nights, rolling thick clouds of
smoke into the air all day, and casting a brilliant crimson light upon
the evening sky. The great Prokhoroffsky cotton mill was battered,
and many shells burst in its rooms, but it was saved from fire by its
automatic “sprinklers,” which, however, ruined the machinery by rust.
Many shells burst against the owner’s house on the hill, for he too had
committed the sin of Liberalism. During the bombardment, his wife gave
birth to a child, an unpropitious time for herself and the nurses. But
the guns were chiefly directed against the large workmen’s barracks
attached to the mills, and these were soon shattered, though they did
not burn. The small rows of cottages, where the married men lived with
their families, being made of wood, blazed up at once, and it was in
them that most of the people were killed. At the time it was reported
that the gunners were ordered to fire on the lower stories, so that the
people upstairs might not escape. I doubt whether gunners could make
that distinction at the range, but, in any case, many people were cut
to pieces by the segment shells and stifled by the flames. In one upper
story alone, nine old men and women, who had been collected there for
safety, were burnt to death.
The shelling was particularly heavy from eight to nine in the morning,
and again from one to two. As the wooden houses caught fire, and the
work-people were driven out in helpless crowds from their barracks by
the crash of shells, the soldiers came crowding in with rifle and
sword, and met with little organized resistance. The troops employed
were Cossacks, a Warsaw regiment, and the fashionable Semenoffsky
Guards, who had arrived, as I noticed, only the day before, and to
the end of the insurrection displayed a surpassing blood-thirstiness
and brutality. No Moscow men were present, though I was told by an
officer that the Rostoff regiment, which had been regarded as dubious
for some weeks past, entreated to be set in the front throughout the
fighting, and at every chance engaged in the slaughter with a ferocity
well calculated to recover the Government’s esteem. The whole of that
Saturday appears to have been one long massacre of men, women, and
children, who were blown up, shot, and hewn in pieces with delightful
ease, and almost uninterrupted security. But that day I was myself
unable to penetrate the thick line of sentries which surrounded the
district and were engaged in shooting down escaping refugees and
preventing witnesses of the massacre from entering.
In the afternoon an event happened which illustrates the spirit in
which the Government’s agents carried out their work. Living in the
Presnensky district, which has some streets of wealthy villas at the
upper end, was a doctor named Vorobieff, well known in Russia as a man
of science and a writer on medical discoveries. At the beginning of the
bombardment he hung an ambulance flag from his window, to give notice
to the wounded where they might obtain assistance. His landlord came
and asked him to take it down, because the red cross would naturally
draw the fire of Government troops. He took it down, but continued
attending to any wounded who came. Presently a party of police,
under an officer named Ermoleff, who had formerly been an officer in
the Guards cavalry, came to the house and accused him of assisting
revolutionists. He replied that he was not a revolutionist himself,
but it was his duty as a surgeon to give every possible help to the
wounded, no matter what their opinions might be. “Have you a revolver?”
Ermoleff suddenly asked him. Yes, he said, he had a revolver, but he
held the Government licence for it. “Go and fetch your licence,” cried
Ermoleff. And as the doctor turned to go upstairs, he fired his pistol
into the back of his head and blew his brains out. “Oh, what have you
done?” cried his wife, who had been standing at the doctor’s side.
“Hold your tongue, and wipe up that mess,” answered the ex-officer of
the Guards cavalry, and withdrew his party.[2]
All that night Moscow saw the flames raging to the sky. Many of the
revolutionists, and many of the ordinary work-people too, tried to
escape from the district, especially across the frozen river, and it
was along the river banks that most of them were shot down. Early
next morning, on the excuse of visiting the English overseers who
were shut up in the district, I succeeded in penetrating the cordon
of troops, though I was searched nine or ten times from head to foot,
and the sledge was searched as well. Two Russian journalists from St.
Petersburg, who tried to follow me, were less fortunate, for by the
command of the officers, they were so shamefully beaten and stamped
upon that they hardly escaped alive, and one of them, still exhausted
with terror and pain, came to my room some hours later to have his
wounds dressed. All round the edge of the district, the wretched
work-people were now trying to escape to their villages upon any kind
of sledge that would move. Into these sledges they had heaped all
their household possessions--feather beds, furniture, cooking things,
and heavy old trunks with clothes. Sometimes the toys already bought
for Christmas were laid carefully on the top--the doll or scarlet
parrot--and one woman carried a baby on one arm and a wooden horse
under the other. But when it came to the line of pickets, every sledge
was emptied, all the boxes unpacked, and their contents strewn upon the
snow. The people also were searched with customary brutality--the old
people beaten, the young insulted. The soldiers thrust their hands into
the girls’ breasts and under their skirts. One girl was passed on from
soldier to soldier and searched six times within about twenty yards.
“God spit at them!” muttered the women as they crawled away.
The guns were still in position around the district, and firing was
to begin again in an hour. But on such mills as were still standing,
the white flag now waved. Arms were being surrendered, and the dead
were collected in rows upon the frozen surface of a pond. In one place
was a mutilated child of nine; in another a baby’s arm, cut off at
the shoulder and across the fingers, lay on the snow. For law and
order were being restored. Near the mills I found many hundreds of
work-people standing idly round their ruined barracks and smouldering
homes. A barrack for mill-hands, as I have already shown, is not much
of a place. The beds are jammed close together in rows; everything
is hideous, the smell intolerable. Nor are the doghutch homes for
married people much better. But at all events they had been warm. Now
the workmen and their families had nowhere to go, and for the last
three mornings the thermometer had stood at eighteen degrees below
zero (Réaumur). Probably many homeless people were given shelter at
night in other crowded rooms, but all day long they remained shivering
helplessly among the ruins.
I waited for some time in an English manager’s house, expecting the
guns to re-open fire. But no firing came, though the guns remained
all day in position. As far as open fighting went, the Moscow rising
was over. When I returned next morning (Monday, January 1st) I found
the guns had been withdrawn, and the streets and ruins and mills were
held by strong detachments of Cossacks and Guards. The surrender was
complete. Three of the leaders had just been bayoneted to death,
and their bodies were lying outside a shed. The remains of the last
revolutionary band were cooped up as prisoners in the sugar-mill yard,
and soldiers stood round the thick crowd of them, while the leaders
were being sorted out for execution. Many women were found among them,
and a large proportion of the dead were women too. Indeed, considering
that this was mainly a work-people’s movement, it was remarkable how
large a part the women played.
Of the killed it was impossible to form an accurate estimate. In the
Presna district itself they said that eighty work-people were killed
during the bombardment of Saturday morning. Perhaps 200 were killed
in all, including those who tried to escape across the river. As to
the larger question of the casualties during the whole ten days of
the rising, every kind of estimate was heard between 5000 and 20,000.
I have even heard of enterprising newspapers which put the total
of killed alone at 25,000. But it takes a lot of killing to make a
thousand dead, and after going carefully into such figures as I could
get with two experienced officials who knew the city well, it seemed
to me probable that the killed numbered about 1,200, and the wounded
perhaps ten times that amount. But the truth can never be accurately
known. The frozen bodies were piled up in police stations and other
places till they could be carried out into the country by train and
laid in hasty trenches. When I was in St. Petersburg many weeks later,
a truck full of them arrived by mistake at the Moscow station there.
The authorities denied it, but no one doubted the truth.
After our New Year’s Eve the process of vengeance and execution went on
without further interruption. In the Presnensky district the prisoners
were usually shot in batches--sixteen, twenty, or even thirty-five
together, as I was told by an overseer who lived close by and saw it
done. The work-people were set in a row before the firing party, and
were driven forward three at a time. Three by three they were shot down
before the eyes of the others. The heap of dead increased. Three more
were driven forward to increase it, till at last only a heap of dead
was left. In the case of two workmen, suspected of being leaders, there
was a variety in the proceedings, perhaps by way of a practical joke.
They were ordered by the officer just to walk round a corner of the
sugar mill. They went carelessly, with their hands in their pockets,
and when they turned the corner they were faced by eight soldiers
standing at the present. In an instant they fell dead, and their bodies
remained for a long time lying on the ground for all passers-by to see.
Such executions continued among these factories for more than a week,
and the numbers of those poor and uneducated men and women who died for
their protest against despotism will never be known.
Nor will the numbers of the victims within the city itself be known.
As I have said, on every street you met parties of soldiers and armed
police bringing them to the police-stations. Even at the beginning of
the rising, we have seen that prisoners were shot because the prisons
were too full to hold them. It is quite certain that they had no mercy
now, but what exactly became of them inside the walls, one could only
judge from terrible hints and rumours that people whispered to each
other. On the last day of the year, in a friend’s house, I met a
skilled craftsman, an educated and middle-aged man, who from his own
workroom could reach a window overlooking a police-yard. There, he
said, one could watch the prisoners brought in and briefly examined by
an officer. They were then strapped to a board and beaten almost to
death, and if they were people of no account they were handed over to
the executioners to be “broken up”--that is the English sportsman’s
phrase for hares and foxes overtaken by the hounds. They were broken
up. Their bones were smashed, their legs and arms lopped off with
swords, and it did not take them very long to die.
The story may have been one of the exaggerations of war, but the man
was a quiet and ordinary citizen, with no reason for lying, and he
invited us quite freely to come and view the place, always soaked with
blood. People of both parties who had lived many years in Moscow,
did not hesitate to believe it, and they often told me of things
still worse--of nameless things committed in the empty and windowless
chambers of police-stations, where no light enters and no cry escapes.
One murder was especially talked about, because the victim happened to
be the son of a leading barrister, who was a friend of the Governor
himself. The boy was seized near the Riding School Barracks, close to
the university, either on suspicion or for open hostility. The Sumsky
Dragoons flogged him as usual, and their officer, finding him still
alive, asked why they had not finished him off. An infantry officer
who was standing by, took the news to the father, and he appealed to
the Governor in person, asking only that the guard to take his son to
prison should be composed of Moscow infantry and not of dragoons. The
Governor replied that of course his request should be granted, and
every consideration shown. Nevertheless, it was dragoons who formed
the guard, and the boy never reached the prison alive.
Rumours reached us also about the fate of the revolutionists who had
walked away into the country or afterwards escaped by train. I found
some of them as prisoners a few weeks afterwards, at a long distance
from Moscow; but many were overtaken on the road or shot by soldiers
at the stations. The Semenoffsky Guards especially distinguished
themselves by their zeal in hunting them down, and their exultation
in the slaughter; but considerable allowance must be made for them,
because they had not been given a chance of slaughtering the Japanese,
and like all brave soldiers they naturally pined for active service.
[Illustration: DUBASOFF’S ROLL-CALL.
From _Burelom_ (_The Storm_).]
So much for the men and women who had dared to strike for liberty.
But having extinguished their efforts, Admiral Dubasoff devised a
further method for discouraging the growth of Liberal opinions in the
future--a method much applauded by the supporters of law and order, who
hailed it as an admirable means of bringing ridicule upon the whole
revolutionary cause. He ordered the police to arrest all suspected boys
and girls in the Moscow schools and bring them to the police-stations.
There they were handed over to soldiers, who stripped them, and, if
they were under fifteen, beat them with their hands. Between fifteen
and eighteen, the girls and boys alike were stripped and beaten with
rods, though the girls received only five strokes and the boys
twelve. I was told of this new device by reactionaries who had heard
it from police-officers, knew of cases in which it had been carried
out, and admired its admixture of sensuality with cruelty as likely
to keep young people in their places for the future. But I could not
help wondering how long a government in England would last if it handed
grown girls over to soldiers to be stripped and flogged because they
were suspected of Liberal opinions. I wondered also whether our own
people who were then beginning to ridicule the revolutionists, and
to welcome the restoration of order, ever in the least realized what
is meant by order under Russian rule. And I wondered most of all how
Frenchmen could still be found to advance money for the support of such
a Government. But investors have neither pity nor shame.
In the midst of these scenes came the Russian Christmas Day (January
7th). It was celebrated as usual with superb ceremony in the enormous
church of Christ the Saviour, which stands in the west of the city,
above the river. Soon after dawn the people began to assemble, and by
ten o’clock the vast space under the domes was packed with crowds,
all standing up, except when, here and there, a man or woman forced
the neighbours to make room for prostration on the floor. Bodies of
troops stood at every corner round the building. The Governor-General
arrived, the military staff arrived, the scene was radiant with
uniforms. In any case, the ceremony is half military, for the great
church of Christ the Saviour was built to commemorate Napoleon’s
retreat. But it was not of Napoleon that the heroes of massacre were
thinking that day.
The service began. In the centre, under the dome, stood a
bishop--perhaps an archbishop--with gleaming mitre, his robes stiff
with gold, his appealing arms supported by gorgeous priests. Between
him and the altar veiled books were carried to and fro, books were
brought with an escort of priests to be kissed, or were read in the
unintelligible mutter of solemnity. Long-haired figures bore candles
up and down; the bishop raised two candles high in air, crossing them
so that they guttered down his robes, while he turned to the compass
points of the church, to bestow his blessing upon all. Old priests and
young, glittering in the uniforms of holiness, came to kiss his hands.
In splendid humility he was supported to the altar. A veiled basin was
brought for him to wash in. A golden priest knelt with the sacred towel
hanging round his neck. The bishop washed, and upon the golden priest’s
neck he replaced the sacred towel. The Re-incarnation of Christ
began. On each side of the altar a choir of boys and men, apparelled
in scarlet and black and gold, raised the glory of Russian music in
alternate chant. From arch to arch ran the gleam of the kindling
tapers till the marble walls and gilded capitals shone with points of
fire.
Muttering and sobbing with devotion, the masses of mankind swayed up
and down, as they bowed and crossed themselves in the gloom below.
Struggling to touch the polished pavement with their foreheads, they
fell upon the ground. The boom of distant bells was heard; a small
bell tinkled close at hand. In front of the altar stood a black-maned
priest, and with uplifted arm and upturned face, he called upon Christ.
He called and called again, his immense voice bellowing round the
cathedral, as though an organ had been wrought up to full power and one
great note held firmly down. So he called upon Christ to come--Christ
the Saviour, Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace.
CHAPTER XI
IN LITTLE RUSSIA
The failure at Moscow fell like a blight upon all Russia, and hope
withered. The revolutionists, certainly, protested that much was
gained. They admitted that they had allowed their hand to be forced by
the Government. The attempt, they knew, was ill-timed and ill-devised.
But they had not intended to win this time; the rising was only a
dress rehearsal for the great revolution hereafter. They were teaching
the proletariat the methods of street fighting, and after all it was
something to have held a large part of the ancient capital for ten days
against the Government troops. Such a thing had never been accomplished
before. They were proud of it, and when the hour of defeat came they
pointed to the high service which even reaction performed for the cause
by combining all parties again in opposition to the common oppressor.
Of these various pleas, the last alone could stand. The ferocity of the
Government’s vengeance, the unscrupulous, disregard of all its pledges
under the reactionary terror, certainly obliterated the differences
between the parties of progress, and smoothed away the growing enmities
of rivals in their country’s salvation. Persecution is a powerful bond,
and when all are gagged, silence passes for agreement. There need be
no question that for the time the ruthlessness of the repression only
inflamed the revolutionary spirit, and combined all sections against
the pitiless and incapable clique which was bringing ruin upon the
people. How far such a lesson might be permanent, how long such unity
of purpose amid differences would be maintained when the pressure of
adversity was removed, could only be known when the next opportunity
for revolution came. For the moment unity was gained.
Otherwise the failure was only disastrous. It had proved too expensive
for a dress-rehearsal, and to fight for defeat is seldom worth the
pain. It deprived the movement of its prestige. The revolution was no
longer an unknown and incalculable power, springing from secret roots,
no one knew where. The Government had gained all the advantages of a
general who has carried out a successful reconnaissance and discovered
the enemy’s limitations. They knew now on whom they could rely, and
many of the wealthy and educated classes who had rather enjoyed
posing as Liberals when they thought it was the fashion, now began to
appreciate the virtues of the ancient regime with fresh intelligence.
One thing, above all, the failure had proved: the devil was still on
the side of the big battalions. The real hope of the revolutionists
had been that the troops would come over to the side of freedom,--that
the soldiers would “fraternize.” They had some grounds for the hope.
Mutinies had been frequent and serious, the war scandals were partially
known throughout the army, the soldiers themselves sprang from the
people and would return to the people. It might be that they would
hesitate to shoot men and women so like their own relations at home.
Large quantities of revolutionary literature had been distributed
among the garrisons, and many of the reservists had already professed
Socialism. But when it came to action none of these things counted
against the cowardice of obedience and the fear of death. It is true
that comparatively few of the garrison infantry were employed, though,
as I have noticed, even the disaffected Rostoff regiment clamoured
to be led to the front. But the gunners, who were supposed to be
very uncertain, were the chief instruments of suppression, and both
the dismounted Sumsky Dragoons and the Semeneffsky Guards, when they
arrived, displayed a bloodthirsty lust for massacre which could not
have been surpassed by the most loyal mercenaries.
Put a man in uniform, feed him, give him arms, and he may generally
be depended upon to shoot as directed. Obedience is only a temptation
to sloth, and it becomes almost irresistible when the temptation
is supported by fear of death. The soldier who “fraternized”
had everything to lose, and the revolutionists could offer him
nothing--nothing but a revolver, a dubious payment for three days
without food or clothing, and a prospect of almost certain death
if they failed. To win over an army, the revolutionists must first
command a public purse. They must point to some Parliament, Assembly,
Committee--some authoritative body which can supply food, clothes,
and pay. This was the advantage of our own Parliament in its struggle
against despotism; it could draw upon legitimate taxes, the King
could only melt down plate. And under modern conditions, unless the
revolutionists can win over the army, a revolution by violence appears
almost impossible. That was why the immediate occasion of our own
revolution was the dispute between the King and Parliament about the
command of the militia at Hull. Add to these instincts of obedience and
self-preservation the promise of better food held out to the army in
the Tsar’s Christening-Day Manifesto; add the weariness and irritation
of street fighting, the terror of sudden death lurking at every window,
the memory of women’s jibes and taunts during the past few weeks, and
you get a temper which will stick at no methods and be troubled by no
remorse. Among poverty-stricken and uneducated men, with no employment
or home or resources of their own, I doubt if enthusiasm for freedom
should ever be counted upon against the restraining powers of habit,
uniform, and rations.
That was the main lesson of Moscow, and the Government was quick to
learn it. They knew their power depended entirely upon the command of
the army and police, but for the present that was secure. The command
of the army and police depended again upon their ability to pay them,
and, with an estimated deficit of £50,000,000 for the coming year and
a real deficit of about £80,000,000, finance was the weak point in the
Government’s defences. But Kokovtsoff was now in Paris negotiating
a loan by which at least the French might pay their own interest on
their own advances for one year, and for the future everything might
be hoped from the power of reaction. On January 9th, Witte replying
to a deputation of the gently Conservative “League of October 30th,”
announced his conversion to violent and repressive measures with
characteristic tearfulness. Whining like an apostate who blubbers over
the God he has betrayed, he cried--
“There was a time when I sought the confidence of the people,
but such illusions are no longer possible. I have always been
opposed to repression myself, but am now compelled to resort to
it, merely as the result of having trusted my countrymen.”
While he was thus speaking, I myself was moving very slowly south-west
from Moscow towards Kieff, over indistinguishable spaces of snow marked
only by rare and desolate villages of wooden huts and sheds. During the
twenty-eight hours of the journey, we passed a few miserable towns as
well, and on the side platforms of every station I noticed great piles
of sacks sopping in the snow and rain; for a premature thaw had set in
and there was hardly a shred of tarpaulin to cover them. I found out
afterwards that these sacks held the last summer’s harvest--the grain
which ought to have been feeding Russia and Europe. But it lay rotting
there while peasants starved, because the thousand trucks which should
have taken it to market were standing idle in Siberia or dragging men
and horses slowly home, and the Government which had made war upon
Japan was now entirely occupied in flogging or shooting the men and
women who differed from their policy.
Kieff, like Moscow and other towns, was exposed to all the violence
of martial law, which, indeed, for various reasons had become almost
chronic there. The city has often shown herself the birthplace of
revolution, and she is kept in almost continual ferment by the
opposition between her piety and her intellect. She boasts herself the
ancient centre of Russian religion and, at the same time, of Russian
thought--a strange combination, but that the religion is mainly
subterranean and the thought dwells in the upper air. As objects of
pilgrimage her holy shrines are unrivalled. Peasants from all over
Russia visit Kieff by hundreds of thousands a year. They come to pray
at the ancient church of St. Sophia--a circle of dark and unexpected
chapels clustering round a central dome, where mosaics on golden
ground dimly gleam to the few tapers below, but all else is dark, and
invisible forms are heard moving in shadow, as a priest intones, or an
outburst of deep chanting sounds from unseen altars. But most pilgrims
are more attracted by the mummied forms of Russian saints who lie at
rest in catacombs far underground, below the churches and monasteries
of the sacred Lavra hill, which looks across the Dnieper to the great
plain of unenclosed fields and forests beyond. With coffin lids open
to preclude deception, the saints are laid in the rock-cut passage or
niche where once they spent their dull years of suffering because the
torments of ordinary life upon the surface were insufficient for their
zeal. Nay, one who, regardless of health, lived buried in earth to his
shoulders for thirty years, stands buried so still. The rest lie wrapt
in coloured cloth through which their face and form may only obscurely
be discerned; but when I examined the cloth I found it genuine. Year
after year their holy shrines are watched by silent monks, who sit
beside them with lighted tapers, religiously idle, while the long files
of peasants pass and give their pence, and kiss the cotton coverings,
and gulp the holy water which as a final blessing is presented them
to drink from the hollow of a silver cross. Or if any one refuses to
drink, the monk pours the water down his back, in the hope that even
upon a heretic the efficacy of so great a blessing may not be entirely
wasted.
But above ground, Kieff is the mother of science and intellectual
progress, as far as such things can exist in Russia at all. Upon
the surface of her pretty hills, stand a famous University, a great
Polytechnic, and many schools. Ever since the fourteenth century, when
there was no such great distinction between divine and human knowledge,
Kieff has been conspicuous for her learning, and she still claims
equal rank with Moscow and St. Petersburg. Hers was the first printing
press of Russia, and it is she who has provided the training for most
of Russia’s recent politicians up to Witte himself--politicians as
distinct from officials, who are produced according to regulation type
by the more passive and unimaginative races of other districts. For
Kieff is the real capital of Little Russia, and the Little Russians
have no doubt that they are the intellectual people. They call
themselves the Midi of Russia, the Provençals, the people of the sunny
south. They are Slavs themselves, but they claim the Slavs of Galicia
or such Slavs as are found in Prague as their nearest relations, and
though their language is only a Slavonic dialect, it is unintelligible
to other Russians, and is a bond of union only among the dwellers in
the Ukraine or marches or borderland of the south-west.
Even in winter the dress of Little Russian peasants is brilliant and
distinctive. They go in cheerful crimson and orange, and their skirts
and aprons are worked with barbaric embroidery, as among the Bulgarian
Slavs of Macedonia. Their music and dances are like no other in Russia,
being comparatively gay. The artistic instincts run in their blood,
and the women supply the Empire with singers, actresses, dancers, and
others among whom beauty counts for wealth. In ordinary life even a
stranger notices at once that the people are better mannered and more
cheerful, though that does not imply an unseemly excess of merriment.
[Illustration: A LITTLE RUSSIAN.]
[Illustration: A TRAMP.]
In language, in life, and in temperament the distinction is almost
as much marked as between two kindred but separate races, but among
the Little Russians there is no proposal of separation. They would
gladly become a home-ruled State in a Russian Confederacy, provided
their defence were insured and they suffered no commercial loss. But
their great fear is not of Russia but of Poland, lest any marked
improvement in their position should bring more Poles among them to
swallow them up. Already the Poles are gathering the commerce and land
into their hands, and Poles are regarded much like the Jews, as
insinuating people, unscrupulous, and horribly clever. Little Russia
is apprehensive of Poland very much in the same way as Poland is
apprehensive of Germany. Worse than all, the Poles are Catholic and
care nothing for Theodosius and Nestor and the eighty mummied saints
of Kieff. The Little Russian knows of only two religions beside his
own--the “Old Believers,” who in spite of all the death and torture
they have suffered for two centuries and have so richly deserved for
holding up a heretical number of fingers in the blessing, still remain
in the family of the Church, as the poor relations of Orthodoxy; but,
apart from them, he only knows “the Polish,” by which he means the
Catholic--schismatics hardly removed from heathendom, who worship
images instead of pictures, and keep their Easter wrong, and do not
compel their priests to marry, but are predestined to eternal fire.
As it is, the Polish element is very strong in Little Russia, and so
is the German, the Bohemian, and the Galician. For Kieff has been the
great centre of international intercourse during the last fifty years,
ever since an English engineer, with English workmen, and English
materials, threw a suspension bridge over the wide stream of the
Dnieper there, and placed it on the great high-road of South Russia.
The bridge was lately reconstructed, and it is a sign of change that a
Russian engineer was now employed, with Russian workmen, and Russian
materials, and still it stands. But the result of all this admixture
in Kieff has been that the Little Russian movement is disappearing
before the general longing for great constitutional changes throughout
the Empire. For themselves, the Little Russians would be well content
if they were allowed the free use of their language, which is now
forbidden both in print and on the stage, while a Little Russian
newspaper which ventured to peep out after the October Manifesto was at
once stamped upon. But for the larger aspects of progress, Kieff has
never failed to supply revolutionists alike eloquent and daring.
When I arrived in the city the surface looked quiet enough, though
martial law still prevailed. Some ten weeks had passed since the
Loyalists or the Black Hundred, directed by the police, protected
by the soldiers, and bearing crosses and portraits of the Tsar in
procession, had sacked and plundered down the main street; while in
front of the Town Hall a military band played the national anthem to
enliven their patriotism. On that occasion the Liberals were saved
by the riches of the Jews, for the patriots preferred free and easy
plunder to risky assassination. So the Cossacks who were ordered out
to suppress the tumult, ranged up their horses in front of the Jewish
shops, and took heavy toll of the plunder as the thieves came out
through the line with their loads. The police and hotel-keepers took
toll in the same way; indeed, the proprietor of the best hotel in the
town accumulated so valuable a reward from the neighbouring jewellers’
shops that even patriots regarded his patriotism as overstepping the
requirements of citizenship and good taste.
That day the blessings of this world were very widely distributed in
Kieff, but it happened that almost the only non-Jewish house attacked
was the British Consulate. Outside this house, which stands within
forty yards of the main street, and bears over its door the usual
painted placard of the British arms, a garrison officer formed up his
company in a half-circle, and ordered them to pour volleys into the
windows. Apparently he acted out of mere national spite, or perhaps
because England, in spite of all the errors of the last ten years,
is still regarded by the Russian revolutionists as “the Holyland of
Freedom.” Happily, the British Consul himself had just left the place,
being engaged in a gallant attempt to save the lives of a Jewish family
by sheltering them in his own private residence. A formal apology was
afterwards made by the Governor-General of the town, and the incident
was officially declared “closed.” But English people who are inclined
to trust the forces of law and order rather than the Russian Liberals,
for the protection of our consulates and our interests, should consider
its significance. It was more shameless than the attack upon our
Consul at Warsaw on January 31st of the same year, though it did not
attract so much attention.
Throughout the winter, the sufferers who had been ruined by the
Loyalist demonstration kept putting in claims for redress, which the
Russian Government politely answered by assuring them that they were
at perfect liberty to prosecute those who had done the damage in the
usual law-courts. The day I arrived in Kieff, a very large number of
Jews--said to be three hundred--were suddenly arrested at a religious
service, no reason being given. Two days later they were suddenly
released, no one knew why. These are but instances of the kind of
justice which the revolutionists think they could improve upon without
upsetting the foundations of society.
Also on the same day on which I arrived, a band of thirty-five
revolutionists who had escaped from Moscow and had crept down the
railway as far as this, with a view perhaps to escaping by way of
Odessa or Poland, were arrested at the station. They disappeared, and
it was universally assumed that they were shot at once, if only because
the prisons were so horribly full that no one else could possibly be
stowed into them. After the first railway strike in October, a deadly
form of typhus, or gaol fever, broke out in the prisons. The relatives
of the imprisoned railway men offered to nurse their own friends,
and be responsible for them, if only they might be released from the
plague-stricken gaols. But the request was refused, and the men left
to rot. Next came the serious military rising of December, the chief
demand of the soldiers being for more decent treatment from their
officers. The mutiny was rapidly suppressed, and the published figures
of the men who disappeared in consequence were given at ninety, but I
discovered that among the officers themselves the acknowledged numbers
were three hundred and eighty.
But beside its distinction for religion, intellect, and revolution,
Kieff is also famous as the capital and market for the land of “Black
Earth” that great deposit of fertile soil which supplies wheat for
England and most of Europe, and is the chief source of such little
wealth as Russia possesses. In 1904, Russia’s total exports were valued
at £96,000,000. To this amount the foodstuffs contributed £61,400,000,
and the value of exported grain alone was £49,530,000, of which England
took £6,370,000. Next to grain in value came naphtha, which amounted
only to £5,823,200, and, only a little below that, eggs. Rather more
than half the total of Russia’s exports, therefore, consists of grain,
and this Black Earth is the granary of the country.
From Kieff I made a long journey by sledge to many villages about
thirty or forty miles away.
For a time the frost had broken up, though the Russian New Year had
only just begun. Consequently the tracks were hardly passable for the
rough wooden sledges that peasants use, and at one place where the
snow was falling in great sheets, driven by the wind, so that the wide
steppe showed no marks on its whiteness, and no division was to be seen
between sky and land, our progress was very difficult for many hours.
But we reached a village at last, and there, as in all the others I
visited, I was surprised to find, not higher prosperity, but worse
poverty than in the Great Russian villages I had seen. In one cottage,
it is true, three dogs, two cows, a bristly pig, and a cat were all
nestling against the stove in the entrance-room or antechamber. The
dwelling-room also had one real iron bedstead, a chest of clothes, and
a whole row of glittering icons. I hoped it was typical of the village,
but I was wrong. It must have belonged to the village moneylender.
[Illustration: A PEASANT’S HOME.]
[Illustration: THE LAVRA AT KIEFF.]
The other houses were rather singularly wretched. The very next was
inhabited by a family who cultivated their own plot of land close
around the cottage. The man had gone, like all the other men of the
place, to wait his turn in the string of pleasure-seekers outside the
Government vodka-shop and purchase the New Year’s joy; but the wife
and three children were at home, all seated on the broad shelf which
made the second-best bed. The other bed was a warm space constructed
on the top of the great brick stove itself. There was no covering of
any kind on either bed, and, of course, no mattress; nor was there any
furniture in the room, not even a table, chair, or chest. The family
had their meals on the bed, and the only decoration was a row of brown
earthenware plates which the woman had stuck against a wall, just as
though she had been dwelling in the Kensington of twenty years ago.
“They look so red,” she said, “red” being the common Russian word for
bright or pretty or even splendid, as I noticed in the case of the
Krasnaya Square in Moscow. As in all the villages of this district, the
oven was heated only by straw, for coal is unheard of, and wood too
expensive to buy. Only a few hours earlier I had driven through far the
biggest pine forest I had then seen in Russia--great woods of spruce
and Scotch fir. But all those forests belonged to the Tsar, and no
peasant dared to touch a twig of them. To be found burning wood might
cost a man his cottage and land. So the stove that keeps the family and
cottage alive is heated with straw.
There are many reasons for the permanent poverty in this rich
land--the taxes, the extortions of the moneylender, the ignorance of
agriculture, the oppression of the petty officials. But the ultimate
reason is that when serfdom was nominally abolished, and the land
nominally distributed, forty years ago, there were far more peasants
in proportion on the Black Earth than on the unfertile land of other
parts, so that the grants were very small--so small that the greater
fertility could not make up for the difference--and the price affixed
to each grant was not merely too large, it was so overwhelming that the
peasants were never able to wipe out the debt, and their payments in
fact became a fixed rent to Government, and a much higher rent than in
other districts.
So far, all around Kieff, the peasants had remained quiet. No
country houses had been burnt or proprietors killed, though the
usual superstition about the danger of venturing out into the
country prevailed. The people, as I have said, are a sanguine and
happy-tempered race, as Russians go. Regiments of soldiers had also
been distributed among their villages as a further inducement for
keeping the peace. In the little country town of Vasilikoff, among
its low hills and wintry orchards, I found the Kieff dragoons, for
instance, engaged in spreading contentment among the peasants by
showing themselves human to the girls. As I watched them strolling
about the filthy lanes of that remote and wintry place, prodding the
rough cattle, criticizing the ponies in the street-market, or carrying
away the steaming cauldrons of tea for rations, I remembered with a
strange sense of distance that the English King was this regiment’s
honorary colonel.
CHAPTER XII
THE JEWS OF ODESSA
When I reached Odessa, after travelling over the peculiarly desolate
steppe from Kieff, only about eleven weeks had passed since she
celebrated an amazing festival of liberty. Her straight streets had
laughed for joy, and the old Black Sea had reflected the smile. Youths
paraded with flags and trumpets, aged professors embraced in tears,
and women, as on a Russian Easter Day, felt hurt if they were not
kissed--all because the Tsar had issued a manifesto and freedom had
risen into life. The long struggle was surely near its end, and those
who had fallen for the cause had not died in vain.
Two days later they buried freedom, and whilst I was there the
Government was still busy stamping down the bloody earth to lay her
ghost. There was no longer any talk of manifesto or concession. Every
promise had been falsified, and every hope deceived. No meetings were
allowed, except to legal Hooligans. No papers could appear, except the
Government organ of violence. Even the paper of the Constitutional
Democrats had been suddenly suppressed. The friends of liberty choked
the prisons, and as I went down the streets I saw their white faces
peering between the bars. All was still, except when the stagnation of
tyranny was broken by the murder of some police-officer conspicuous for
brutality, or by a bomb such as had just fallen into the Café Liebmann
on the central square by the cathedral. No schools had been open since
October, and there seemed no prospect of the University ever opening
again.
Trepoff began it when he sent an order from St. Petersburg urging the
Governor-General Neidhart to allow a demonstration of the loyalist
Black Hundred on November 1st. Infuriated by religious conviction and
the lust for stolen goods, the Black Hundred exhibited an enthusiastic
loyalty, unchecked by the police, who directed their movements, or by
the troops, who were confined to barracks. For three days the city
lay at the mercy of law and order, and in the cemetery may be seen
the oblong of loose earth where 350 bodies were heaped into a common
grave. The Government’s victory was complete and so far-reaching that
memorials of it might still be seen on every side. Even in the middle
of the town, shops that had been the richest had the shutters up in
January, their windows were broken to pieces, their stores all gone.
And in the northern and north-west districts, where the Jews and
some work-people live, whole rows of houses stood desolate. The marks
of bullets were thick upon the walls. The empty sockets of the windows
were roughly boarded over. The roofs had been broken in or sometimes
burnt away, and even on the main streets people pointed out the
windows, three storeys high, from which babies, girls, and women had
been pitched sheer upon the stony pavement below.
[Illustration: THE JEWS’ GRAVE AT ODESSA.]
[Illustration: AFTER THE MASSACRE.]
It was in the miserable lanes of this north-west district that the
plunder and slaughtering began--a district so wretched that my
top-boots kept sticking in the deep slough of the streets, and the
worst Jewish slum off Commercial Road would have seemed in comparison a
County Council paradise. But passing beyond this quarter, I crossed a
deep watercourse, and came out upon the kind of land which serves for
country at the backdoor of Odessa. It is part of the wild and almost
uninhabited steppe which stretches for mile on mile round the basin of
the Dniester and far away into Bessarabia--an uninterrupted, water-worn
plain, like the Orange River veldt, but streaked at that time with
melting snow. On the edge of this steppe stands a semi-detached town or
large village, called Slobodka Romanovka, conspicuous for its madhouse
and its hospital. Providence itself must have ordained the site of
these buildings, for nowhere else upon earth’s surface could they have
been more wanted. And, indeed, it was the Chosen People of Providence
who wanted them most, for none of the rabid Christians who there hunted
them down were afterwards confined in the asylum for mania.
The village numbered about 26,000 souls, and there was hardly a house
which did not still show the marks of wrecking and murder. Clubs
were the weapons chiefly used by the champions of Christ and the
Tsar--such clubs as the Turks used in Constantinople when they brained
the Armenians in the name of the Prophet and the Sultan. But long
butcher knives were found even more convenient for killing children,
and when there was the least show of resistance, nothing could be more
serviceable than a revolver at five yards’ range. In that three days’
massacre nearly all who suffered were Jews, and out of a population of
about 600,000 in Odessa, the Jews are estimated at a little under or a
little over 300,000, so that the game for the Christian sportsmen lay
thick upon the ground.
The Jews of Odessa are said by their Christian neighbours--even by such
as restrained themselves from putting them to death--to represent a
particularly unpleasant type. They are accused of peculiar selfishness,
greediness, and indifference to suffering, even to their own. I
cannot say for certain whether that is so. I only know that they have
a particularly unpleasant time, and, whether indifferent to their
own sufferings or not, they are an amazing people. Their Christian
neighbours, as in Kieff and all centres of Jewish persecution, chalk
a conspicuous cross on their shutters in dangerous times, or stick a
sixpenny saint’s portrait over the door. Most people also, as I noticed
in Moscow, wear big crosses hidden round their necks, so that, when
the supporters of the Government are out cutting throats, they may
have some chance of salvation. No Jew would do any such thing--not for
dear life itself would he do it. Christians say he could not conceal
himself, even if he wished--his look, his dwelling, his passport, the
police, all would betray him. And no doubt that is true, though, if I
were a Jew, I would cover my house with crosses from ground to roof
in the hope of saving any one I cared for from being flung out of my
top window. But, even if such hope were vain, that is no reason why a
Jew should cover his outside shutters and the lintel of his door with
Hebrew inscriptions or Hebrew information about his Kosher goods and
the Shomer who is in attendance. Yet on ruin after ruin I saw these
inscriptions written; and, what is more remarkable, I saw the surviving
owners repainting these inscriptions as they patched up the wreckage of
their homes.
They are not, perhaps, exactly the race I should call chosen, but
certainly they are a peculiar people. I saw, for instance, one aged
type of wretched Israel who had been counted a prosperous man, but
in the massacre had lost wife, family, ducats, and all. When his seed
was buried and the days of the mourning passed, he borrowed a few
cigarettes, and sat down on the pavement outside the wilderness of his
habitation. Next day he had more cigarettes to sell. Next week he had
a stall, and when I saw him he was hoping to open a tobacconist shop
where before he sold secondhand clothes and saw his family murdered. It
seems impossible that all the Christians in Russia, backed as they are
by the open support of the army, police, and Church, can ever succeed
in exterminating such a race.
But for the time their misery was extreme. They had crowded for refuge
into courts which ran far back from the ordinary streets--something
like the old “rents” in Holborn. There I found them living in stinking
and steaming rooms or cellars, and often I had to grow accustomed to
the darkness before I could discern exactly how many families were
accommodated in the corners. The assistant of one of the University
professors was my guide, for a certain amount of relief work was being
carried on by such Liberals as happened to be still out of gaol. I was
told the town had already spent £15,000 in relief, and the Zemstvo
had voted as much again to keep the distressed alive till the end of
April. I dimly heard, also, of a fund contributed by Jews in England,
but I did not discover their methods. As to the town fund, I could not
be certain how much of it reached the Jews, but some did, for with an
agent I visited one of the ten “sanitary districts” into which the town
had been divided, and saw how he dealt with the cases.
Money had been given at first, but, as usual, imposture came, and the
professors had found themselves no match for a race whose whole weekday
existence is devoted to gathering where they have not strown. Later on,
the town bound itself only to feed the destitute by a system of free
tickets, or at a very small charge. It was the ordinary soup-kitchen
method--not scientific, not inhumanly discriminating; but Russia has
the happiness of being young in philanthropy, as in politics, and has
not yet developed the caution of our charity societies, which in their
strained quality are so little like mercy. As was to be expected,
crowds of the unemployed came wandering in from other towns, even as
far away as Kharkoff and Kieff; and under the passport system most
of them were routed out and sent back again. What was worse, some
15,000 men and women had lately been turned upon the streets because
the rich people of Odessa, who live in the pleasant quarter by the
cliffs overlooking the sea, began to run for their lives that day in
June when the mutinous warship _Potemkin_ made them all jump by
throwing two shells into the town near the cathedral; and they had
been running ever since. Behind them they left all that host of valets,
cooks, nurses, housemaids, grooms, coachmen, gardeners, boot-boys,
barbers, and washerwomen who depend on the rich for existence, just as
the rich depend on them. The shopkeepers who sell the things that only
rich people can buy suffered equally, and many of their assistants were
dismissed. It is bad for all when, according to the old parable, the
members refuse to feed the belly, and it is worse when the belly runs
away from the members. But if any one supposes on that account that the
expenditure of the rich confers an inestimable benefit upon the working
classes, he is involved in a very comfortable old fallacy.
Beside all this, there was great distress among the dockers, in spite
of the considerable share of Jewish wealth which they had obtained in
their outburst of religious and patriotic zeal. Most of it went in an
immense drinking debauch to celebrate the victory over the enemies of
Christ, and work had ceased because the great fire during the mutiny
in June destroyed a great part of the docks, and entirely burnt away
the wooden viaduct upon which the dock railway runs along the whole
face of the port. One day when I was there, trial trains began to run
for the first time, amid such popular excitement that I hoped another
mutiny had broken out. But no warships were any longer stationed in
the port, except one little destroyer. The dockers were only excited
at the prospect of regular work. They live by themselves at the foot of
the cliffs, below the fashionable boulevard, and they are said to be
in every way a race apart. Certainly they adopt a distinctive costume,
more astonishing in its incongruity than a West Coast chiefs, and
suggesting a burlesque air of intentional raggedness, like an amateur
who wants to look Bohemian. The dockers, however, have no need for
deliberation in picturesque poverty, for the average wages of unskilled
labour through the city is 1_s._ 8_d._ for a day of ten hours, or
2_d._ an hour. And it is not as though 2_d._ in Russia went as far as
the “honest tanner” for which our own dockers struggled so hard in
the early nineties. Ordinary living is very expensive in Odessa, more
expensive even than in most Russian cities, and in an earlier chapter
I noticed how strangely high the cost of living is in St. Petersburg
and Moscow, chiefly owing to the heavy rent charges, in spite of the
vast extent of unfilled and unoccupied land in the Empire. Except for
the hire of street sledges and little open cabs, two shillings in
Russia do not go much further than one in London, nor twopence to an
Odessa docker much further than a penny in Poplar. No one can dress
very sumptuously when he has to feed himself and family on a penny an
hour, and we cannot wonder that the unskilled join the party of law and
order, in the hope that an occasional massacre will bring a change of
clothes.
In politics, Odessa included all the Russian parties, from the rival
pioneers of Social Revolution and Social Democracy (most of whom were
in gaol) down to the “Russian Order,” or party of violence, which is
the Government’s ready instrument for the destruction of Jews, Poles,
Liberals, and other heretics. The Russian Order alone was still allowed
to hold meetings, every other party organization being forbidden by
the police. But, nevertheless, it was in Odessa that I first became
intimate with the Constitutional Democratic party, which has since
grown to such importance as a possible instrument for reform. They were
especially strong in the University, which justly prides itself on its
political fearlessness. Their newspapers and all meetings had been
suppressed; but most of the Professors and other leaders were still at
large, though daily awaiting arrest, with enviable unconcern.
They were energetically preparing the first grade of elections for
the Duma, and they expected to secure a majority upon the body, who
in turn would select the single representative appointed for the
great city in the Duma. Like other Progressive parties, they demanded
a Constituent Assembly under the four-headed suffrage (universal,
direct, secret, and equal). Their programme included Home Rule for
the various nationalities of the Empire, labour legislation, and a
sweeping agrarian reform on the basis of compensation for private land,
but not for the Crown lands held by the Imperial family. In fact,
their immediate objects, as the Professors admitted, were hardly to be
distinguished from the “minimum programme” of the Social Democrats.
But when we began to talk about “immediate objects” and “minimum
programmes,” I remembered that seven weeks had gone by since such
conversations seemed natural--seven weeks of bloodshed and suppression
and bitter change. They themselves took the mournful difference very
calmly. The fight was still in front of them, every hope had been
crushed, every effort for freedom would have to begin again from the
very start. But nothing discouraged them; the mere struggle was worth
the pains; and to this patient people even the bitterest and most cruel
experience never ceases to work hope.
But, after all, the Jewish question is the centre of political interest
in Odessa, and, in spite of all suppression, the Jewish “Bund” is
likely to remain the most powerful progressive organization as long
as the Jews continue subject to their hereditary wrongs. Under laws
which were called temporary, but have continued unrepealed for fifty
years, no Jew may buy land or rent it. He may not live out in the
country, and only in certain quarters of the towns. He may not be a
schoolmaster or professor. He may not teach in private Christian
families. He may not be educated at a high school (gymnasium) or at
a University, except at a very low percentage of the whole number
of students. Usually it is not higher than three to five per cent.,
though in Odessa the Professors, being exceptionally Liberal, had on
their own authority extended the number to ten per cent., and were on
the point of declaring the University open on level terms to Jew and
Christian alike, when the University was suddenly shut on level terms
to all. A Jew may not sit on the Zemstvo or Town Council; he may not
be an officer in the army or navy; he may hold no State appointment;
and he must not move from place to place without special permission
and a special form of passport, like the prostitutes. Jews are not by
nature a revolutionary people. The rigid Conservatism of their customs
and ritual, as well as their intense pre-occupation in material gain,
deters them from violence and change. Their peculiar dangers lie in
exactly the opposite direction--in disregard of the large issues before
mankind, and in a narrow devotion to antiquated ideals. But we cannot
wonder that in Odessa, as in Russia generally, they are revolutionists
almost to a man, and that to the ordinary Russian official or soldier a
Jew of the “Bund” is identical with the “Anarchist”--a creature to be
shot as quickly as convenient. When I was in Odessa I first heard how
the new Aliens Act was being put into operation in England, and as I
read of Jewish refugees cast back from the ancient protection of our
country to the misery and bloodshed from which they believed they had
escaped, I thought of these things.
CHAPTER XIII
LIBERTY IN PRISON
In St. Petersburg the successors of the original Strike Committee had
declared the general strike at an end, on January 1st. The thing had
not been a success. Either because the leaders were in prison, or that
the work-people were harassed by the frequent repetition of strikes
when funds were low, only about 20,000 remained away from work, and
most of these were locked-out by the employers. Outwardly, the city
continued quiet, in spite of the deep indignation excited by the arrest
of all the popular leaders and editors, and afterwards by the murder of
a musical student named Davidoff, who was shot by Okounoff, an officer
of the Guards, for keeping one foot on a chair while the National
Anthem was being played in a restaurant on the Russian New Year’s Eve
(January 13th).
Then came the first anniversary of Vladimir’s Day or Bloody Sunday
(January 22nd). The city was filled with troops. All the previous
night cavalry patrols went up and down the streets, and on going into
the large courtyards, round which most of the dwelling-houses are
arranged, I found many of them full of soldiers, sitting round fires
with piled arms. Guns were concealed at convenient points, and all
preparations laid for repeating the massacre of the previous year. But
the Strike Committee had issued an appeal calling upon the workmen to
observe the day only by quitting the factories, staying at home, and
drawing down the blinds;[3] and though, in answer to this, the masters
placarded a notice threatening with dismissal any one who remained
away from work, the Strike Committee still had power enough to ordain
a passive resistance.
All the morning of the day--it was a Monday--I was down the
Schlüsselburg Road, where a disturbance was most likely to occur; but,
on the surface, everything was still. The steam-trams carried soldiers
with fixed bayonets as a guard, but otherwise the troops were kept
rather carefully out of sight. Wherever the police saw blinds down, or
other signs of mourning, even in the main streets of the city, they
entered with their revolvers, and sometimes a little knot of spectators
gathered, but there was no appearance of organized resistance or
demonstration at all. The sun shone, but it was intensely cold. Upon
the Neva, a few people were crossing with loaded sledges, a few on
foot were following the fir branches that marked the paths. Women were
washing clothes by letting them down through square holes they had cut
in the ice, and then beating them with wooden slats. Men were sinking
bag-nets through the ice for fish. Otherwise there was hardly a sign
of life. Nearly all the mills were closed, and those that pretended
to continue work were held by a strong military guard, with sentries
before the gates. No throngs of excited work-people now moved along the
footways or stood at street corners. In one or two of the churches, a
memorial service was being held for the dead, but for the most part
the priests refused to open their churches for the purpose, and the
work-people observed a nobler celebration by remaining at home in their
darkened rooms.
While visiting a great naval ironworks, closed, like most Government
things, for want of cash, I heard from one of the chief engineers an
enlightening instance of the Russian Government’s methods in conducting
foreign warfare. For the Japanese War, the works had turned out
many large guns, fitted with telescopic sights. When the engineers
offered to teach the officers the use of these sights, their offer
was scornfully refused, and the Government allowed the guns to be
dispatched to the war without a man who understood them. So complete
was the ignorance, that the cleaners covered the sights, glasses and
all, with vaseline, and, from first to last, no advantage was taken of
the invention. Yet these are the people who talked of the Japanese as
“yellow monkeys,” sure to scuttle into the sea at the first sound of a
Russian gun. And, what is worse, these are the people who have dictated
England’s foreign policy for over half a century. Even the Social
Democrats, who make no pretence to military knowledge or ambition,
could hardly defend their country’s interests worse.
During the late afternoon, and far into the night, I was driving
through the workmen’s quarters upon the Petersburg Island and other
districts north of the main river. All the streets were hushed and
empty. Where, as a rule, the pavements are crowded with men and women
going home or shopping for next day, a stillness like death reigned
now. Even when the hands from some working factory came out between
the lines of pickets watching the gates, they hurried fast home,
and in a few minutes all was silent again. Perhaps the Tsar and his
minister congratulated each other that order was restored, and the
corpse of freedom lay quiet at last. They did not consider that the
very silence was an evidence of the revolution’s continued power--a
proof that the committee which had defied them could still count on the
working-people’s loyalty to its desire.
In the first and, I believe, the only number of one of the many satiric
papers which had lately been suppressed in St. Petersburg, a cartoon
represented the Government as a hideous vampire gloating over the body
of a young girl in Russian costume. “I think she’s quiet at last,”
says the monster with satisfaction, but still a little dubiously. That
picture exactly expressed the situation at the time of my return to St.
Petersburg. Was the sucked and tortured body of freedom really quiet at
last? The vampire was anxious and dubious. But it certainly looked as
though she were dead; at all events, she lay very still.
[Illustration:
_Art Reproduction Co._
“I THINK SHE’S QUIET AT LAST!”
From the _Vampire_.]
All my former friends were in prison now. One after another I called
upon those who had welcomed me so joyfully before, when the world was
bright with hope; and one house-porter after another told me they
had gone away for a few days, and it would be useless to leave any
message. We soon learn the meaning of that formula in Russia. It means
that the police have come, probably in the middle of the night, have
routed up the man or woman, seized all papers, money, and anything else
useful, and driven their victim away in the darkness to some “House of
Inquiry” on suspicion of holding the same kind of political views as
the majority of English people. In the House of Inquiry the suspect
is generally kept from four to six months, while his spirit is being
broken down and evidence raked together against him. He may then be
brought up for trial before a judge and sentenced to two years’, five
years’, or ten years’ imprisonment or exile, according to the state of
the judge’s political opinions or digestion. He may also be condemned
by “administrative order,” without coming before a tribunal at all.
I believe no “political” has been tried in open court before a jury
since Vera Sassoulitch was acquitted for the attempted assassination
of the elder Trepoff in 1878. No Russian jury can ever be trusted to
condemn. But the Russian suspect has two advantages still--he may be
thrown out of prison as unexpectedly as he was thrown in, and with
as little reason given. He may also call upon any one he pleases,
not necessarily a barrister, to take up his defence, if he is brought
before a tribunal. He may thus obtain the satisfaction of having his
case defended on the broad lines of human reason and obvious justice,
instead of listening to some professional pleader, stultified by legal
training, while he struggles to elude condemnation on a verbal error or
by some uninspiring precedent in commercial fraud. It is very seldom,
however, that the most convincing defence makes the least difference to
the sentence, for that has been decided beforehand.
A day or two after my return to St. Petersburg, I was shown a letter
from a friend who had been locked up in a House of Inquiry for speaking
at Liberal meetings and for feeding the children of work-people
during the second general strike. He had sometimes written, also, for
a Progressive newspaper, and it must be remembered that the Tsar’s
Manifesto of October 30th had granted freedom of the press as well as
freedom of public meeting. Yet the suspicion of these three crimes
was sufficient to show that he must be put out of the way like a mad
dog. The letter was written on three sides, and each side marked by
a broad yellow cross drawn diagonally from corner to corner as a
proof that the prison authorities had read it. Yellow seems to be the
favourite official colour in Russia, as I noticed before in the case
of the “yellow ticket” or passport which binds the prostitutes almost
hopelessly to their way of life; and the yellow cross, signifying the
gaoler’s approval of the contents, shows that the prisoner did not in
any way exaggerate his condition. The letter was written simply for
the information of another friend who had hitherto escaped the common
martyrdom which rewards all lovers of freedom in Russia. I translate a
part of it:--
“My cell is five paces long by two wide. It has a window, the
bottom of which is just above the level of my eyes, so that I
can’t look out. There is a bed, a chair, and a table, all of
iron and fastened with clamps to the wall. In the daytime the
cell is fairly light, and the electricity is turned on from
eight to nine in the evening.
“At six I get up. At half-past six a hand is thrust through ‘the
eye’ (spy-hole) in the door with some black bread. At seven a
different hand pours boiling water into my jug in the same way.
I have to buy my own tea. At ten I am led through the corridor
into a little court, where I am allowed to walk round and round
for twenty-five minutes with other ‘politicals.’ But if we
speak or look at each other or say ‘good-morning,’ the walk is
stopped--and it is my only chance of getting a breath of air.
At eleven a bell rings, and the ‘eye’ is opened for letters or
any orders for purchases that I want to send. But I am allowed
to order things only four times a week, and, of course, only as
long as my money lasts. At the same time a hand pours in boiling
water again for tea. From half-past eleven till twelve is
dinner-time, and I get a biggish basin of watery barley soup or
pea soup, or else a thin fluid with scraps of meat and cabbage
floating in it.
“There is rather a good prison library, especially strong in
political economy. But it is very hard to get the books I want,
and the pages are defaced by the gaolers, who always think the
dots and hyphens are signals from the prisoners to each other.
In the afternoon, especially when it gets dark, I lie on my bed,
or walk up and down the cell, till at eight o’clock, as I said,
the electric light is turned on for an hour. About six I get the
boiling water and soup again. Sometimes letters reach me, but
they are always kept till they are old. Sometimes I am allowed
a visit of three minutes’ conversation through the ‘eye’ in the
door. Of course, the gaoler is always within hearing.”
The treatment is not worse, it is perhaps rather better than the
peculiarly brutalizing treatment of prisoners in England. There is
something distinctly paternal in the provision of a library especially
strong in political economy. But it must be remembered that this friend
of mine had never been accused, had never been tried, and was only
suspected of a crime which all the Liberals of England, from the Prime
Minister downwards, commit every waking hour of their lives amid the
applause of our nation; unless, indeed, it be urged against him that
he fed the children of strikers--an offence from which our official
Liberals are often exempt.
The particular prison in which this man was confined, was, as I said, a
House of Inquiry, but the number of arrests had been so enormous since
the Moscow rising that the suspects were now being thrust into the
ordinary prisons straight away, or into any hole where they could be
kept tied up. Just across the breadth of river from the Winter Palace
of the Tsars, and the dilettante picture-gallery of the Hermitage,
glitters the long-drawn brazen spire which marks the old fortress of
St. Peter and St. Paul, the citadel and grave of Peter the Great.
Encased in monotonous marble slabs, and surrounded by hideous emblems
of death and glory, there lie the bodies of all those melancholy
tyrants from Peter downwards. Perhaps there are some people still left
among the royal family who sincerely reckon those dull tombs among
Russia’s treasures; but close beside the church along the Neva, so low
that some of the cells are beneath the river level, run the dungeons
which form the true Martyrs’ Memorial of the country--the places that
will some day be honoured like the graves of the saints, for they are
consecrated by the blood and suffering of hundreds of men and women
who fought for freedom, though they seemed to fight in vain. This was
the prison where again the foremost champions of freedom were now
cooped up. Khroustoloff was there, the man of genius who organized the
first general strike and was the chairman of the Workmen’s Council
when I used to attend their sittings two months before. Not long after
my return, the rumour went that he had been shot in the prison yard.
Nothing was known for certain, but the thing was only too likely, for
a tyranny does not spare its finest enemies, and Khroustoloff will be
known to all Russian history as the man who forced the Government to
defend itself by that lying Manifesto with which it betrayed the people
as with a kiss.
Just outside the fortress the Tsar is building a palace for his former
mistress--a Polish dancing girl, said to have been attractive without
beauty--and less than a mile further up the river on the same bank,
stands the large modern prison called the Cross (Kresty), whether from
its shape or as an emblem of salvation, is uncertain. It is a dreary,
red-brick building of the ordinary type, like Wormwood Scrubbs, and the
officials hang their windows with caged birds as ornaments in keeping
with the architecture. That prison also was crammed with “politicals.”
In fact, it was the same story in all the prisons of Russia--the same
thing as I had seen in Moscow, Kieff, and Odessa. Somehow room had to
be found in the gaols for 20,000 Liberals--that was the lowest estimate
I heard at the time, and a few weeks afterwards the moderate estimate
rose to 70,000, and a high estimate of 100,000 was commonly accepted.
We cannot wonder that a bankrupt Government felt only too delighted
when it could kill off its prisoners by batches of thirty-five together
as in Moscow, or of forty-five together as happened at Fellin in
Esthonia just after Vladimir’s Day, when that number of journalists and
men of letters were collected there and shot in bloody comradeship.
The dead are so cheap in their subterranean cells.
English people are constantly marvelling, with some superiority in
their tone, why it is that the Russian revolution has brought to
light no man or commanding genius--“no Cromwell,” that is their usual
phrase--to direct its energies to victory. Let them search the dungeons
and the graves. Perhaps they may find a Cromwell there.
Till quite lately the very noblest of the “politicals” would naturally
have been sent to the Schlüsselburg--the old fortress-prison standing
on an island where the Ladoga Lake pours out the great stream of
the Neva some forty miles above the city. But three days before the
anniversary of Bloody Sunday, a ukase was issued converting that
ancient dungeon into a mint, and removing the few prisoners who still
remained. I believe there were only five of them--old men and, perhaps,
women who had tried to do something for freedom once, and in their
living graves had already become myths of the dreadful past. About
their identification and their removal to other dungeons there was much
mystery, and the rumour ran that two of them had strangely disappeared,
as well as others whose fading names and records were recalled by
memories growing obscure.
To such mysteries another mystery now succeeded; for every one,
except the few who clung to the orthodox photographic faith about the
inexhaustible ingots of the Russian treasury, was marvelling why the
terrible fortress had been converted into a mint, of all things, and
whence the bullion was to come for coinage there. I am inclined to
think that the Government was misled, like most people, by treacherous
parallels from history, and, knowing the Schlüsselburg’s evil name, had
feared a second Fall of the Bastille. It was a needless anxiety. The
Schlüsselburg is too far away for popular frenzy; but the Peter-Paul
fortress is close at hand and its abominations grow.
In any case, the conversion of a blood-stained fortress into an empty
coin chest made no difference to the situation. The reaction went
trampling along its course, and under it the country lay paralyzed.
During the four weeks after the collapse of the Moscow rising (January
7th to February 7th), 78 newspapers were suspended, 58 editors
imprisoned, 2,000 post and telegraph assistants dismissed, over 20
workmen’s restaurants closed in St. Petersburg to prevent relief to the
unemployed, a state of siege was declared in 62 towns, a minor state of
siege in 34 towns, 17 temporary prisons were opened, 1,716 “politicals”
were imprisoned in St. Petersburg alone, and 1,400 “politicals” were
summarily executed under martial law, not including the large and
uncertain numbers that were put to death in Moscow after law and order
had been re-established.[4]
Such was the terrified blood-thirstiness of that unhappy little body of
men called the Committee of Ministers, who went down to Tsarskoe Selo
by a guarded train along a guarded line nearly every day to discuss
how best they could stifle down the hopes of liberty, and retain for
themselves and their narrow circle of friends or patrons the cash, the
medals, the jobbery, the social distinction, the female affection, and
all the many other delights of power. They did not number more than
eight or ten poor mortals, not removed by many years from the abyss
of death, and, from all I hear, only two or three of them had been
born more brutal or scoundrelly of nature than ordinary rulers are.
One would have liked to listen to their conversation in those trains,
as, with unctuous regret for the stern necessity laid upon them, they
decided how many more should die. Some, like distracted Witte, whom
we have heard blubbering over the wickedness of the dear children he
was compelled to butcher; or like Count Dmitri Tolstoy, the Minister
of Education, formerly President of the Academy of Artists; or like
Shipoff, Minister of Finance to the penniless State, who only a year
before had voted for universal suffrage; or like Nemeschaeff, Minister
of Communications, who had been a chef to a railway, almost as good
as a workman, and also had voted for universal suffrage; or like
Birileff, Minister of Marine, who among Russian officers passed for a
type of incredible integrity because he had abstained from swindling
his country when he had the power; or like Rediger, the incapable
but comparatively honest Minister of War--all these had once enjoyed
a pleasing reputation for Liberalism, as had Prince Obolensky, the
new Procurator of the Holy Synod, and successor to Pobiedonostseff
as keeper of Russia’s orthodoxy. At one time probably nearly all of
them had received the compliment of being thought a little dangerous
by their relations, and now, under the ancient curse of tyrants, they
were consumed by the knowledge of the virtue they had left behind.
But they could not turn back--they had entered upon a road with iron
walls. For guide to the entrance of that road they had deliberately
chosen Durnovo, the new Privy Councillor, lately made permanent in his
Ministry of Interior. And beside Durnovo stood his uneducated relation
Akinoff, new-appointed Minister of Justice.
Thus was the Committee of Ministers helplessly committed to preserve
in wealth and power that handful of useless human beings who may be
called the Tsardom or the Government or the ruling classes--the same
kind of men who for generations past have brought all that long tale
of poverty, ignorance, and bloodshed upon the Russian people. Nothing
could save them from the fatality of their own choice. They were forced
to go on with it now, driven day by day a few steps further along
the inevitable road. So day by day they gave their orders to General
Diedulin, the new Chief of Police and Durnovo’s assistant at the
Interior, and day by day the noblest and most thoughtful men and women
of Russia were shot, imprisoned, or dragged away to the oblivion of
Siberia.
I know that in England one of the pleasant myths circulated by the
Tsar’s hirelings, or sanctimonious patrons, is that Siberian exile has
been abolished. It is as untrue as the similar myth about flogging
the peasants for taxes. In St. Petersburg on January 26th, I met a
lady whose brother, a conspicuous barrister in a large city of Central
Russia, had just been exiled to Siberia for five years because he took
the chair at a public meeting. Like so many other confiding people, he
was fool enough to trust to a Tsar’s Manifesto, and now as a reward for
his simple faith, cut off from his friends, his family, and his career,
he is moving by stages from prison to prison towards the dreary spot
where the best years of life must be spent, even if he ever returns. It
would, indeed, be unthrifty of the Government, when they have crammed
the Russian prisons to bursting point, not to take advantage of the
Siberian system so providentially organized by their predecessors in
office.
On the whole horizon of St. Petersburg life only one sign of hope
appeared. In the lecture theatre of the Mokhovaya, leading out of
the Nevsky, where the educated revolutionists of the middle classes
are accustomed to hold their meetings, a quiet body of men used to
assemble every afternoon, with a few quiet men and women to listen.
They were the Constitutional Democrats, whose meetings Witte had been
compelled, not to permit, but to ignore, because in case of refusal
they threatened to remove into Finland, and it was not so easy to
spy upon them there. Delegates had arrived from all parts of the
Empire--Mohammedan Tartars from Kazan, Armenians from the Caucasus,
heathen Mongols from the uttermost parts of the East, speaking no human
tongue, nor to be understood by any, had not old Professor Clementz
been discovered still alive among his specimens of anthropology.
Banished in his prime to the extremity of Mongolia in the hope that he
might die of savagery and cold, he had dwelt so many years among the
heathen that in face and language he could hardly be distinguished from
them, and now they found in him their friend, the one man in the city
to whom their monosyllabic squeaks and sounds conveyed a human meaning.
So the delegates met, and listened and debated, discussing the
tactics to be employed if ever time should overtake the promised Duma,
which continually receded. What was the right course for men who
hoped nothing from violence and yet would fight for freedom; men who
distrusted haste, believed in law, and yet aimed at revolution? Being
concerned with subjects so far-reaching, their debates were naturally
more abstract than is usual among hardened old Parliamentarians like
ourselves, to whom “the middle of next week” expresses an unimaginable
and negligible distance of time. But they boasted themselves practical
as Russian parties go, and at all events they were not hampered, as our
Liberals usually are, by class tradition and social influence. I mean,
for instance, they would never endure anything so ludicrous as a House
of Lords in their constitution, and if they should ever come to real
power, they would enjoy the very unusual advantage of a clear field.
But their immediate object was to form a strong block of opposition
to the representatives of the six reactionary parties with which the
Government designed to flood the Duma when the elections came--such
parties as the Octobrists, or nominal supporters of the Manifesto; the
party of “Legal Order,” or Law and Order, as we say; and the party of
Industry and Commerce.
Beside the platform at their meetings stood a large death-bed portrait
of Sergius Troubetskoy, the Rector of Moscow University, who had
suddenly died in the previous September while pleading for freedom of
speech, as I mentioned in the Introduction. Across the portrait was
written the inscription, “The Champion of Freedom,” and the spirit of
the great Zemstvoist leader might well be said to direct the methods
and purposes of the assembly. Among the living leaders present were
Petrunkevitch, who had succeeded to Troubetskoy’s position upon the
Moscow Zemstvo; Struve, long the exiled editor of the Russian paper,
_Emancipation_ (_Osvobojdenie_) in Paris; and Miliukoff, so
well known in France through David Soskice’s translation of his book
on Russian culture, and in England and America through his own Chicago
lectures upon _Russia and its Crisis_. He almost alone among
all the Russians I met in St. Petersburg at that time still retained
the power of hope and enthusiasm undiminished, in spite of all the
disasters of the past seven weeks.
“The reaction,” he said to me, “cannot last very long. The
Moscow rising was a great mistake, and at the end of it I too
almost despaired. I thought all the educated people and the
well-to-do would be permanently set against change. But the
Government’s violence has kept them on our side. The “classes”
are as much sickened by the slaughter as other people. They have
learnt that it is the Government, and not the revolutionists,
who are the party of destruction and disorder. Reaction? Why, it
is already over. The spirit of the thing is dead.”
Coming at such a time, such words were startling in their confidence.
But then Professor Miliukoff is one of those few happy people who have
carried with them the glories of youth into middle age, and there is
no glory of youth more enviable than the wisdom which, as the Preacher
said, is the mother of holy hope.
CHAPTER XIV
THE PRIEST AND THE PEOPLE
The shallows of the Gulf of Finland were frozen hard, and from a
distance the sea looked like a huge flat plain covered with snow, while
wind and grey storms of drift raged over it, blotting out the horizon.
But when, almost imperceptibly, the sledge quitted the flat land for
the flat sea, the green ice sometimes lay bare upon the surface, or
threw up a sharp green edge, and sometimes the hollow rumble of the
runners told of the deeper water beneath. At one place a few planks had
been thrown across a gaping crack, where the current or the pressure
of ice had split the great field, and a dark line of water stretched
away on either hand till it was lost to sight in the storm. The track
was marked by the usual Christmas trees stuck in the ice, and by tall
signal posts as well. Yet, as the wind and driving snow increased, it
was impossible to see from one mark to the next, and the horse felt
his way along, like a man moving from lamp-post to lamp-post in a
London fog. Sometimes another sledge suddenly appeared out of limbo
two or three yards in front. At three points small wooden huts had
been erected as shelters for the lost or frozen. Huge lanterns on poles
glimmered through the dark flakes. Driven by the rushing wind, wheels
with wooden sails tugged at ropes, and out of the obscurity a deep bell
sounded, ominous as the bells rung by the waves around our cliffs. For
the dangerous tempest was blowing, which, I believe, the natives call
the “Vouga.”
On a sudden a shadowy rampart was seen, a bank of storm-twisted trees,
a dimly discerned church, and so we came to the island of Kronstadt,
famed for its fortress, its mutiny, and its living saint.
It was to visit the frozen sea and the miracle-working saint that I
had come, and of the few passers-by who struggled against the snow I
asked for Father John. At first I feared that the saint’s European
fame had hardly yet reached Kronstadt, where he lives, and from which
he takes his title. But after a time we were directed to a largish
modern house, which he has fitted up as a refuge, partly, I think,
for the poor, partly for the sick, or other unhappy people, who stand
in need of miracles. The rooms inside are large and very clean, all
filled with narrow iron bedsteads, covered with browny-grey blankets,
as in our barracks or superior doss-houses. A notice on the door gave
the price of a bed for the night at thirty kopecks--say sevenpence
halfpenny. That is about threepence halfpenny higher than the average
London doss, but it seems fair that those who seek a miracle should pay
something extra for it, and the tariff in our common lodging-houses is
not inclusive.
I had not time to make further observations when I was seized by an
eager crowd of women who thronged the rooms and passages--peasant women
from the mainland and work-people from the dockyards, all muffled
up in shawls and hoods and blankets. Excited benevolence shone in
their faces, as with cries and exhortations they clutched my clothing
and hurried me through one large dormitory, which appeared to be a
lying-in ward, into another where the crowd was thicker still. Being
thrust eagerly among the worshippers--for there is joy in heaven over
one sinner that repenteth--I perceived a small altar beneath a large
and brilliant icon hanging on the wall. The altar was made of a deal
table with a white cloth over it, and on the cloth stood a large
enamelled-iron soup-tureen. It was white with a blue edge, and filled
with a yellowish liquid, which I supposed to be holy. In front of the
altar, with his back towards us, stood a short, grey-haired figure, in
a robe of black flowered damask or brocade, with a crimson border round
the neck and halfway down the back.
He was just raising his hands in some act of adoration, when, becoming
aware of the religious tumult of my entrance, he faced smartly round,
abandoned the altar, and came, as it were, bounding in my direction.
Uncertain how to receive him, I stood my ground and held out my hand;
but entirely disregarding that, he sprang upon me, and raising himself
lightly upon his toes--for the top of his head did not reach to my
chin--with uplifted arm he began fumbling about in my hair with his
fingers. It was so sudden. In five seconds I had received his blessing.
He had blessed me by assault. For all I know, he had accomplished a
miracle upon me. The women stood round and sighed their pleasure. “He
never treats us to a blessing like that, never!” they murmured with
admiring envy.
When he came to rest before me, I perceived that he was a little
grey-bearded old gentleman, trim and lean and ruddy. He looked about
sixty, but his followers say he is seventy-seven, so that his very
activity is miraculous. One side of his forehead bulged with some
disease, but from his pale grey eyes looked a healthy spirit. Kindly
and innocent, practical, or even housewifely, I should say, rather
than intellectual or inspired. There was nothing of the rapt mystic
about him, nothing of the divine seer contemplating eternity. Indeed,
I was told that he himself makes no claim to prophetic vision, and
his gift of foretelling distant events must be unconscious. One of
his chief attributes in sanctity appears to be that he lived with the
same wife for fifty years, I believe all the time at Kronstadt; and I
see no cause to question his miraculous powers, especially as I have
known other people similarly endowed, though for qualifications of a
different kind.
He stood there, smiling up at me for a moment with innocent good will,
and I then perceived that the crimson border of his robe reached
halfway down his chest, as well as down his back, and that round his
neck, by a heavy silver chain, hung a large silver cross--the Russian
Orthodox cross, with a short bar nailed low down upon the shaft for
the feet of the Crucified to rest upon, and placed slantingly, so that
one end might be higher than the other, because by Eastern tradition
Christ was lame on the right foot. I also perceived that the saint’s
hand, though fine in itself, was worn, as though by the labour of
continual benediction. But observing that my eyes rested upon it, he
smiled, more benignly than ever, and did what is perfectly natural to
any Russian saint or lady--he held it up for me to kiss. It is a peril
one is sure to encounter among the priests of the Orthodox Church, and
over and over again I have resolved to go through with it manfully.
But when the final moment comes, the stubborn British blood begins to
jib and swerve, like a horse that cannot be brought up to his fences,
and grasping his hand in mine I shook it warmly. I am afraid the women
were grieved to think I should remain a heretic, in spite of all the
advantages they had so eagerly procured me, but there was no help.
The little saint then turned back to the altar and took up the service
where he had left off, just as a wood-pigeon takes up his comfortable
cadence at the note where last it was broken. The people renewed their
interrupted crossings and prostrations, and a young peasant beside me,
his dark red hair covering his shoulders, and his single outer garment
gathered round his waist with a rope, displayed incredible activity
in striking his forehead against the bare boards and springing up
again repeatedly almost without pause. I should like to have known
for what favour he was so urgent, and willingly would I have granted
it if it had been in my power, for no human being could have remained
obdurate to such importunity. But the service ended, and with a throng
accompanying him the saint, putting his great-coat over his robes and
his goloshes over his boots, departed down the street to some other
scene of hallowed beneficence.
It was hard to realize that this was Father John of Kronstadt, regarded
by revolutionists as among the most dangerous enemies of the Movement.
In the political cartoons he almost always figures among the leaders
of reaction. One sees pictures of him in his vestments standing beside
a cannon trained upon the crowd, or with the other Ministers admiring
a huge Christmas tree hung with skulls. His saying, at the time of
Father Gapon’s procession, that “only a sinner could strive against his
Tsar,” is well known. He is believed, perhaps truly, to possess great
influence in the Tsar’s family, especially over the women, such as the
Dowager Tsarina. According to rumour, his advice is invariably given
against every proposal of change or advancement, and the enthusiastic
women who procured me his blessing, are identified with the mothers and
wives of the most violent and merciless gang of the Black Hundred. That
is all very possible, and the recent scandals about a certain Virgin
of Kronstadt, who saw her way to making money out of the situation
by vicarious sanctitude, are only such as seem to arise inevitably
around a fellow mortal of much belauded virtue, whether they are true
or not. It is very probable also that the mothers of the Black Hundred
secure comparatively honest half-crowns by arranging special interviews
and privileges for visitors to the saint. To be sure, I had not to
pay a penny for my blessing, but I have known others, less favoured
by Heaven, who expended as much as two pound ten for very inferior
advantages. When all is said, the detraction of his opponents, and his
own abhorrence of progress appear to me the least miraculous things
about him. Take a man in youth, train him for years in a seminary
where he meets no one but young priests like himself, and hears no one
but old priests such as he is intended to become; give him no kind
of knowledge but ritual and dogma, which he must accept unquestioned
or perish; let him live many years with one woman in one small place,
among people who never contradict him, but either regard his words as
divine, or ignore them as parsonic; add a kindly simplicity to the
blank of ignorance; expose a rather small and finikin personality
to feminine adulation; and if you do not produce the very model of
priesthood as exemplified in Father John of Kronstadt, there will be a
miracle indeed.
I struggled back again across the frozen sea, where the storm raged
with increased violence, and on reaching St. Petersburg, I hastened
to a remarkable gathering in the great hall of the Conservatorium.
It was a concert given by a body which, with intentional vagueness,
called itself the Committee of the Working People, and its purpose
was to raise funds for the assistants at the Workmen’s Dining Rooms.
The performance was announced for eight o’clock, but I need not have
hastened; for, as I have already noticed, there is no pedantic and
inconsiderate punctuality in Russian affairs, and when I arrived,
some three quarters of an hour late, I found the huge audience still
pouring in, and I might have waited another half-hour without missing
any of the programme. But at concerts the audience is usually the most
interesting part, at all events to a foreigner, and I found myself
in the midst of the very people who, until quite lately, have been
the real revolutionists of Russia. Not very many actual work-people
were there, for the prices of seats kept them away; but the vast
concert-hall was soon packed with the educated, the professional men
and women, the “proletariat of intellect”--writers, journalists,
barristers, doctors, crowds of students, and a good many officers in
uniform, though I think that perhaps most of them were army doctors.
The scene was a fine example of the frank democracy that distinguishes
the Russian people--the enviable disregard of all the weary old
distinctions of rank, profession, wealth, or dress. It arises, perhaps,
from the ancient village communism, as I have already suggested, and
from the common use of Christian names and diminutives, which spreads a
brotherly feeling among all classes. Perhaps also from the comparative
unimportance of commercial people until lately; for in most countries
it is the commercial classes that maintain inequality. In no society,
outside savagedom, have I found such indifference to the nature and
distinctions of dress as in Russia. At this concert every class and
fashion of costume was to be seen, and no one was regarded as a queer
and dubious character if he dressed to please himself. It is quite
possible, no doubt, that the brains of many there stood above the
freezing point of British social sanity, but in all that I have seen
of Russian life, I have observed the same democratic ease, the same
disregard of the dress that marks a class distinction. It is this sense
of the equality of men that brings the Russians and the French together
and makes the monstrous alliance of their Governments appear almost
natural.
Of course, the whole audience was revolutionary, but in Russia
revolution is not thought to imply insanity so much as intelligence,
and large numbers had determined there should be no doubt as to their
opinions. Many of the students, with long hair all on end, wore the
Russian tunic, and no one stared. Some girl-students--those indomitable
“Kursistki,” on whom the soldiers have no mercy--were dressed in the
loose black blouse, fitting closely to the throat and buttoned along
the top of the shoulder instead of down the front or back. A few
gentler spirits had yielded to a tiny edge of white collar above the
black. But the blouse of the violent shone red, all gules from throat
to waist, and the more revolutionary a girl is by nature, the thicker
is her hair, and the lower it hangs over her eyes and ears. Her little
fur cap also has no brim, as others use, but is plain like a man’s; for
a brim is compromise, and at the bottom of the slope of compromise lies
ignoble peace.
In course of time the concert began. Perhaps concert is hardly the
right word, for I suppose no human soul in all that mass of people
had gone to hear music or singing, or cared very much what musical
sounds were made. Certainly, the musical performers were good, but
the interest lay with others--with the well-known young actress who
in a voice only slightly more emotional than common speech recited
some short poem which all could hear, while the piano played a hardly
perceptible accompaniment; or with the famous author who just sat in
a chair upon the stage, and read some vivid scene or parable from his
own works or another’s. As often as not he read it badly, but that made
no difference. This was no shrine of art for art’s sake. Behind those
quiet and halting words burned the whole fire of the revolution, and
the applause was not kept for the best performance, but for the most
daring passage, or for the hero who had been longest imprisoned for
the cause. Such applause as that I have never heard. There was a vital
intensity in the enthusiasm that no art could inspire. Time after time
the man or woman was recalled. Four times or five times the same piece
would be repeated, and still the applause seemed as if it could not
end. Eleven times one man was recalled, the whole audience standing up
and shouting his name in a tumult of admiration. Not that he recited
well, but it was his own work that he recited, and he had only just
come out of gaol.
The form of the recitations was almost invariably the parable. Some
simple scene or fable was narrated, so harmless and childlike on the
surface, that the enemy could find no handle for his rage, but inwardly
it was charged with a significance like hidden flame. It is a form very
natural to Russia, for it has grown out of the peasants’ folk-tale
and proverb, and the perpetual danger of open expression has kept it
alive. So in Gorky’s well-known parable, which was one of the many
recited, the falcon soars in freedom through the sunlit air, and the
snake remains coiled under the dark and chilly stones; but presently
the falcon falls to the ground wounded and dying, while the snake
congratulates himself upon the pleasing security of his own habits.
Sometimes it was but a common scene of military life that was narrated;
sometimes there came a brief outburst of triumph, “O sleepless nights,
your fruits are seen at last!” And in one poem the part of women in
Russia’s revolution was described almost without subterfuge.
In the souls of the audience only one thought lived. A suppressed
excitement breathed throughout the hall. As the words of the speakers
or singers rose and fell, the air trembled with the beat of all those
minds in unison. There was no sound. Each great word was awaited as
one awaits the notes of a solemn music. But it was not the words that
were the greatest thing, it was not the performers, not the martyrs,
nor even the audience. The greatest thing was the common faith of all.
Under that outward scene of gleaming lights and varied personality
one felt the secret touch of danger, and only in danger is the highest
community to be found. One felt the deep and passionate glow of a life
brief and insecure. One felt the spirit careless of everything--of joy,
of passion, of life itself--of everything, but the one great cause--the
only thing that counted, the soul of the crowd, the consciousness that
breathed through the air and kept us still. The words ceased. There was
a gasp while like one man the great assembly drew in its breath, and
then with a rushing wind rose the tempest of applause. And yet it was
not the words, nor even the speaker: it was the revolution that was
adored.
To have a cause like that, to dwell with danger for the sake of it
every day and night, to confront continually an enemy vital, pitiless,
almost omnipotent, and execrable beyond words--what other life can
compare to that, not only in grandeur, but in the satisfaction of
intellect and courage and love and every human faculty? So tyranny
brings its compensations.
At various intervals the audience trooped out from the hall, and walked
up and down the great ante-rooms and passages provided in all Russian
places of assembly. They greeted each other, they embraced, drank tea,
and buzzed with conversation. The intervals lasted about three-quarters
of an hour, and were of the highest interest to every one. The first
ended just before midnight, the second about two. Whether the third
ever ended I did not discover, for I was lost in memories of English
audiences, upon whose faces a real expression begins to dawn soon after
eleven--an expression of impatient anxiety whether they will catch the
last ‘bus home to bed.
CHAPTER XV
A BLOODY ASSIZE
At the end of January I left St. Petersburg for Riga and the Baltic
Provinces. As in other parts of Russia, the hopes of change had
faded there, and the whole land lay prostrate under a bloodthirsty
suppression, the more savage because it was encouraged by a double
race hatred--the ancient feud of German, Russian, and Lett. As I came
at sunrise through the fir forests and frozen heaths of Livonia,
twenty-five men were being shot in cold blood among the sandhills
beside the railway. They were tied together in a row by their feet and
arms, and they fell together; but the firing was so bad that many were
hardly hit at all, and had to be finished off at close quarters before
they were heaped together into a trench already prepared for them.
When I reached the town, the first thing I met was a party of twenty
soldiers with fixed bayonets driving along four boys of eighteen or
nineteen, who marched with their hands in the pockets of their long
coats and their caps drawn low down over their pale and weary faces.
They were being taken to the castle, where, I was told, a hundred
more lay ready for killing, and would probably be slaughtered on the
sandhills next morning. It was a fitting entrance for me into these
once peaceful and civilized provinces, where now the bloody assize was
raging.
The daily papers in Riga are, for the most part, German, but, for
once, they were on the side of the Government and the Russian troops,
because the leaders of the attempted revolution and the victims in its
suppression were Letts. So they would not be likely to exaggerate the
injustice and brutality of the assize. Yet each of them, above its
tender German love-story or bit of art criticism, displayed columns
of tabulated slaughter, and the whole local news of the three Baltic
Provinces consisted of shootings, hangings, and floggings. The accounts
were generally arranged by villages. For instance, from one number of
the leading Riga paper I take the following reports, almost at random,
out of the columns that appeared above an excellent appreciation of
Ruskin’s “Præterita”--
“Tarwast.--The whole population of the village over the age of
fifteen was brought before the court-martial to-day. Six were
shot on the spot, including one woman; nine were flogged with
strokes varying from twenty-five to two hundred.”
I need not say that two hundred strokes of a wooden rod delivered by
soldiers on the naked body of either a woman or a man would mean
almost certain death in its most terrible form.
“Semzel.--Yesterday six revolutionaries were shot, and four the
day before. In the neighbouring parish of Lemberg twenty-four
were flogged.
“Kokenhusen.--Nine people were hanged here to-day.
“Dahlen.--A squadron of dragoons, half a troop of Cossacks, a
company of infantry, two cannon, and two machine-guns arrived
here to-day. Dahlen had elected a revolutionary parish council;
so a court-martial was held, and four men shot on the spot.
Several farms were destroyed by shells.
“Neuenmühle.--The schoolmaster was hanged on a telephone post
here to-day, for having allowed public meetings in his school.
Two young girls were flogged with rods for having stitched a red
flag.
“Wolmar.--This morning early, two boys, one only fifteen,
evidently much excited, ran up to a patrol of soldiers and
tried to catch hold of a rifle, saying they would show them
how to shoot. They were captured, and General Orloff, being
consulted by telephone, ordered their immediate execution. They
received the Sacrament, and were shot in the presence of a large
number of spectators. The execution appears to have exercised a
salutary impression upon the whole population of Wolmar.”
Village after village had that salutary impression exercised upon it,
and one week after another the papers told the same monotonous story of
cold-hearted bloodshed.
The German landowners, some of whom had suffered considerable losses
during the peasants’ rising, hounded on the military to vengeance. No
measures were harsh enough for them, no executions too bloody. They
taunted the Governor-General Sollogub with half-hearted mildness, and
clamoured for the appointment of the drunken butcher, General Orloff,
in his place. They appeared to long for the extermination of the race
which for centuries had been their servants. A daughter of a great
landowner, whom I met, said to me, “One of the peasants themselves told
me to-day that at least a third of them deserve to be shot, and he
hopes they will be. I was so glad to hear him say so.”
Certainly, for those who had run for refuge into the town, as most
of the German landowners had, life was unavoidably dull. Beyond the
restaurants, two music-halls, and a number of brothels, there was
nothing to distract a gentleman’s mind. The landowner pined for
the country life and healthy sport to which he was accustomed. His
imagination was haunted by the smoking ruin to which his ancestral
home had been reduced. When he had once enjoyed the newspaper columns
of executions and floggings which were served with his breakfast, new
every morning like the love of God, there was really nothing left
to beguile the tedium of existence till evening came. Even then the
entertainment was rather dreary--a German _café chantant_, with
sweet champagne and half a dozen girls whom the proprietor paid to be
pleasant. “I suppose I shall have to go and see that dancer again,”
said one of the nobility to me, as he yawned and stretched himself. “It
will be something to do. Her legs aren’t really good, I know, but in
these times we must all take what pleasure we can.”
On going out, we met a strong body of soldiers driving three prisoners
rapidly along the street. Flanking files had been thrown out upon the
pavements, and a large rearguard followed. One of the prisoners was
a ragged man without a hat, and his arms were pinioned to his sides.
The other two were women, with white handkerchiefs over their heads,
showing they were Letts. They passed very quickly, the soldiers, with
fixed bayonets, urging them continually onward from behind. A feeling
of intense excitement prevailed. The soldiers were terrified of a
rescue. An eager though cautious crowd followed at some distance, like
the children who follow bullocks to the slaughter-houses in Aldgate. So
they hastened along the road out of the town towards the sandhills, and
in half an hour the man and two women were dead and left warm in their
graves.
The Letts boast themselves to be the Irish of Russia. They are
the ancient peasant race, whose land has fallen into the hands of
alien conquerors, now supported by a foreign military power. For
eight centuries the country of the Letts and the smaller tribes of
Lithuanians and Esthonians has been the prey of Germans, Swedes,
and Russians in turn. But the Germans, the descendants of the
Sword-Brothers and the Teutonic Order, who first introduced the laws
of conquest and Christianity among them,[5] have remained the chief
owners of the great estates, and the culture of the towns is mainly
German also. All three tribes come of an imaginative and artistic
stock. Many of the leading writers and artists of Russia are Letts,
and in their own strange language--probably the most ancient in
Europe, and most nearly akin to old Sanskrit--they possess an immense
collection of primitive folk-songs and legends. They are not so
advanced--not so artistic in form and feeling as the Lithuanian songs,
which are familiar in German translations, such as the beautiful and
characteristic song set to music by Chopin. But the Lettish songs
follow the ancient Asiatic form, seldom more than four or six lines
long--simple outbursts of joy and sorrow over the great events of all
human life, birth and spring and love and harvest and winter and death.
They are full of prehistoric myth and lore. Herder translated a few
when he was a parson in Riga about a hundred and forty years ago, but I
cannot find that even the Germans have taken the trouble to translate
them with any completeness. For the tongue has been despised and
neglected, just as Irish was in former years.
The race is like the language. Ages have passed over the people since
first they settled down among the sandy heaths and quiet watercourses
of the Baltic shore. Their hair and eyes have changed from dark to
fair. Their religion has changed from primitive nature-worship to
Catholicism, and then to Lutheranism. Evangelical they still remain,
though Russia has tried hard for twenty-five years to make them
Orthodox. But at heart they continue as they originally were, speaking
the same tongue, doing the same work, and building the same houses.
On almost any farm you may see the conical outdoor kitchens, modelled
on the very huts that they built as they walked from Asia before man
learnt his letters. Even their modern farmhouses are constructed on a
very ancient type. They are made entirely of wood without any iron,
even without nails, the corner joints being dovetailed together with
perfect skill. The roofs too, though sometimes thatched with reeds, are
nearly always formed of wooden slabs like slates. Round the central
house of two large rooms, with high lofts for winter storage, several
wings or extra chambers are thrown out, for the labourers (Knechte),
or for poorer people who cannot afford a house of their own, but pay
a rent in money or work. In this way I have seen five other families
gathered round one peasant court or farm (Gesinde, as it is called,
the old German word, like the use of Knechte, marking the date of the
Prussian occupation).
This peculiarity probably springs from the ancient Lettish habit
of living in isolation, like the Boers, and not huddled together
in villages, like the Germans or Russians. The peasants’ homes are
generally at least a mile or two apart. The country is divided into
large parishes, but a village can hardly be said to exist, and probably
this isolation has made the people an easier prey to their successive
conquerors. There are no Lettish towns at all, for such places as
Riga and Dorpat and Mitau were entirely German, but for some hardly
perceptible traces of the Swede, till the curse of Russia fell upon
them, little over a century ago. Indeed, to enter one of these old
towns even now, and to live among the spires and tiled roofs after
the bulbous domes and green iron of Russia, is like going back from
Gorky’s sombre desperation to the smile and sunlight of “Meister’s
Apprenticeship.”
Scattered through the three Provinces there are about a million and a
half of Letts living in this way. Most of them now own their patches of
land, or are buying slowly, by annual payments. They till the ground in
summer, and in winter they weave with their own looms, spin with their
own spinning wheels, feed the cattle in the barns, and slide the wood
over the snow from the forests. It is not a bad kind of life. Compared
to ordinary Russian peasants, the people are rich beyond dreams, and
things went pleasantly in the Provinces till the hideous system
called Russification began just a quarter of a century ago, upon the
accession of Alexander III.--“The Camel,” as they still call him. It
was completed, as far as laws can go, in 1889, by the introduction
of Russian jurisdiction and language. Since then, the object of the
Russian Government has been to thwart German industry, to stifle German
culture, and to inflame the Letts against the Germans in hopes that
the two races may exterminate each other. So far the design appears
likely to succeed. Corrupt Russian officials govern, ignorant Russian
professors have taken the place of men like Harnack at the Dorport
University, untrained Russian teachers pretend to educate children
by means of a language that no child understands, the ancient rights
of the provinces have been taken away one by one, and by continual
incitement the Letts were at last goaded into burning the country
houses of the German landowners.
There are about seven hundred estates in Livonia alone, including the
various Crown lands, and in the three Provinces taken together it was
estimated that two hundred and fifty country houses had been burnt.
This was said to represent about fifteen per cent. of the total of
existing estates. In many cases, no doubt, the landowners were leading
a monotonous and stupid kind of life, and the loss of their possessions
will open to them a wider horizon, with new chances of happiness.
But as a rule they are a pleasant, healthy kind of people, like
the country gentlemen who used to exist in England, and the Lettish
peasants felt no violent personal animosity towards the man whom they
were accustomed to call Master. One of the largest landowners, for
instance, the proprietor of four separate estates, thus described to me
how the trouble began in his favourite country house:--
“It was last December. Owing to the disturbances throughout the
country, I had sent my wife and children into Riga. One day a
deputation of peasants came and rang at the front door. I received them
in the hall.
“‘Master (Herr),’ they said; ‘we are heartily sorry, but we have
condemned you to death.’
“‘Oh, you have condemned me to death, have you?’ I answered.
“‘Yes, master,’ they said. ‘We are heartily sorry. You are a good
master, and we have nothing against you, but we have condemned you to
death.’
“‘All right,’ I answered; ‘what’s your reason?’
“‘You see, you have more land than we have,’ they said.
“‘Certainly,’ I answered; ‘but many of you have more land than others.’
“‘Yes, that is true,’ they said; ‘but all the land is ours by right.
Your fathers took it away from us seven hundred years ago, and now we
are going to nationalize it all.’
“‘Well,’ I answered; ‘I suppose you must do what you like. When are you
going to begin?’
“‘Oh, master,’ they said, ‘we are heartily sorry. You are a good
master, but we have just condemned you to death, and now we have come
to warn you first. Master, we strongly advise you to escape.’
“So the conversation went on. A few days later, they made an attack
upon the house in the evening. But I had armed two of my own servants;
we fired a gun from a window, and they all went away again. But after
that my wife was so frightened that I came into Riga, and now the
peasants are sending us firewood and vegetables twice a week by sledge,
because they have heard such things are dear in town.”
It is easy to imagine the peculiar confusion that would arise in such
kindly and childlike minds when young students and orators, like the
almost mythical leader “Maxim,” come out to their isolated farms
and preached Karl Marx to them, and the socialisation of wealth, or
the glories of a Lettish republic. Social change and the sense of
nationality were equal motives in the rising. Excited by wild hopes,
inspired by man’s natural longing for equality, by race hatred, and by
the oppressions of a stupid and savage Government from abroad, they
turned upon the country houses, the church records, the Government
offices, and the portraits of the Tsar as the symbols of all that stood
between them and happiness.
Certainly the German landowners suffered, and a few were assassinated.
It was part of the Russian Government’s scheme that they should suffer,
and one of the strangest things in the whole situation of these Baltic
Provinces was the unanimity with which, not only every Lett, but every
German whether in town or country, rejected the idea of appealing to
the German Empire for protection. The suggestion of such a thing made
the mildest German mad. It united German and Lett like comrades in arms
against a common enemy. The Germans cling to their German language
and culture; they will go to any trouble and expense to avoid Russian
education; they have the utmost contempt for Russian law and justice;
by union with Germany they would gain immensely in government and
probably in trade. Yet from Russia they will endure any hardship rather
than look to Berlin for help. It is a remarkable instance of the truth
that man is governed, not by his interests, but by his tastes. Hearing
the protest repeated with vehemence by a beautiful German lady whose
home had been burnt down, I asked her the reason, and she said: “We
could not endure to be told at every corner not to spit and not to
lean out of the window.”
So the landowners suffer, and bear those ills they have. But the man
whose suffering to me seemed least deserved was not a landowner, but
a country parson. He was so old that I may mention his name without
harm, and it is known to the scholars of Europe; for he was Pastor
Bielenstein, the greatest authority upon the Lettish language and
literature, and authorities are very few. I found him in Mitau, the
Courland capital, a quiet German town not far from Riga. There he had
taken refuge in a few small rooms, when the peasants chased him from
the parsonage, which had been his for sixty years and his father’s
before him. In mind and appearance he belonged to an age that Germany
has long left behind--the simple age of the Humboldts and the Grimms.
He must be one of the very few Germans left who remember the death of
Goethe, and to listen to him was like conversing with those gentle
followers of learning a century ago, who combined a zeal for knowledge
with a childlike trust in “the dear God.” All the sixty years in his
parish had been devoted to the cure of souls and the collection of
every fragment of Lettish literature--folk-songs, riddles, proverbs,
and legends. Volume after volume appeared, and there they all stand
as a monument of German industry, though, unhappily, intelligible
only to Lettish speakers. Having lost his sight over his work, and
growing very old, with his aged wife and grandchildren around him, he
determined to write one more book and then depart in peace. The title
of the book was “The Happy Life,” and hardly had he published it when
the peasants came to his church, ordered him to leave out the Tsar from
his prayers, attacked his house, shot his sexton, held eight rifles at
his daughter’s heart, burnt his library, smashed his china, trampled
on his harpsichord, and made a bonfire of his furniture in the garden,
kindling it with his manuscripts. Thus he was driven out, blind, aged,
and poor, to begin a new volume of a life which he thought was ending
happily.
“But we do not regret the title of my book, do we, dear wife? We have
not lost our trust in the dear God,” he said, bending his tall, slim
figure to kiss the old lady’s hand.
“No,” she answered. “We have lost our best china, but our guest will
kindly excuse it.”
While we were thus conversing, the pastor of a neighbouring parish
entered, a little excited over a scene in which he had just taken part.
There had been an execution in his village that morning, and it was his
duty to conduct the funeral of the young revolutionist who was shot.
For some reason the officer in command had ordered a party of horse and
foot with two guns to attend the ceremony and prevent any disturbance.
“The coffin and I were surrounded by soldiers along the whole route,”
said the pastor; “and when we came to the grave, the people were kept
three hundred yards away. The result was that they could not hear a
word of the sermon which I had prepared with special care for the
occasion. As it was in Lettish, the soldiers did not understand it, and
all my pains were entirely thrown away.”
So each suffered in his fashion.
All through the open country parties of cavalry went trotting from farm
to farm. Infantry drove in sledges, holding their rifles ready. General
Orloff had then made his headquarters at Segewold, some forty miles
north of Riga, and obtaining a sledge there with a Lett driver who
spoke German, I was able to travel far through the low hills and wooded
valleys where the troops were at their work. The ruins of ancient
castles built by the Prussian Orders are rather frequent in that
neighbourhood, and the modern country houses which have taken their
place are especially fine--great mansions like our own “outposts of
barbarism,” some with gables and mullions, some with classic pediments
and columns in the “Georgian style.” But all were empty now, and not
a sound arose even from the stables and barns. One great house, as
famous as any monastery for its liqueurs, had been burnt to a cinder of
ruin, and there was hardly a farm around which had not lost a father
or son, hanged for burning it. The farms we passed appeared to be
equally empty; but when the driver gradually discovered that I had no
direct concern for Russian Government or German landowners, he began
to spread communications along the road by a system of signals and
cries. Faces would then peer out from the entrances of fowl houses,
or sudden questions would come from the depths of a holly bush. In
the quick conversations that followed I heard the word “Cossacks”
constantly repeated, for every mounted soldier is to them a Cossack,
and the question they always asked was whether the soldiers were
coming. Too often they were coming. We had seen them behind us, or had
watched a party moving down a hill, or cautiously making their way
through woods. The infantry in sledges were harder to distinguish; but
they were less numerous, and they went in obvious terror. Under their
houses some of the peasants had dug deep holes to hide in, and some
had taken to caverns in the sandstone hillsides, covered among the
woods. But it was chilly weather for that kind of life. The soldiers
were everywhere. In every parish a certain number of victims had to be
offered up to create a salutary impression, and all I can hope is that
our lonely little sledge, passing almost unobserved along the lanes,
may perhaps have saved one or two by its warnings. That it was allowed
to pass unobserved must be put down to kindly fortune, for I had
applied for the necessary permission to visit the country districts,
but had applied utterly in vain. I have often noticed that the agents
of justice display a peculiar shyness about the presence of spectators
when they are killing men and women as the law directs.
On the other hand, there was, perhaps, too little reserve about another
habit practised by the officers in command--the habit of ordering
executions by telephone in the presence of the condemned. In Riga I
had heard of instances, and they appeared to me to show a peculiarly
cold-hearted brutality, though I do not quite understand why. The
driver told me of a similar case which had happened in Segewold.
After the rapid court-martial and sentence, the officer rang up on
the telephone: “Hullo! Is that the sergeant? All right. Have a firing
party here six o’clock to-morrow morning. Three prisoners to be shot.
Six men will be enough. No, better bring ten perhaps. Mind they’re not
late. Six o’clock to-morrow morning. Three prisoners. All right.” Then
he rang off, and the prisoners were led away. It was like ordering the
funeral lunch in the hearing of the sick.
As a contrast to these things I may mention an occurrence that was
thought humorous, and was known to every one in Riga at the time.
It concerned a young Lettish schoolmistress who was sentenced to be
flogged. Not understanding either the sentence or the brutal orders
and gestures of the soldiers, whose duty it was to carry it out, she
thought she was to be violated, and that story was an inexhaustible
subject of mirth among the commercial and landowning classes in the
Riga restaurants. I have heard it translated into four languages so
that no one present might miss the full humour of the situation.
So it went on. In the country the people died by hundreds. They were
flogged, they were hanged, they were shot. Their wooden farmhouses were
burnt to the ground. Their children were turned out in the winter to
starve. Men and women alike were slaughtered by hundreds, and no one
had pity on them. I heard no single word of pity or of understanding
spoken in any language, and week after week the bloody assize went on.
Thank God, there were reprisals, however few. Soldiers on the march
through the town moved in single file for fear of bombs, and even that
did not always save them. The assassinations of policemen upon the
streets averaged one or perhaps two a day. The police lived in terror,
and as they went their rounds in groups of two or three, they were
escorted by an equal number of soldiers with fixed bayonets. Continual
alarms arose from every quarter of Riga; the reports of revolvers or
rifles would suddenly be heard, and this way and that the people ran.
Two or three days after I arrived there was a gallant rescue from the
very police-station itself. At eight o’clock in the morning two women
came to the door with food for five prisoners who were lying under
sentence of death for the assassination of a police officer named
Porschetsky. As they were going away, eight or ten men entered. Some
seized the police on duty, killing one and wounding two others who
resisted, and four went to the cells and released all five prisoners,
who walked quietly in different directions down the streets and
escaped, though without their hats. One of them was recaptured two days
later while foolishly tying on a false beard in a barber’s shop. His
sister who was with him, fell on the floor, and clinging to the knees
of the police implored for mercy. The barber fainted with excitement,
and the man was dragged away and shot.
The same afternoon a young boy passing my hotel was bayoneted to death
by a soldier for refusing to halt at command. Whether he was another of
the five or simply did not hear the order, I did not discover. He was
under twenty, dark haired, with the clear and intellectual face that
characterises the Lettish students, artists, and other revolutionaries
of the towns.
Of the same type was another boy who was shot the following Sunday
morning at nine o’clock just outside the castle wall. There were eight
in the firing party. “One, two, three--fire!” said the sergeant, and
the boy fell like a dummy on the stage, to the edification of the
early churchgoers who crowded round to examine the body. And with that
typical scene in my mind I was obliged to take leave of the Baltic
Provinces, marked in every economic map as one of the few fairly
prosperous regions of the Russian Empire.
CHAPTER XVI
THE PARTIES OF POLAND
Outside the discussion of an English Education Bill, I suppose that
upon the world’s surface you would not find such an atmosphere of
energetic pettiness and trivial virulence as in Warsaw. Not that the
ultimate aims of the chief combatants are petty, but that many natures
take so much more delight in clawing their friends over trifles than in
uniting against the common enemy.
In speaking of the Poles in St. Petersburg, I have already described
a Polish restaurant there which was sharply divided by an invisible
but impassable line into two camps, both violently Polish, and both
so hostile to each other that the girls of one would not speak or eat
with the girls of the other, nor even with the men. Warsaw displayed a
similar division in almost every street. Very likely it is the price
that Poles pay for the strong individuality which has given them so
many poets, artists, and musicians. The consequence is that in Warsaw,
the parties are continually shifting, and grow like polyps by splitting
themselves into fractions, so that the political student, after weeks
of labour, goes to bed one night happily conscious of having mastered
the situation at last, and wakes up in the morning to find the whole
thing changed.
But before describing what I believe to have been the condition of
Polish parties one post time on a February morning, it may be well to
estimate the strength of the common enemy’s position, as one of the
enemy’s leaders himself defined it. Of the three highest officials in
Poland he was the most experienced in the country and spoke with the
greatest authority. Even the extra number of footmen who took my coat
symbolized a power of life and death.
“Martial law,” he began at once, “will be unflinchingly maintained,
at all events till the Duma meets. These Poles are an unreasonable,
unpractical people, full of crazy notions. They need a strong hand.
They mistake kindness for fear. They must be firmly dealt with. They
like it really--in his heart every Pole likes it. Since we proclaimed
martial law last November there has been no disturbance. And for forty
years before that--ever since we crushed the Polish revolution in
1864--order had reigned.”
I smiled inwardly, remembering that well-worn quotation about the
order that reigned in Warsaw, and I looked at the speaker with fresh
interest. I had often heard of him as the perfect type of the
thorough-going reactionaries, the real old Russian bureaucrats,
who were fighting the revolution at the last ditch for their ideal
of empire, their privileges, and their pay. A tall and shapely man
of about fifty, diplomatically courteous and grave, he became the
furniture of the official palace very well, but in his round, bright
eyes I sometimes detected the alert and watchful look of a racoon
when he confronts you suddenly in the forest. He afterwards described
me to a friend as a terrible revolutionist, and as I remained almost
silent during the conversation, being overcome by the superiority of
his French, that showed a penetration which gave greater value to his
judgments.
“Yes,” he repeated, “these Poles have always been an unreasonable and
unpractical people, full of flighty notions. You may now divide them
into Nationalists and Socialists--both about equally absurd. I need
not speak of the Socialists and the nonsense they talk of equality and
nationalization. They are the same everywhere. In Poland we found them
doing a certain amount of harm among the peasants; so we quartered
troops in the villages, and now the peasants have turned against the
Socialists like other right-minded men. Indeed, the Jewish Bund is the
only troublesome Socialist body now left, and we are dealing with them.
They will tend to disappear.
“The Nationalists are equally helpless. They make a mighty fuss about
the suppression of their language, but in our Empire we must have one
common language, and it must be Russian. Then as to their Catholic
religion: the Poles are a singularly fanatical people. Their attachment
to their superstitious rites is most extraordinary. Even the educated
classes are little better than fanatics in their religious beliefs.
They are incapable of any breadth of view, and if we gave the people
the chance, they would show themselves utterly intolerant of the
Orthodox Church. They would insult and persecute our fellow-believers.
Such things we cannot allow, and we will not.
“Nor can we yield to their talk about autonomy and separation. It is
all very well for England to grant autonomy to her Colonies over the
sea. She has not granted it to Ireland, and she does not grant it to
India. We have not the least desire to become a powerless confederation
like Austria, in perpetual danger of disruption. That would be even
worse than to become like Germany, continually hampered by her
Socialists. Any kind of separation would mean immediate ruin to Poland
and her industries. Russia, Siberia, and the Far East are her only
markets. If she were separated from us, first she would starve, next
she would be swallowed up by Germany, and foolish as the Poles are,
they still have sense enough to hate the Germans more than they hate
us.
“It is true that in a weak moment our Government made concessions
to Finland, and that has encouraged the Poles to hope for the same.
But we shall not be able to allow Finland to remain on a different
footing from the rest of the Empire. Those concessions must rapidly be
withdrawn. We shall very likely have to conquer Finland over again.
That would be an easy task, and need cause us no apprehension. All
special rights in any part of the Empire must vanish, and the whole
Empire must be bound together into one. If we yield at any point, we
must yield in all, and that is impossible.
“It is impossible for our own safety. Here in Poland, for instance,
we have to defend a frontier where there is no natural barrier to
ward off an attack by Germany. Even if we gave up Poland as far as
the Vistula, it would not help us. In these days a river is no real
protection in war; if the Vistula were a mountain chain, that would
be a different question. As it is, we must maintain our two parallel
lines of fortresses in Poland, and especially the triangle of the three
main strongholds, of which Warsaw is one. The triangle is too large to
be surrounded, and it would secure us the time for mobilization. For
certainly we could not mobilize nearly so fast as Germany.
“That is the plain truth of the situation. People talk about Russia’s
internal troubles, but they are not of any importance. It is mainly an
agrarian question. The peasants think their land insufficient, because
they are too ignorant to cultivate it properly, and the redistribution
of the land by the communes every twelve years--it used to be every
year--deprives them of the valuable sense of ownership. We must abolish
the communal system, institute private ownership in land, and plant
several new colonies--in Siberia, for example. Then you will see
that Russia will easily regain her former condition of quietude and
prosperity.
“And, as to Poland again, you will find that if the Duma meets, it will
be compelled to govern Poland exactly as the Autocracy has governed it
in the past, and is governing it now.”
It was a frank and reasonable statement of the reactionary position,
and, if once the bureaucrat’s estimate of government and of human
nature be accepted, the position is easy to defend. Like most
Conservatives, the bureaucrats and reactionaries know pretty definitely
what they mean, and what they do not want; for even a prophet may
perhaps find it easier to see the past clearly than the future. To know
the object clearly is a great advantage in controversy, and in action
it means victory, unless the enemy knows still more definitely what he
intends to have. But in Poland there are so many intentions that the
battle for nationality and freedom is more than usually difficult.
At the back of all modern politics stands the workman, tending
with every decade to become the only kind of citizen that need be
considered. We must suppose therefore that the various Polish parties
who are battling for nationality and freedom have the advancement of
the workman ultimately in view, and certainly there are few European
countries where his advancement is more obviously desirable. In
commerce, Poland has suffered more than any other part of Russia
from the disasters of the last few years. About five years ago, the
time of ruin set in with a commercial depression, vaguely attributed
to over-production. Hardly was trade recovering when the outbreak
of the Japanese war checked every hope. Siberia and the Far East
had become, as my official rightly said, the chief markets for such
great industrial centres as Warsaw and Lodz. Then suddenly all orders
ceased, the goods already despatched could neither be recovered nor
paid for, and the railways were taken up by the army. Ordinary trade
dropped, and only those firms could look for any profit which received
Government orders for barbed-wire entanglements, empty shrapnel cases,
and metals for field railways--“goods” which must be paid for by the
starving peasants, and might just as well have been sunk in the sea
at once. Out of thirty-one ironworks, ten closed their gates, and the
rest blew out half their furnaces. It is true, the iron industry is
rather an artificial thing, which even in peaceful times lives chiefly
on Government patronage. For it has to import coke from Siberia, and
ore from Krivoy Rog in South Russia. But the losses in the iron trade
were equalled by disasters in other industries, and the only instance
of success I heard of during the war was that the big chocolate works
received large orders to supply officers at the front. It is not
the first time we have heard of “chocolate-cream soldiers.” Indeed,
chocolate is taking the place of the Homeric onions as the food of
heroes.
The war also ruined credit, and Polish trade lives on credit. Warsaw
depends entirely upon Berlin for money, and Berlin refused to lend.
On the top of the war came the strikes--political strikes, economic
strikes, general strikes, postal strikes. All through last year they
went on, and there was hardly a firm that did not lose from a third
to a half of its work. The severity with which the strikes were put
down only increased the resentment of the working-classes, and the
people deliberately preferred general ruin to the continuance of former
conditions, whether of government or industry.
Such was the outlook of workmen in the towns. But about eighty per
cent. (something over 8,000,000) of the Poles are agriculturists, and
nearly half of these have no land of their own, but are forced to
wander round as labourers, some 200,000 of them going into East Prussia
yearly for the harvest, and most of them working in towns from time
to time. It is true that the peasants are slowly buying more and more
land from the bankrupt old nobility, who used to own Poland, and were
the chief cause of her ruin as a nation. The average price they pay for
the land is from £5 to £6 an acre, and the average peasant holding is
seventeen acres. But this division into plots is at present lowering
the standard of agriculture, and so things will go from bad to worse
till the peasant gains a little learning, and puts science into his
primitive methods. At present more than half of the populations cannot
write or read, and the proportion of schools to the number of children
is actually decreasing. In Warsaw alone there are 60,000 children for
whom there is no place in school, and the amount spent on education
per head of the population is 6_d._, as compared with 9_s._
7_d._ in Berlin. Yet the Poles justly boast themselves better
educated and more intelligent than average Russians. In brains and
Western knowledge they are immensely in advance.
The population, which is thicker on the ground than in France,
increases very rapidly, and that is one of the reasons why wages in the
last ten years have remained stationary in Warsaw, though the cost of
living has doubled. In the country a farm labourer’s wage is 9_d._
a day. In the towns the unskilled workman gets about 14_s._ a
week, and the unskilled woman from 6_s._ to 12_s._. But a
skilled workman, such as a weaver, will make £2 10_s._ or even £3
a week for nine hours’ work a day. The rent of two fairly good rooms
with kitchen, on the fourth floor, is from 4_s._ to 5_s._
a week. But owing to the large numbers of the unskilled, it is very
common to find four families living in one room, and the standard
of life, especially among the Polish Jews, who number 1,500,000 of
the population, is very low, as any Londoner may see by walking down
Whitechapel. As usual, the Jews are regarded as the worst of all
work-people, though they make most money in dealing. On the other hand,
the overseers in mills, whether German or English, spoke very highly
to me of the Poles as mechanics, especially of the girls. “When they
will work, these Poles are first-rate,” said an English manager in
a lace works. “But they are butterflies, all butterflies,” he added
with a sigh. “I sent my little boy to school here, and they taught him
languages well, but unveracity better. So now I’ve sent him to England,
where at least he’ll learn nothing.”
In the accounts I heard or read of Polish trade, two other points
appeared to me unhappily characteristic. One was that Polish hides
have to be sold at a cheaper rate than their apparent value, because
they are scarred and spoilt by the cruelty with which the Polish
peasants use their heavy whips. The same is true even of the pigs,
in which Poland does an immense trade; both the skins and the bacon
are deteriorated by the cruelty of the swineherds. The other point I
discovered in a Consular Report, which noticed that in Poland there
is a very large demand for antiquities--“family portraits, signet
rings, blood-stained weapons, and so on”--and suggested that, though
Germany has almost entirely ousted English trade from the country, an
opening for romantic Birmingham goods might here be found. It certainly
seems a needless sorrow that any one who desires a family portrait or
blood-stained weapon should be without it.
From all this it appears that the Polish parties have enough scope for
their labours on behalf of the workmen and labourers, even without the
internecine intrigues and animosities with which they enliven their
task, like British sects battling for the Kingdom of Heaven. Among
the leading parties on the extreme right stands the solid phalanx of
officials and reactionaries; but it is not to be called Polish. It
is manned from the 300,000 Russians who are distributed among the
10,000,000 Poles. It is the party of “the Garrison.” For no Pole can
become an official--not even a policeman--unless he is first thoroughly
Russianised and joins the Orthodox Church, and even in Russia it
is only the officials and priests who are genuinely reactionary on
principle, because it is they who are fighting for their existence in
their last dirty ditch.
But next to the reactionaries, though far removed, came a genuine
Polish party, who called themselves sometimes Realists, sometimes
Conciliators, because they represented their aims as real or tangible
things, and they were willing to act as peacemakers between Government
and people. They were the moderate Opportunists, the cautious
bourgeoisie (if any Pole is cautious), and they looked to the Duma
for salvation by gradual reforms. Still, they would struggle, however
gently, for autonomy, and, conscious of their own weakness in numbers,
they were willing to lend the weight of their intellectual powers
(which they believed to be considerable) to any union of moderate
Nationalist parties.
In practical politics (if Polish politics ever became practical) the
Realists, who were called a staff without an army, were expected
to unite with the National Democrats, who were an army without a
staff. Certainly the National Democrats were numerous and confident.
They alone of all the Polish parties were doing what we should call
election work for the Duma; for though their meetings were forbidden
by the Government, those who attended them were not necessarily shot.
I was myself present at one of those meetings, held in an upper room
decorated with pictures of dead animals, and some seventy or eighty
gentlemen were there, for the most part substantial and elderly. There
was something a little pathetic about the performance, for they had met
to practise how to do it, and they reminded me of a class of dockers
I once tried to teach writing in Poplar, because they had escaped
the School Board. It is now eighty years since there was anything in
the least like an election in Poland, and that was for the Polish
Parliament which preceded the revolution of 1831. The tradition of how
to vote had died since then, and those few comfortable gentlemen in
the upper chamber were trying to recover it. Each received a pencil
and a little square of blank paper, and after they had followed their
instructions to the best of their ability, the papers were collected
and mistakes pointed out. As a first lesson in the nomination of
candidates, the result showed considerable promise, and the teacher,
who had studied in England, expressed much satisfaction at the progress
made.
The twelve wards into which Warsaw was divided had to choose eighty
electors between them, and upon these eighty fell the choice of the
two members who were to represent Warsaw in the Duma. These two were
counted among the thirty-six who would stand for Poland as a whole. The
Jews, who make up a third part of Warsaw’s population, were the only
formidable opponents to the National Democrats. But the Jews are nearly
all Socialists, and as the Socialists had up to that time refused to
recognize the Duma or take any part in the elections, the National
Democrats expected to secure all the “college” of electors.
Their programme was more advanced than I should have supposed from the
rather venerable appearance of their meeting. They aimed at complete
Polish autonomy in a Russian Federation. They demanded the use of
Polish in schools and law-courts; the appointment of Poles to all
offices of local administration; complete local self-government for
towns and country districts; and some included the restoration of the
Polish Parliament as it existed from 1813 to 1831. This programme
was obviously very much more Nationalist than Democratic, but, in
spite of the demand for Home Rule, there was no intention whatever of
breaking away from Russia. My reactionary official was again right in
saying that the Poles, like the Baltic Provinces, would rather suffer
under Russia than under Germany. The one thing that ended the great
general strike was the cry purposely, though falsely, raised by the
masters, “The Prussians are coming!” Germans may think it difficult
to understand, but, outside Germany, a certain pleasantness of manner
counts for something in the affairs of life, and very few people really
enjoy being goaded along the regulation road to official perfection.
Next to the National Democrats came the Progressive Democrats, who
bridged the gulf from respectability to Socialism, like Mr. John Burns,
let us say, or practical leaders of his type. They were what we should
call extreme Radicals, but they liked to borrow the word “Fabians,”
not having yet discovered that the Fabian Society ceased to count in
the advance of thought or politics after the support its majority gave
to the South African War. Like academic people among ourselves, they
are fond of repeating that they demand evolution, not revolution,
but their opposition to the Government is nevertheless sincere, and
many of them were in prison. The gradual nationalization of the land,
with compensation but compulsory sale where an owner possesses over a
certain maximum, is a great point in their programme, and their aims
in general are rather social than political, though they, too, demand
a Polish Parliament and a military system under which Polish recruits
shall remain in Poland. Like the Socialists, they refused to take any
part in the elections, because under martial law there could be no
freedom of choice. Otherwise, they would have formed the natural allies
of the Constitutional Democrats elsewhere.
The powerful party known as National or Polish Socialists came very
near to these. In fact, no one but a Pole could have discovered in
their programmes any distinction calling for passionate antipathy. They
followed the usual Socialistic lines, with Polish autonomy thrown in,
and they also prided themselves on their practical or “real” policy.
Next to them, but separated by the impassable abyss of family
animosity, came their bitterest enemies, the Social Democrats, with
their usual maximum and minimum programmes, that require no further
definition. For the Gospel of St. Marx upholds the doctrine of faith
all the world over, and its canon allows no variation of circumstance
or nationality. In Poland, perhaps, its followers show themselves a
little more pedantic and superior than elsewhere, and it is their
intolerance of every other form of progress which has done most to
keep the parties divided, and maintain the enemy in power. Possibly
for this reason, combined with the imprisonment of all their leaders,
they appeared, whilst I was in Warsaw, to have lost ground, in spite of
their careful organization and superhuman rectitude.
Below them--far below them, they would say--came the Proletariat
Socialists, the workman’s party, who refused all “truck” with
students or lawyers, or any other members of the “Intelligenzia”
and bourgeoisie. They were the extremists; thirty years ago they
would have been called Nihilists, though untruly. They preached
revolutionary violence of any kind, and took the immediate happiness of
the working man as their motive and rule in all conduct. Beyond that,
they possessed the immense advantage of being entirely free from all
doctrines, theories, and abstractions. For they held by the simple and
obvious fact, that a certain amount of pleasure may be obtained from
life, and the working man does not get it.
There remains but one party of importance, but it is a little difficult
to place it in rank with the rest. For the Bund is not specially a
Polish party. As I have shown, it spreads through Kieff, Odessa,
and all Southern Russia. But in Warsaw it is particularly strong,
because, beyond all others, it is the Jewish party. In social aims it
agrees with the Social Democrats, but its methods are more definite
and more violent. In Warsaw, its members were at that time collecting
arms, organizing bands, and conducting propaganda in meetings that
were protected by armed groups. Their programme was to carry on
the revolution by a series of general strikes, combined with armed
demonstrations and attacks upon Government buildings or officials,
and they looked forward to a general and violent insurrection of all
Socialists in Russia. Obviously, the first care of such a party should
be to win over the enemy’s armed forces, for as long as the Russian
Government could trust the army to do the slaughtering for them, a
violent insurrection was outside serious consideration. Accordingly,
the Bund was continually sending out agents to work among the soldiers.
These agents endeavoured to establish in the army a large society of
men, who should take an oath never to fire upon their fellow-citizens.
There were minor points--a demand for better treatment, a refusal to
act as officers’ servants, or to serve outside their home district. But
not to fire on citizens was the main thing, and if once that pledge
could be imposed upon the Russian army as a whole, the Government, with
all its frippery and all its brutality, would vanish in a week.
I have already given my reasons for seeing little hope of such a
solution. Obedience is the easiest form of sloth, and as soon as you
put a man into uniform you render obedience almost irresistible.
Further, a soldier demands pay, clothes, food, and hitherto there has
existed no definite power in Russia, except the Crown, to which he
could look for these necessities.
But it was no wonder the Government regarded the Bund as their most
dangerous enemy in a hostile nation. Under the unpopular bywords
of “Anarchist” and “Jew,” the members of the Bund were seized and
executed without mercy or regret. Upon the river bank, half a mile
north of the city, stands the great fortress called the Citadel. I
happened to see more of it than most travellers, for, by good luck, I
managed one afternoon to penetrate far within the gates before I was
arrested. But still I could not identify Pavilion 10, where some six
hundred political prisoners were then crowded together, nor the places
of execution, where so-called Anarchist Jews were shot. The official
number of the executed in the month then stood at only sixteen, but
it was impossible to estimate the true figures, when the only form of
trial was a secret court-martial, and when fishermen on the Vistula
reported, as they did while I was there, that they had seen bodies
appearing through holes in the ice below the Citadel, with faces
mutilated to prevent recognition.
As in the rest of Russia, all the prisons were so overcrowded that the
prisoners were dying of filth and disease. The town prison in Warsaw
had four hundred politicals, and sixty of them were crammed into a room
built for twenty-five. But if only as a relief from the dreariness
of futile party distinctions, let me end with the official statement
concerning two Jewesses, arrested as the accomplices of a man named
Gramen, who had been shot for manufacturing bombs. Governor-General
Skallon gave it out that it went against his feelings of humanity to
shoot women, and accordingly he offered to appeal to the Tsar himself
on behalf of these two, if they would only promise never to take part
in the revolution again. They both replied that if they were ever
released, they would fling themselves into the movement with more
enthusiasm than ever. So both were shot. And that one solid instance
of invincible heroism proves that even Poland, in spite of all her
divisions and abstractions and intrigues, is not beyond the hope of
liberty, since even in the wilderness of her parties that kind of
courage is seen to blossom.
[Illustration: 1905
1906
From _Jupel_ (_Sulphur_).]
CHAPTER XVII
THE DRAMA OF FREEDOM
When for a time I left Russia in February, the powers of reaction were
at their highest, and at such a moment it might well seem absurd to
speak of the dawn, for the ancient darkness of Russia appeared again
to have closed in upon the land. In looking back upon the things I had
witnessed, they naturally presented themselves to me as the scenes of
a great drama, in which the old Titans and demigods of humanity played
from behind strange masks, compelled by the rival immortals of Freedom
and Oppression, whose voices could at times be heard and their forms
almost seen, while the journalists of Europe chimed in with a chorus
of alternately sympathetic comment. But there was no doubt that, as
in all great dramas, the Protagonist had become involved in the toils
of evil, and that, as far as worldly success went, a tragic fate was
overwhelming him.
When first I arrived in the country, the air was still radiant with
hope. It is true that the early flush had a little faded; the joyful
intoxication of the October Manifesto was passing off, and people
were beginning to realize that freedom is not a thing to depend on any
man’s words. Liberty and despotism were hanging in the balance, and
the dull weights of habit and force were pressing down their scale.
But exiles were returning, prisoners were released, the Press was
free. Great public halls sounded to unaccustomed words of liberty, and
the Strike Committee, which had shaken the strongest tyranny of the
world, was still the strongest power in the country. The Government
stood uncertain and afraid. It felt itself confronted by an unknown
and incalculable adversary, the more terrible for its vagueness--an
adversary that out of unregarded obscurity had struck one sudden and
paralyzing blow and now lay coiled up in its lurking place, only
waiting for the fit moment to strike that blow again.
In its distress the Government looked round for help. It looked to the
railways to carry its troops, and the trains ceased running. It looked
to the post and telegraph to bear its orders, and the wires were cut,
and the letters lay in heaps. It looked to the army, and from all
sides came the tale of mutiny; to the navy, and it heard the flames
of Odessa, the flames of Kronstadt, and the big guns of Sevastopol.
It looked to the Press, and it found even the ancient supporters of
Tsardom were beginning to hint at reforms. The very Ministers were
understood to speak a little uncertainly of autocracy, and whenever a
reporter was within hearing, the chief of them all kept muttering, “I
am a bit of a Liberal myself.” So the Government stood uncertain, in
the uneasy position of an animal which does not know whether it is to
be hound or hare upon the course.
That we may call the first act of the drama, but when the second
act opened, the powers of evil were seen more actively insinuating
themselves into the course of tragedy. Their activity took the form of
a plot which can be easily unravelled from the course of the events
upon the stage. In order to involve the Russian people in the doom of
tragedy, they may be represented as thus whispering to the leaders of
the Government:--
“The first thing is to secure the Army, by promises of better food
and pay. Having secured the Army, you may goad the people to open
resistance by attacking them without warning. When they rise it will
be easy to stamp them down, and under the excuse of their violent
revolution, you can silence the Press, you can close the meetings, you
can shoot or imprison the leaders, you can choke the voice of freedom
in troublesome districts like Finland, the Baltic Provinces, Poland,
and the Caucasus. By controlling the elections you can secure exactly
the kind of Duma you want. You may then appeal to Europe to admire both
your power and your progress, and all Europe will join in applause.
The chorus of journalists which used to sing ‘The Dawn of Freedom,’
will chant warnings to rebellion and the triumph of order over chaos.
Your object will then be gained, for you can obtain the money that is
the one thing needful for your existence. England will again recognize
your credit. France will contribute the interest on her own loans, and
Germany will recognize a Government endued with just about as much
liberty as her William likes.”
Such were the suggestions of the powers of evil, and the Russian
Government is not to be blamed for accepting them gladly. That unhappy
little group of royalties, Grand Dukes, landlords, officials, and
priests, were fighting, not merely for an obsolete ideal of State, but
for their very existence, for their daily pleasures, their daily bread,
for a decent roof over their heads and a decent table over their legs.
It was no child’s play for them, since all they valued was at stake,
and the only wonder is that they were clever enough to understand the
whispered promptings of the powers who spoke on behalf of Oppression,
an ancient and venerable god. If any Russian statesman or general or
admiral had displayed the strategic skill in dealing with the Japanese
that the Government now revealed in suppressing the liberties of their
own country, Russia would have been spared one of the most shameful and
overwhelming disasters in history.
But in following these promptings, the Government succeeded at every
point. The general strike was the only genuine weapon the people
had--an irresistible weapon, provided it was used simultaneously and
seldom. The Government drove the leaders to use it piecemeal and often.
They confiscated the strike funds to starve the women and children,
they employed hunger and Cossacks to shake the determination of the
men. By bombarding a committee, they drove the revolutionists to build
the Moscow barricades before the movement was ripe and while the
other cities remained inactive. They discovered the fighting weakness
of freedom, and the entire security with which men in uniform can
be trusted to kill at the command of those who feed and pay them.
They stamped down the rising in blood. They shot all the leading
revolutionists, they imprisoned all the suspects, they hewed the
insignificant in pieces. They applauded the murderers of doctors who
were saving the wounded. They executed schoolboys for believing better
forms of government possible, and they handed over schoolgirls to
soldiers to be flogged.
In all this they proved themselves entirely wise, for they gained
their end. The moment that the Moscow rising was crushed, troops were
let loose with confidence upon Poland, the Caucasus, and the Baltic
Provinces. Preparations were made for the reconquest of Finland.
Executions became general throughout the Empire. The prisons were
crammed, and typhus finished what the rifle and hang-rope left undone.
The elections for the Duma were prepared under police supervision, and
Liberal candidates removed to prison. Liberal meetings were forbidden,
Liberal papers suppressed. The chorus of European journalists chanted
the overthrow of rebellion and the restoration of order. And at last,
as the crowning reward of a faithlessness and cruelty so cleverly
displayed, the deficit of over £80,000,000 was freely supplied by a
fresh European loan, to which the so-called Liberal Powers of France
and England were the chief contributors. There is something divine in
success so unquestioned and unassailable, nor can we wonder that its
worship is almost universal. In the autumn of 1905, no one thought
it possible for the Russian Government to raise another loan for its
existence, unless under guarantees of liberty and popular control.
But the Government quietly set about the work of slaughter, and when
that was finished held out a bloody hand to Europe; and Europe kissed
the bloody hand reverently, and filled it with gold. In the spring of
1906, a loan of £90,000,000 was subscribed without question, and upon
a triumphant tableau of Oppression reinstated and Evil enriched the
curtain fell. In the distance the spirits that attend on Freedom were
faintly heard bewailing her defeat.
Under large and shadowy symbols, the powers of human history may thus
be imagined to move upon their stage, and it is much easier to conceive
their great abstractions than to realize the life or sufferings of one
man or woman out of the millions of human beings, compared to whom
all principles of freedom, government, or justice are but unstable
visions of the mind. It is in realizing solid and visible things that
the imagination fails. I have seen a few peasants starving on potatoes
warmed with straw, while they had sold their corn to Europe before it
was reaped, so as to pay for defeated armies, sunken battleships, a
bloodthirsty police, and the pleasures of landowners in St. Petersburg.
I have seen a few, but the imagination refuses to picture the millions
on millions like them, who are actually now existing. I have seen a
few tattered soldiers from the war draggling into Moscow at last,
begging for farthings, squatting on the curb-stones or murmuring
vacantly to themselves, “Alive and home; alive and home!” I have seen
a few, but there were at least five hundred thousand of them still to
come--starving, tattered, mutinous, broken with terror and distress.
I have seen a few work-people in their homes--scant of food, empty of
comfort, and crowded with human beings--but there are millions like
them. A few people I knew were shot, many were imprisoned; but there
are thousands whose sons and lovers and friends have been shot, and
thousands on thousands who are themselves in prison. I have heard
and read of girls being flogged; but there are hundreds of lovers
and brothers and fathers who have known the girls that were flogged,
and have seen them come back tortured and shamed from the soldiers’
hands. The picture of such things indefinitely repeated throughout a
vast Empire becomes like the nightmare of a madman, and before such
bare realities the imagination falls helpless. If we wished to be
charitable, we might say that this is why Frenchmen and Englishmen
could still be found to bolster up the bloodthirsty tyranny with
a loan, and no shout of laughter arose when Witte still went on
murmuring, “I am a bit of a Liberal myself,” and the Tsar telegraphed
to England that he was meditating a new Peace Conference at the Hague.
So the triumph of reaction appeared to be complete: it seemed assured
by the mere immensity of its horror, and the returned exiles admitted
that in the worst days of their youth Russia had never suffered as she
was suffering now. Yet I suppose that no single revolutionary in the
country abandoned hope or contemplated peace. If there is something
discouraging in the Russian passive endurance, it has its compensation
in a slow but unwavering persistence in rebellion. In spite of all the
winter’s executions and imprisonment, I doubt if there was one good
rebel the less in spring than in autumn, and revolutionists of all
types were now drawn together by that just and savage indignation
which is the strongest bond of union. The bureaucrats of Tsardom had
stamped for themselves a red surface on which their little circle
might continue to live a while longer; but the revolution was boiling
underneath, and even they could not be deaf to the hum and rumble of
its working. In such mood, and amid such hopes and fears, the advent of
the long-promised Duma was awaited.
DIARY OF EVENTS
In January, M. Durnovo, as Minister of the Interior, was freed
from the supervision of Count Witte, and made responsible only
to the Tsar.
Two main subjects were prominent in Russian affairs during the
following weeks--finance and the elections for the Duma.
In the middle of January, Shipoff, the Minister of Finance, had
issued the official estimates for the Budget of 1906, showing an
expenditure of £251,000,000 and a deficit of £48,000,000. The
main items of the revenue were--
£
Direct taxes 15,000,000
Indirect taxes 42,000,000
State monopolies 64,000,000
State lands 59,000,000
The main items of expenditure were--
£
Interest on loans 34,000,000
War Office 38,000,000
Navy 10,000,000
Ministry of Finance 34,000,000
„ „ Interior 13,000,000
„ „ Communications 48,000,000
„ „ Education 4,000,000[6]
But besides these items of ordinary expenditure there remained--
£
Extraordinary War disbursements 40,000,000
Famine relief 3,000,000
The true deficit for the year amounted to at least £80,000,000,
and would probably be nearer £90,000,000. In spite of the large
foreign loans the gold reserve had fallen from £106,000,000 in
February, 1904, to £94,000,000 in December, 1905, and the paper
in circulation had risen from £59,000,000 to £143,000,000 in the
same period.
On February 21st the trial of Lieutenant Schmidt for the mutiny
at Sevastopol began in Odessa. On March 3rd he was sentenced to
be hanged.
On February 26th, an Imperial Ukase fixed May 10th as the date
for the Duma, the total number of members being 476, of which
412 would represent European Russia, exclusive of Poland.
On March 5th, the elections began among the peasants of the St.
Petersburg province.
On March 6th, an Imperial Manifesto was published reorganizing
the old Council of the Empire, and further limiting the powers
of the Duma. The Council of the Empire was now to consist of
an equal number of elected and nominated members. The elected
members would represent the Zemstvos, the Holy Synod, the
Universities, the Bourse, the nobility, and the landowners
of Poland. Both the Council and the Duma would be convoked
and prorogued annually, and have equal legislative powers in
introducing bills, but every measure must be passed by both the
Council and the Duma before it could be laid before the Tsar.
When the Duma was not sitting the Committee of Ministers might
conduct legislation not involving any change in the fundamental
laws of the Empire.
The _Molva_ (formerly the _Russ_) published an account
of terrible tortures inflicted on Vincentz Siecska and Edmund
Kempski by M. Grun, chief of detectives in Warsaw, to make
them confess and sign false documents. This paper had already
told how two officers had tortured and outraged the schoolgirl
Spiridonova arrested for complicity in the assassination of the
Tamboff Vice-Governor. One of the officers was afterwards found
shot on the road.
On March 19th, Lieutenant Schmidt was shot.
On March 20th, the Mutual Credit Society’s Bank in Moscow was
forcibly robbed of £85,000.
At this time several battalions and mountain batteries were
sent into Finland as though for the reconquest of the country
and the destruction of its restored liberties. They were,
however, withdrawn, probably owing to representations made to
the Government that an attack upon Finland at such a moment
would prove an obstacle to the much-needed loan from France and
England.
The victory of the Constitutional Democrats in the Duma
elections from March 28th onward, was greeted with satisfaction
by nearly all the Progressive parties. At Odessa on April
1st, all the sixty-six candidates selected by the workmen
of sixty-six factories were imprisoned, and the authorities
directed the workmen to choose reactionaries.
The remains of Lieutenant Schmidt were dug up and scattered in
the sea because his grave was becoming a place of pilgrimage.
On April 4th, it was found that the Constitutional Democrats
had carried every electoral seat in St. Petersburg, even in the
official and commercial wards. The _Molva_ called upon
France not to defy the verdict of the Russian nation by helping
the present Administration with money. The paper was again
suppressed, but reappeared as _The Twentieth Century_.
M. Kokovtsoff again set out for Berlin and Paris in the hope of
negotiating a new loan.
At the elections in Moscow nearly all the 40,000 electors went
to the poll, and 70 per cent. voted for the Constitutional
Democrats.
About April 10th, Germany refused to share in the proposed
new Russian loan, chiefly owing to Russia’s service to France
during the Algeciras Conference. Germany already holds about
£140,000,000 of Russian stock.
France, however, agreed to advance £46,000,000 out of a new
five per cent. loan of £90,000,000 at the price of 88. Austria
advanced £6,600,000, Holland a little over £2,000,000, and
England a little over £13,000,000.
The arrangement was concluded at Easter, April 14th, and nearly
sufficed to cover Russia’s deficit for the current year. The
Russian Minister of Finance proposed to meet the increased
charge by further indirect taxation, especially on gas,
electricity, and candles.
On April 23rd, a most brilliant rescue of ten “politicals” was
effected at Warsaw. Some men in police-officers’ uniform called
at the Pavia-street prison in the early morning and demanded
the prisoners in order to transfer them to the Citadel, which,
as I have explained above, stands besides the Vistula a short
distance north of the town.
Later in the day the police van and driver were found in a
garden upon the outskirts, the prisoners having escaped together
with their comrades who carried out the rescue.
On May 1st, it was definitely announced, not for the first
time, that Witte had resigned his position as President of the
Committee of Ministers, and an entire change of Cabinet was
rumoured.
For about a week before this, rumours of Father Gapon’s death,
either by assassination or suicide, had become frequent and
fairly definite in Russia. His fate was attributed to the double
part he had long been accused of playing as an agent of the
Government. The St. Petersburg press have published an anonymous
pamphlet received from Berlin, in which the treacheries are
enumerated for which it was said he has been condemned and
executed.
On May 2nd, M. Durnovo, with the approaching Duma in view, sent
instructions to the Governors of the Provinces to prevent the
peasant delegates from travelling with Constitutional Democrats.
News from Poland reported the election of the National party’s
candidates.
On May 4th, Count Witte, ex-Prime Minister, was thanked and
decorated, and M. Durnovo resigned the post of Minister of the
Interior for that of Secretary of State, retaining the dignity
of Senator and member of the Council of Empire. M. Goremykin,
an expert in agrarian and peasant questions, was appointed
Premier, and the opening of the Duma was announced for May
10th. The Congress of Constitutional Democrats assembled in St.
Petersburg, have published the programme of their party.
On May 6th, Admiral Dubasoff, Governor-General of Moscow was
wounded by a bomb when returning from the Uspenski Cathedral.
The attempt took place outside the carriage entrance to the
Government House in Moscow. The bomb-thrower is supposed to have
been killed by the explosion. Partial strikes in Poland, Kieff,
Moscow, and St. Petersburg were reported, and agrarian disorders
said to continue.
General Jeoltanowski, Governor of Ekaterinoslav, was
assassinated by six unknown men, who fired their revolvers
at him and then escaped. The station of Schlok at the Tukkum
Junction was attacked by fifteen armed men, who killed five
officials and ransacked the safes of post-office and station.
On May 7th, the Tsar issued a Ukase affecting the Fundamental
Laws, and a meeting of the Imperial Economic Society of St.
Petersburg was dispersed by police.
May 8th, the New Fundamental Laws, the last work of the
Witte-Durnovo Cabinet and the old State Council, were published.
These laws, which the Duma cannot alter, proclaim the unity of
the Empire and the language, including Finland in the Empire
under special institutions, but making no mention of Poland.
The powers of the Tsar as Autocrat were to include the sole
right of proposing changes in the Fundamental Laws to the State
Council and the Duma; also the right of veto, the appointment
of the Executive, the ministers and the judges, the decision of
peace and war, and the command of the army and navy. Freedom
of speech, meeting or union, together with inviolability of
person and house were granted, but only “under established
legal conditions.” Ordinary laws could not be passed without
the consent of the Tsar and both Houses, but the Tsar might
promulgate special laws and declare various parts of the Empire
to lie under martial law. The Council of Ministers, too, might
promulgate special temporary laws, with the Tsar’s consent. The
State Council and the Duma were to meet annually, but could be
dismissed at any time by the Tsar. Their powers were not to
extend over the public debt or over the expenses of the Court
and Ministry. War taxes might be raised without the consent
of the Duma, and so might foreign loans. The decrees of the
Tsar were to be countersigned by one of the ministers, but as
each minister was declared responsible to the Tsar alone, this
concession was meaningless.
It was at once obvious that the elective body being deprived
of all control over the expenditure, the Executive and their
action, hardly any democratic element was left in the new
Constitution, except the right of protest without the power to
make the protest effective.
Some of the new ministers were officially announced: M.
Stishinsky, for Agriculture; M. Stcheglovitoff, for Justice;
M. Kaufman, for Education; and M. Schwanebach as Imperial
Comptroller.
A number of repressive measures against workmen have been
initiated by the management of various State works in St.
Petersburg, and the workmen have laid their grievances before
the peasant deputies in St. Petersburg who meet daily at the
house of M. Aladin.
Another meeting of the Economical Society to consider the
agrarian question, which was attended by many members of the
Duma, was dispersed by the police. M. Stolypin was named as
Minister of the Interior, and M. Alexander Isvolsky, Minister at
the Danish Court, has been recalled to take office as Minister
of Foreign Affairs in M. Goremykin’s Cabinet. M. Isvolsky is
credited with a sound and independent judgment. He was a strong
opponent of the war with Japan.
On May 9th, the Congress of the Constitutional Democrats
closed with an impassioned speech from Professor Miliukoff,
who declared the publication of the decree on the Fundamental
Laws to be a direct challenge to the nation. A resolution was
unanimously adopted declaring the Fundamental Laws to be a
flagrant violation of the Manifesto of October 30th.
A Peasant Parliamentary Party formed, numbering 129 members, all
in favour of the transfer of lands to the agricultural labourers.
The Tsar and Tsaritsa with their children left Tsarkoe Selo for
Peterhof.
The opening of the Duma was declared a public holiday, but all
demonstrations except religious services and street decorations
were strictly forbidden. The Semenovsky Regiment, so active in
the Moscow massacre, were chosen to guard the Palace, and all
the hospitals ordered to prepare for eventualities.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FIRST PARLIAMENT
The 10th of May had long been announced as the official birthday of
Russian freedom, but every one was astonished when the birth actually
took place, and the officials were the most astonished of all. Stars
and omens were unpropitious. The astrologers muttered of a secret
and violent influence, already blighting the future hope before it
breathed. At the door was sitting an obscure and gigantic form with
hands ready to throttle its earliest cry; and in the heavens, Orion’s
sword, with point directed at the house of birth, was seen hanging by a
single hair.
It required no divination to prophesy evil. Every art of provocation
had been used by the pensioners of violence to arouse a popular
outbreak, so that in the name of order the people’s hopes might again
be thwarted. Martial law was maintained, and meetings were suppressed.
Only on the Tuesday night before the fateful Thursday, I visited the
hall of the Free Economic Society for old acquaintance’ sake, because
the Strike Committee used to meet there, and sat among a peaceful
audience of Constitutional Democrats and peasant members of the Duma,
listening to a statistical discourse on the agrarian question. Suddenly
a measured tramp was heard outside, thirty armed police forced their
way into the crowded hall, and their officer declared the meeting
closed. White-haired Annensky, the club’s aged President, famous
equally for learning and imprisonment, vainly recited the Society’s
statute of freedom, granted by Catherine II. herself. Speakers and
audience, Members of Parliament, men and women alike, were driven
out into the street, and in the name of the law we were commanded to
learn nothing further about the comparative statistics of agricultural
productivity.
The change of Ministry during the previous week was claimed as
an advantage by both sides. The removal of Witte and Durnovo
simultaneously at least made the assembly of the Duma possible, and the
appointment of Goremykin as Premier was greeted even by many Liberals
as a harmless and natural thing, just as in England it is harmless
and natural to make a lord chairman of an agricultural show. On the
other hand, it was seen that the new Ministers as a body belonged
to the familiar old gang of bureaucrats, trained in the routine of
officialdom, and untouched by the realities of wider life. Finally,
the publication of the new version of “Fundamental Laws” only three
days before the Duma met was clear evidence that the party of reaction
still controlled the hesitating Tsar; for as long as those Fundamental
Laws remained above change and above discussion, the power promised to
the people--the power that we call freedom--must inevitably continue
ineffectual as an infant spirit in limbo.
So the omens of freedom’s birth were dark; but omens are usually dark
in Russia, and when the expected morning came, the church bells set
up a famous clanging, and the beautiful city of St. Petersburg woke
light-hearted as usual in the midst of her perils. For the security of
the despotism every precaution had been taken. The palace arrangements
had been made by Trepoff himself, whose influence in the Imperial
household remained unabated. The deep and brilliant river ran silent
and empty of traffic, while up its course the Tsar was spirited
back to the city which had not known him since Bloody Sunday. All
the approaches to the Winter Palace were barred from dawn. The two
nearest bridges over the Neva were closed. Troops were drawn across
the neighbouring streets. Bodies of variegated Cossacks and Guards,
their horses bright with scarlet cloths, stood patient for hours upon
the vast and stony square before the palace doors. No common eye might
gain a glimpse of the glory to be revealed. No cabman brought a duke
without displaying a special green ticket in his hat. For days before,
the most elaborate system of coupons and signatures and photographs
for identification had been organized with infinite effort to prevent
any dreadful occurrence. Yet when the moment came, no one consulted
the nice photographs with which I had freely supplied the palace, and
I walked in far more easily than its owner. I have often noticed that
despotism affords these little advantages over decent government.
As the scene of the day’s first ceremony, Trepoff had chosen the
large Coronation Hall, constructed with columns of genuine marble--so
few things are genuine in these palaces--and decorated with gold
and crimson hideousness, to which all Emperors are obliged to grow
accustomed. At the end of the hall, upon a few low steps, stood a
rather old gilded throne. Over it was thrown a robe of ermine and
yellow stuff in studied negligence, and round it stood four little
gilded camp-stools. A praying-desk and a table, both covered with
gold cloth, were placed in the middle of the inlaid floor, and some
priests or deacons carried in the miraculous Icon, representing the
head of Christ, from the little old palace of Peter the Great. But
when they had set it on the praying-desk they found it was so dusty,
or had been so much kissed of late, that they had to spend the leisure
time in polishing it up with a fairly clean handkerchief. Beside them
was presently drawn up a choir of men and boys, all dressed in long
cassocks of crimson and gold to match the furniture.
Meantime the new State Council (or Council of Empire) had begun to
arrive and gather on the low platform constructed down the side of
the hall to the right of the throne. Senators also came in brilliant
scarlet and gold, past and present Ministers with long beds of
gold-lace flowers and foliage down their coats, a whole school of
admirals (if one may borrow a marine phrase from the porpoise), a
radiant company of Field Marshals and generals in blue or white cloth
with gold or silver facings and enormous epaulettes, and the members of
the Holy Synod in the panoply of holiness. Soon the entire platform was
full of uniforms, and on the breast of each uniform gleamed stars and
crosses and medals, a few of which were gained by service in foreign or
civil war. Sometimes one could only hope that the hero would live to
win no more distinction, since there was no more room for orders, so
great had been the wisdom or courage of the heart that beat below.
By some mistake, three peasant deputies, in high top-boots, with
leather belts round their long Sunday coats, entered among all this
brilliance, contemplated it as though working out its value in grain,
and then were hurriedly conducted away by a being with a queer gold
crook. But they were only a few minutes wrong in the programme, for
directly afterwards all the Duma members came trooping in--sturdy
peasants in homespun cloth, one Little Russian in brilliant purple with
broad blue breeches, one Lithuanian Catholic bishop in violet robes,
three Tartar Mullahs with turbans and long grey cassocks, a Balkan
peasant in white embroidered coat, four Orthodox monks with shaggy
hair, a few ordinary gentlemen in evening dress, and the vast body of
the elected in the clothes of every day.
All down the left side of the hall they ranged themselves, about four
hundred and sixty of them altogether; for, at the last moment, all
had consented to come, though many of the peasants and Constitutional
Democrats had threatened to stay away, in protest against the
Fundamental Laws. There they stood, confronting the brilliant crowd
across the polished floor, and it was easy to see in them the symbol
of the new age which now confronts the old and is about to devour it.
Shining with decorations and elaborately dressed in many colours, on
the one side were the classes who so long have drained the life of the
great nation they have brought to the edge of ruin. Pale, bald, and
fat, they stood there like a hideous masquerade of senile children,
hardly able to realize the possibility of change. But opposite to them
thronged the people--young, thin, alert, and sunburnt, with brown and
hairy heads, dressed like common mankind, and straining for the future
chance.
In that sharp contrast between obsolete failure and coming hope lay the
only significance of that palatial scene, unless a dim significance
still lurked in the dozen Byzantine bishops and metropolitans, who,
in stiff gold and domed mitres, tottered up the space between the
confronting ages, and embraced each other’s hoary beards with holy
kisses. They had hardly been brought into line before the altar when a
sudden hush was felt by all, and far away was heard the melancholy and
beautiful Russian Hymn. It heralded the approach of the regalia, and
presently there entered the golden sceptre and the golden orb, the seal
of bronze, and the diamond crown, each reposing upon a velvet cushion
and escorted by golden staves and the flag of Empire and the big gilt
sword. Then at last I discovered the purpose of those four gilded
camp-stools round the throne. I had hoped to see one of the Tsar’s four
little daughters seated on each, but they served only as resting-places
for the majestic toys of kings.
Close behind his toys, the little Tsar himself was seen advancing.
There was a timid swagger in his gait, but he walked alone, and
his uniform looked simple after the finery we had seen. The aged
metropolitan of St. Petersburg stood in wait for him with the holy kiss
and a bunch of green herbs dipped in consecrated water. Behind the
Tsar came his mother and his wife, who were refused the sprinkling,
but gained the other blessing. Twelve feet behind them their trains
extended flat along the floor, and, as in a fairy tale, armed men stood
ready to help with the weight of each. At a safe distance behind the
trains were halted the Grand Dukes in two or three rows of repeated
splendour.
With voices of thunder and voices from the tomb, the priests chanted,
and called, and read the golden book as only Russian priests are able,
and the rows of crimson choir sang the wailing responses between. Upon
the right the flashing crowd was busy bowing and signing the cross.
Rarely is such religious zeal to be witnessed as the Grand Dukes
displayed in crossing themselves; for in this evidence of sanctity they
surpassed the very bishops. But the stiff-necked generation on the
left remained unmoved. One or two peasants crossed themselves as they
were accustomed; a few more complied when the priest shook the solid
cross threateningly in their direction; but the black phalanx stood
unmoved--polite but detached spectators of these curious survivals.
The service ceased, the bishops stood aside, the altar was carried
away, the Empresses swept to their corner among the white-shouldered
ladies on the right of the throne. In the open space the little Tsar
stood solitary. Gathering together all the initiative in his nature,
he walked slowly up the floor, mounted the steps, faced round to the
assembly, and sat down upon the negligent ermine robe. A brilliant
official handed him a large parchment, and he stood up to read. Amid
the intent silence of contrary hopes and expectations, his voice
sounded clear. All knew that a turning-point in history had come, and
that to this little man one of the world’s great opportunities had been
offered.
But with every sentence that was pronounced, the hopes of the new
age faded. As commonplace succeeded commonplace, amid the usual
appeals to Heaven and the expression of such affection as monarchs
always feel for their subjects, it was seen that no concession was
made, no conciliation attempted. The one paragraph in which something
comparatively definite was said about the Imperial heart’s solicitude
for the peasants and the future enlightenment of the people--that
paragraph was marked by the dangerous old phrase of “unwavering
firmness,” and by fresh insistence upon the necessity of order.[7] When
the end came, and the colours were waved, and the band played, and
the officials shouted, “Hurrah!” while the Imperial procession marched
from the hall, the members of the party of progress stood dumb. They
knew now that for the future they had only themselves to look to, and
that the greatest conflict of all still lay before them. Had the Tsar
but granted an amnesty to the thousands on thousands of prisoners still
lying in gaol because their political views did not coincide with his
own, it would have been difficult to measure the extent of his future
influence. But one of the world’s opportunities had again been offered
him, and not for the first time he had refused it.
Nevertheless, come what will, the 10th of May was really a
turning-point in history. On the evening after the battle of Valmy,
where the new order of citizen-soldier held its own against the
mercenaries of kings, Goethe said to his comrades on the field, “To-day
a new age begins, and we can say we were present at its birth.”
Those were the words that rang in my mind as I watched the uniforms
and decorations disappear in their carriages, and then followed the
new deputies, and saw the prisoners waving their handkerchiefs in
greeting from the barred windows of the Cross prison over the river,
and stood among the crowd at the new Duma’s door, and listened to the
deep-mouthed cheers, while the whole air sounded with the cries of
“Amnesty!” and “Freedom!”
St. Petersburg is particularly rich in the dignified classic
architecture of the eighteenth century, but of all the examples
of this style none is so beautiful as the interior of the Taurida
Palace, which Catherine II. built as a present for her lover Potemkin.
With little change it has now been converted into the simplest and
noblest of all Houses of Parliament, and it was there that the first
meeting of Russia’s chosen representatives was opened at four o’clock
that afternoon. The first business was the election of a Speaker or
President. Every one knew that Muromtzeff, a Constitutional Democrat,
and one of the members for Moscow, would be elected. In his youth he
had been Professor of Law in Moscow University, but had been driven
from his Chair by a Government which trembles at excellence in any
form. Since then he had won a high reputation at the bar, and was
known as the greatest authority on Parliamentary procedure. His
character, his dignified bearing, and his long service to liberty all
contributed to make his election certain, but when it was found that he
had been chosen by 426 votes to 3, this evidence of the Duma’s spirit
rather startled the politicians who believe in the blessings of a solid
Opposition.
His few and dignified words in thanking the members for raising him to
this high position in a State that at last had become constitutional,
formed a fit opening for the new Parliament’s work. But it had been
arranged beforehand that the first real speech should be delivered
by Petrunkevitch--Ivan Petrunkevitch, one of the members for Tver,
an aged and distinguished Zemstvoist, and leader among such Radical
reformers as are not Socialists--one of those who at the beginning of
the Tsar’s reign urged him in vain to constitutional ways. Inevitably
he chose as his subject the demand for amnesty. His speech was utterly
irregular. There was no motion or question before the House. He broke
every rule of Parliamentary procedure. But that did not matter in the
least. One thought filled all hearts--the thought of those thousands of
prisoners--seventy-five thousand of them, it was said--still lying in
gaol for their love of freedom, and it was of amnesty and amnesty alone
that all except a few ungenerous spirits wished first to hear.
The meeting was then adjourned over the next day, in order that
Muromtzeff might report his appointment to the Tsar, who from the
Winter Palace had rapidly sought the country retirement where he could
feel himself comparatively courageous.
On the afternoon of that Friday, the 11th of May, the State Council,
to which had been entrusted equal powers with the Duma, condescended
to meet. No crowd watched its members arriving, no prisoners waved
them good wishes. An Upper Chamber is raised above the interest of the
masses and the gaol-birds of freedom. Its members were quite aware
that it was their part in the new constitution only to fulfil the two
functions required of such bodies as the British House of Lords--to
oppose a permanent barrier to progress, and to provide a cheap reward
for obsolete insignificance. As there was yet no progress to bar, and
few but themselves were obsolete, they had no call to hurry.
So in the heat of the summer afternoon, having taken a day to recover
from the strain of the previous ceremony, they began to gather
leisurely in their new hall. In theory they were the same old “Council
of Empire” which for many years had served as a field for the display
of decorations. And certainly the decorations had not lost their
lustre. It was the same uniformed throng as had gathered in the Winter
Palace, and they had assumed the same glitter. Conspicuous even among
their glories was one ancient courtier, who had maintained the Empire
under Nicholas I. before the Crimean War, and still went smiling round
his orbit, brave with the sixty-five medals of his years of service,
while Orders stood clustered on his breast thick as stars upon the
Milky Way; for, unhappily, he had not followed the example of others,
and made room for his honours by increasing his girth.
But even the oldest members of the Council must have been dimly aware
of changing times, for instead of the familiar old Marie Palace on the
square opposite St. Isaac’s cathedral, where so many happy afternoons
of important idleness had been spent, they now found themselves in the
“Noblemen’s Assembly” or Club, quite a dignified and classic place,
but not the house they were accustomed to. And actually mixed up among
them stood a lot of elected and unknown gentlemen, representing the
Church, the Universities, Commerce and Industry, the big towns, and
other dubious institutions that hang upon the borderland of vulgarity.
What was worse, all the six representatives of the Universities openly
professed the Constitutional Democratic faith, and five or six more
were known to lean towards that terrible party which dominated the
Lower House. The only consolation was that just half the Council were
still nominated by the Tsar himself, and that of the rest some eighty
per cent. could be trusted to agree with any Tsar’s nominees. It was
a relief also to discover that the very few who possessed no uniforms
had shown the decency of putting on evening dress when they got up that
morning.
By two o’clock a good many members had assembled. Goremykin, the new
Premier, was there, languid and neutral in the ministerial stalls.
Alexeieff of Manchuria came, and Ignatieff, the Tsar’s fat friend,
and no one thought it strange when the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg
bestowed three kisses of holy peace upon Golitzin, the slaughterer of
the Caucasus. Trepoff, who rules the Imperial circle, and parched old
Pobiedonostzeff, so long Russia’s guide to God, were reported present.
Durnovo, late ill-omened Minister of Interior, was there, and at his
side Witte, his uncertain enemy, had come to hear his own belated
appointment as member of the Council read out, and to meditate the
tearful appeal for amnesty by which three days later he was to reveal
to his brothers the workmen a heart melting in pity over the woes he
had himself inflicted.
So they gathered and chatted and sat down, and then, having nothing
else to do, they prayed. For forty minutes the golden priests prayed
and sang at golden tables placed before the portrait of the Tsar. Then
Count Solsky, whom the Tsar had chosen as President, took his seat,
a few messages were read, it was agreed to return a gracious answer
to the speech from the throne, and Count Solsky, who is much like the
late Lord Salisbury in appearance, did what Lord Salisbury himself
would have done under the circumstances: he yawned, muttered something
inaudible, and adjourned the assembly by turning his back upon it.
The action of the Council throughout would well have become any Second
Chamber in the world, but in the Duma things did not go so leisurely,
nor were the members so content with the result. On Saturday, May 12th,
at eleven, the first true meeting of a popular assembly in Russia
began. For nearly twelve hours on end that sitting continued, and yet
the immense labour of Russian reform seemed to have advanced no step.
Members chafed with impatience. Why not make a beginning since all were
agreed, and so much had now to be accomplished? The same impatience
was seen lately even in England, where we have spent six centuries in
attempting to perfect the method of self-government. But in Russia
the lesson began that day, the evils to be amended were incomparably
vaster, and the need of haste was such as England cannot conceive.
For over the Duma the sword hung by a hair. The very approach to the
Taurida Palace passed through long lines of barracks, and in the left
wing of the building itself companies of the Guards had just been
stationed, ready for any event.
And as to waste of time, let us remember the difficulties that beset
the infant Parliament. The chamber itself was a large amphitheatre of
seats gently rising on steps, each seat fitted with a desk. In a long
gallery at the back of the amphitheatre, ambassadors, strangers, and
ladies were allowed to be present, and the Russian ladies are so far
advanced in civilization that no metal bars were thought necessary
to restrain their savage tendencies. Opposite, in the middle of the
semicircle’s diameter, rose the President’s high box, and just below it
was the Tribune, from which all members were obliged to speak, except
for very short questions or explanations. The President grasped a large
bell, but managed to control the assembly without a wig or robes.
Behind his chair was a large open space, furnished with tables, where
the ballotting and counting took place. On each side of the chamber was
a large, empty lobby, and behind it a vast hall with polished floor ran
from end to end of the building, for the meetings of groups and the
discovery of wisdom by members as they walked. Beyond the hall were
dining-rooms, tea-rooms, telegraph rooms, telephones, committee-rooms,
receptacles for goloshes, and all else that the nature of a member of
parliament requires.
To return to the Chamber, on the right and left of the President’s
box, and facing the assembly, were a number of raised seats for any
Ministers who might choose to attend. The Ministers had no connection
with the assembly; they might not vote; they were responsible only
to the Tsar, who appointed them. Among the members there were no
Ministers, there was no “Government,” there was no one to arrange the
order of business or the introduction of measures. Any member got up
and proposed what he pleased. In the subsequent discussion on the
Address, for instance, from eleven in the morning till seven at night,
members rose in succession and made stupendous proposals of reform that
were neither discussed nor rejected. At first the parties did not even
divide themselves into Right and Left, but members took their seats
anyhow, and when in a few days the inevitable division began to show
itself, the Right was so scanty as to be hardly visible. Though the
true Right numbered about seventy, they were ashamed to be seen on the
right, and all members edged as far left as possible. Votes were taken
sometimes by members standing up, sometimes by division into lobbies,
but the ultimate appeal was to secret ballot, so that it was impossible
to calculate a party’s votes or to control the relation of a member
to his constituents’ desire. During the speeches, applause was rare,
but at the end members vigorously clapped their hands if they were
pleased. They spoke of each other by bare surnames, and would probably
use Christian names in Russian fashion as they became more intimate.
They addressed the assembly as “Gentlemen,” and even as “Comrades.”
The President freely interrupted speakers, argued with them, and
gave them little lectures on the procedure and Constitutional Law of
other countries. On the first day several members wanted to speak two
or three times upon the same question, and explanations of previous
speeches were as long as the originals.
There were many difficulties and many differences from our own ancient
habits, around which the interesting rags and tatters of the past
still flutter. But in starting fresh, the Russian Parliament had at
least as much advantage as difficulty, and it will rapidly develop
improvements for which we ourselves shall long have to fight against
the ghostly influence of our forefathers. One of the first acts of the
Duma was to appoint a committee of nineteen to draw up a new scheme of
procedure, and they had many lessons to suggest to older Parliaments.
But all these discussions on methods and the inevitable mistakes of
beginners meant waste of time, and waste of time was more irritating to
the Duma members than to our own, because, being peasants and workmen,
the majority of them were more serious, their hopes were younger, and,
having no Ministers, they had no one to abuse.
As to the course of business itself, almost the whole of the first
full day was occupied in nominating candidates as Vice-Presidents
and four secretaries. The names of the members proposed had to be
collected in boxes and arranged in lists. Then followed a slow march
round and round the President’s box for the ballot. That slow march
lasted for hours. Next day (Sunday) it was renewed for the election
of thirty-three members to draw up an Address in answer to the Tsar’s
speech. When that was over the committee of nineteen had to be elected
for procedure. Monday there was no meeting because the Address was
being prepared. Tuesday they began to talk about the Address. Wednesday
they continued talking about the Address, and the wrongs of Russia were
at least mentioned. On Thursday the Address was discussed clause by
clause, and a week of the Duma had gone.[8]
To most of the Constitutional Democrats who held the majority inside
the Duma, to highly educated men like Professor Muromtzeff, the
President, or Professor Miliukoff, who directed the party from the
outside, because the Government did not allow his election--to men
like these it was probably evident that all this talk on procedure and
discussion of principles were essential to popular government, and that
delay was part of every great beginning. But the Duma was democratic
beyond anything that our House of Commons has yet imagined. Certainly
it contained only about fifteen workmen from the towns, because the
election of others was annulled by the violence of authority. But it
contained about 170 of the peasant class, a few of whom had educated
themselves highly and quitted their villages; but some could not read,
and nearly all were fine, heavy-browed countrymen, with big shoulders
and great brown hands. They had left their dear strips of earth, their
dear horses and ploughs, and had come to the smelling city for the
one and only purpose of winning the land back for the people who work
it. What did it profit them to walk on polished floors with top-boots
clean and long coats neatly brushed; to listen to discourses on
constitutional procedure; to talk in tea-rooms with men who do not know
sand from clay; to tramp for hours dropping marbles into green boxes;
and to receive invitations to banquets which they most honourably
refused?
They yearned for the old horse at home, and for the fragrant earth
where the corn was sprouting now. They were on a holy mission; they
would not go back. “We dare not go back without the land,” they said;
“our villagers would kill us.” In some cases, aged peasants of pious
gravity had been sent up at the expense of the village as overseers
to watch that the members did their duty, and to complain straight
to the Tsar if the land was not restored to its cultivators at once.
Forty-three of the peasant members were supposed to belong to the Right
and were roughly classed as the “Black Hundred,” though in these early
days of the Duma they voted steadily with the rest. But if the Labour
Party, as the majority of the peasants and the workmen combined began
then to be called, felt a little puzzled and impatient at the number
of things that had to be done before anything could be done, it was
no wonder. We can also understand the difficulties of a Professor of
Constitutional Law brought face to face with such a situation.
Behind these passing apprehensions and disappointments lay the one
great question which occupied the thoughts of all during the Duma’s
first regular day of meeting. The sitting opened with messages of
congratulation from Russian towns, from the Finland Diet, and from
many foreign countries, even down to Bohemia and Montenegro. From
England, from the Labour Party at all events, a message had been
expected, but none came. Last of all, four telegrams were read from
groups of “politicals” still in gaol, and amid shouts of “Amnesty!”
the whole Duma rose and remained standing till the reading was
finished. The world-without-end hours of balloting and discussion of
procedure next intervened, and it was not till late in the evening
that the burning question was reached at last. Roditcheff, another
of the members for Tver, had won the right to introduce it by his
long service to the growth of constitutional liberty; for, like his
colleague Petrunkevitch, he had been among those whose petition for
some degree of popular representation in the government had been
rejected by the Tsar twelve years before as an “idle dream.” A peasant
leader, Anikin, member for Saratoff, followed him with an even stronger
and more eloquent claim for justice towards those who still suffered
in the cause of such freedom as Russia now appeared to have won.
Other speeches were made, each becoming shorter and stronger as the
excitement rose. At last the speeches ended. The question that the
demand for amnesty be included in the address to the Tsar was put, and
like one man, with one great shout, the whole assembly of Russia’s
first representatives rose in answer.
With that scene, this simple record of the things I have lately
witnessed may close. I have been told by men of high judgment and
authority that the title chosen for the book is too hopeful, that the
hour of dawn is still far off in Russia. In moments of despair during
last winter I should have agreed; the forces of ancient oppression
still appeared irresistibly strong. But writing as I do within the Duma
itself, face to face with the grave and determined representatives of
the Russian people, I cannot but hope that something has been gained
which no violence in the world can compel them ever to surrender. I
know the power of tradition, and I know well the power of the sword.
But perhaps it may still be proved that more powerful even than
tradition and the sword is the passion for freedom and justice which
lives in the soul of many.
[Illustration:
PLAN OF
MOSCOW]
INDEX
Akinoff, Minister of Justice, 242
Aladin, M., and peasant deputies, 315
Alexander III., system of Russification, 270
Alexandrovsky ironworks, 40;
government ways of industry, 41
Aliens Act, 227
Anarchists, message from, 56;
no paper in Russia, 73;
use of word by Government, 299
Anikin, member of Duma, 339
Annensky, President of Economic Society’s Club, 318
Army, increased pay, 175;
part in national tragedy, 303
Assassination of, Sipiaguine, 2;
Bobrikoff, 6;
Plehve, 6;
Grand Duke Sergius, 13;
Sakharoff, 77;
Voiloshnikoff, 178;
Jeoltanowski, 314
Baku, race feuds at, 16;
journey to, stopped by strike, 129–130
Baltic Provinces, Home Rule for, 74;
revolt in, 78;
shooting, hanging and flogging in, 263–281;
Governor-General accused of mildness, 265;
revolutionary reprisals, 279–280
Barashoff, chairman at Salt Town meeting, 52
Bauman, funeral of, 97
Bielenstein, Pastor, sufferings of, 274–275
Bireleff, Minister of Marine, 242
“Black Hundred,” 21, 33;
incited to murder, 121;
plunder Kieff, 208–209
“Bloody Sunday,” 11, 12;
honour to victims of, 52;
anniversary of, 228–232
Bobrikoff assassinated, 6
Bombardment, of private houses, 139, 140, 159, 162, 164, 176;
of factories, 184–189
Buliguine, Minister of Interior, 14
“Bund,” Jewish, 225, 284;
methods and aims of, 298
Carlyle, on Russia, 54;
on Livonia, 267
Caucasus, Home Rule for the, 74;
fighting in the, 78, 129
Clementz, Professor, 244
Congress, of Peasants at Moscow, 49;
of Constitutional Democrats in St. Petersburg, 313
Constitutional Democrats, 224;
programme in Odessa, 225;
meetings of, in St. Petersburg, 244–247;
policy of, 245;
leaders of, 246–247;
elections of, 311–312;
meeting broken up, 317–318
Cossacks, taunted in streets, 35;
brutal methods of, 38–40, 102, 134–135;
protect Heavenly Powers, 125;
employed with Semenoffsky Guards, 186;
connive at plunder, 208–209;
terror of, 277;
to guard Winter Palace, 319
Council of Empire, 313, 321, 329–332
Cross (_Kresty_) Prison, 238;
demonstrations from, 327
Courland, revolt in, 78
Davidoff, murder of, 228
Democrats, (_see_ CONSTITUTIONAL), 311;
National, 293, 295;
Progressive, 296
Diedulin, General, Chief of Police, 243
Dubasoff, Admiral, as butcher, 72;
Governor-General of Moscow, 122;
special prayers for, 124;
speech to patriots, 127;
fires on Red Cross, 15;
decrees business to be resumed, 180;
orders boys and girls to be flogged, 194–195;
attempted assassination of, 313
Duma, promised for January, 1906, 15–16;
Zemstvo’s attitude towards, 16;
Constitutionalists’ attitude towards, 245;
preparations for, 224;
reactionary designs on, 245–246;
Poland under, 287;
represented in, 294;
how elected, 303, 306;
date fixed, 310, 313;
elections for, 310, 311, 312;
candidates imprisoned, 311;
Durnovo’s attitude towards, 313;
Government’s precautions about, 316, 317–319;
opening of, 320;
first week of, 332–340
Durnovo, assistant Minister of Interior, 21, 57;
petition to, 103;
confirmed Minister of Interior, 242;
mean tactics of, 313;
resigns, and is rewarded, 313;
in Council of Empire, 318
England, quoted in support of tyranny, 285
English, manufacturers, 142, 182;
hide in cellars, 178;
under fire, 182–189;
Consulates attacked by troops, 209–210;
opinion on Russian revolution, 239
Ermoleff, police officer murders Dr. Vorobieff, 187
Esthonia, revolt in, 78;
prisoners shot in, 238
Fiedler, leader of revolutionists, 138;
house bombarded, 139;
death of, 140
Finance, 306;
Budget of 1906..., 309;
fresh loans and increased taxation, 312
Finland, liberties restored, 21;
Home Rule for, 74;
crossing Gulf of, 248–249;
concessions to, 286;
troops sent into, and withdrawn, 311
Flogging, abolished nominally, 6;
“as before,” 34, 41, 243;
of peasants, 91;
of boys, 193;
of young men and girls, 194–195;
in Livonia, 263–264, 278–279
Free Economic Society, hall in St. Petersburg, 25, 79, 315, 317–318
Fundamental laws, altered to frustrate Duma, 314–315;
criticized, 315;
resolution against, 316;
effect of, 319
Gapon, Father, founds Russian Workmen’s Union, 9–10;
appeals to Tsar, 11–12;
fails to attend meeting, 51–53;
amnesty demanded for, 55;
in hiding, 57;
described, 57–58;
escape of, 59;
reported dead, 313
Georgians, reported independence of, 129
German landowners, 270–274;
pastors, 274–276
Germany, dislike of, 295
Goethe, on the birth of a new age, 327
Golitzin, 331
Goremykin, new Premier, 313, 315, 331.
See MINISTERS.
Gorky, Maxim, edits _New Life_, 65–66;
explains revolution, 115–116;
his play, _The Children of the Sun_, performed, 116, 117;
his heroes, 118;
sombreness of, 269
Government, tactics of, 138, 167, 168, 301–306;
methods of business and of warfare, 231;
methods of justice, 233–234;
position of, 301-302;
loans to, 306, 310, 312
Gramen, shot for making bombs, 300
“Houses of Inquiry,” 233–236
Ignatieff, 331
“Intelligence,” The, definition of party, 9;
despised by Socialists, 297
Isvolsky, Minister at Danish Court, recalled, 315
Ivan the Cruel, 126
Japan, War with, 2, 3, 4;
peace with, 18;
effect of war on Poland, 288–289
Jeoltanowski, General, assassinated 314
Jews, massacre of, 3;
newspapers of, 68;
“Black Hundred,” to murder, 121;
arrested at Kieff, 210;
laws against, 225–227;
“Bund,” 225, 284, 298;
in Warsaw, 294;
classed as Anarchists, 299
Jewesses, courage of, 300
Journalists, beaten by soldiers, 188;
shot in batches, 238;
reactionary chorus of, 304, 306
Kaufman, Minister of Education, 315
Kempski, Edmund, tortured, 311
Khroustoloff, president of Strike Committee, 27, 28;
arrested, 77;
in prison, 237
Kieff, journey to, 203;
description of, 203–208;
Jews arrested at, 210;
revolutionists shot, 210;
prison fever, 210–211;
meeting at, 211;
wealth of, 211
Kishineff, massacre of Jews at, 3
Kokovtsoff, negotiates loans, 202, 312
Königsberg, case, 5
“Koulak,” a village usurer, 87
Kremlin, floating in blood, 72;
by moonlight, 119
Krasnaya (Red Square), prayer meeting in, 123
Krivoy Rog, trade with Siberia, 289
Kronstadt, visit to, 249;
Father John of, 249–255;
mutiny at, 303
Kropotkin, Prince, writer on Russian struggle for freedom, 2;
quoted by Tolstoy, 93;
quoted, 103
“Kursistki,” 257
Lavra, at Kieff, 204
Letts, revolt of, 78;
butchery of, 262–281;
language, music, and literature of, 267;
homes of, 268–269;
Russification of, 270;
drive out landowners, 270–273;
strange union with Germans, 273–274;
hiding from Cossacks, 277;
sentenced by telephone, 278
Livonia, revolt in, 78;
“Bloody Assize” in, 262–280
Lodz, trade of, 288
Manifestoes (Imperial), promising revision of laws, 7, 8;
appealing to people, 13;
promising Duma, 15;
announcing peace with Japan, 18;
promising personal freedom and constitution (Manifesto of Oct.
30th), 19, 20, 120;
restoring ancient liberties of Finland, 21;
withdrawing promised reforms, 22;
reducing peasants’ payments for land, 22;
peasants’ opinion of, 90;
making strikes a capital offence, 103;
promising army reforms, 201;
reorganizing old Council and limiting the power of Duma, 310;
worthlessness of, 243
Manifestoes (Revolutionary), on Government finance, 78;
accepting Government’s challenge, 80;
of strike committee to St. Petersburg citizens, 229
Manifesto of Oct. 30th violated, 310, 315, 316
Manioukoff, Rector of Moscow University, 108
Martial law, in Poland, 22;
in Moscow, 153–154;
at Kieff, 203;
in St. Petersburg, 317
“Marseillaise,” Russian, 30, 35
Massacres, at Kishineff, 3;
before Winter Palace, 12;
in streets of Warsaw, 13, 299–300;
at Toula, 81;
at Odessa, 216–220;
in Livonia, 262–281
“Maxim,” socialist leader, 272
Meetings, to discuss eight hours’ day, 28;
to protest against capital punishment, 31;
of Poles to demand overthrow of absolutism, 35;
at Salt Town, 50–57;
interest in, 62–63;
collections at, 104;
of National Democrats in Warsaw, 293–294;
of Economical Society, dispersed by police, 315, 317–318
Miliukoff, historian of freedom, 2;
editor of _Zhisn_ (_Life_), 111;
leader of Constitutionalists, 246–247;
great speech by, 315
Min, Colonel, as slaughterman, 183–186
Ministers, Committee of, 241–242
Ministers (New), 313, 315
Minsky, poet and editor, 66
Mirski, Prince Sviatopolk, Minister of Interior and reformer, 6
Mischenko expected with 7000 Cossacks, 175
_Molva_ (_The Russ_), 68;
publishes horrors, 311;
appeals to France, and is suppressed, 312
Moscow, centre of revolution, 80;
description of, 104, 107;
strikes in, 101–104;
Trade Unions in, 105–107;
University closed, 108;
Tsar’s portrait removed at meet-in, 109;
“liberty tempered by assassination” in, 118, 122;
terror in, 121;
fortified, 122;
prayer meeting in Red Square, 123;
stampede of patriots in, 128;
revolutionary days in, 129–197;
light and water cut off, 132;
attempt to win over troops, 134;
shops closed, 135;
garrison distrusted, 136;
bombardment of houses, 139–140;
English factories near, 142–143;
barricades and street-fighting, 145–168, 174;
girls shot down, 149, 150;
Zemstvo organizes ambulance, 150;
aid to the wounded, 152, 175;
Sharpshooters in bell-tower, 153, 161;
“a minor state of siege,” 154;
Christmas Eve rumours, 155;
explosion in gun-shop, 156;
victims, old and young, 160;
officer deprived of sword, 169;
new barricades, 174;
panic, 175;
official estimate of killed and wounded in, 176;
execution in street of, 177;
after bombardment, 179;
estimate of damage in, 181;
struggle for freedom in Presna district, 182–189;
horrors of suppression, 188–195, 240;
Christmas celebration in, 195–197;
lesson of, 203;
prisoners shot in batches, 238;
bank robbed, 311
Mutiny, at Toula, 2;
Odessa, 14, 302;
Baku, 16;
Kronstadt, 22, 302;
Sevastopol, 49, 302, 310;
Kieff, 211
Neidhart, Governor-General in Odessa, 216
Nemeschaeff, Minister of Communications, 241
Newspapers, revolutionary, 64–69, 311, 312;
reactionary, 69–70;
satiric, 71–73;
artistic merit of, 71;
wholesale suppression of, 80, 215, 311;
_Russian News_ joins Progressive party, 104, 111;
unpopularity of _Moscow News_, 106
“Noblemen’s Assembly,” State Council in, 330
Obolensky, Procurator of Holy Synod, 242
Odessa, rejoices at Manifesto of Oct. 30th, 215;
and buries freedom, 216;
massacres Jews, 216–220;
country near, 217;
Jewish obstinacy and misery, 220–221;
docks burned in, 222;
poverty in, 223;
political parties in, 224;
Jewish “Bund” at, 225;
restrictions on Jews, 226;
electors intimidated, 311
Orloff, General, represses Baltic Provinces, 264–265, 276
Parties of Reform and Revolution, 73–77;
in Odessa, 224;
in Poland, 293–294
Peasants, congress of, 49;
descriptions of, 33;
hardships of, 87;
home of, 88;
charity of, 90;
camping in railway-station, 131;
of Little Russia, 212–214;
in Baltic provinces, 262–281;
in Poland, 289–291;
deputies in St. Petersburg, 315;
Parliamentary Party of, 316;
in Winter Palace, 321–322;
in Duma, 337–339
Petersburg, St., general strike in, 228;
prepared for massacre, 229;
manifesto to citizens of, 229;
wholesale arrests in, 233, 238;
fortress-prison in, 237;
Kresty (Cross) prison in, 238, 326;
Constitutional Democrats in, 244, 315, 318;
revolutionary concert in, 255;
Poles in, 282;
opening of Duma in, 319
Peterhof, Tsar and family at, 316
Petrunkevitch, leader of Zemstvoists, 246;
speech in Duma, 327
Plehve, Minister of Interior, 3;
assassination of, 6;
his policy towards workers, 43
Pleske, Minister of Finance, 3
Pobiedonostzeff, resignation of, 21;
keeper of Russia’s Orthodoxy, 242, 331
Poland, demands Home Rule, 74, 295;
position under Duma, 287;
trade losses in, 288;
strikes in, 289;
price of land, rents, wages, population and education in,
290–291;
Jews in, 294;
Russian garrison in, 292;
Political Parties in, 292–300;
prejudices against Germany in, 295
Poles, dissensions among, 75, 282;
disliked by Little Russians, 206–207;
high official’s opinion of, 283–287;
peasant life among, 288–290;
cruelty of, 291;
“learning to vote,” 294;
number in Duma, 294
Police, activity of, 33, 34;
danger from, 82;
house of secret, 54;
in disguise, 167–168;
execution of chief of secret, 177–178;
Diedulin, chief of, 243;
break up meetings of Constitutionalists, 315, 318
Politicals, treatment of, 233–243;
wholesale massacre of, 240;
in exile, 243;
in Warsaw, 299–300;
rescue of, 312;
amnesty demanded for, 325–327, 339
Potemkin, lover of Catherine II., 327
_Potemkin_, mutiny on board the, 221
Poverty, in St. Petersburg, 37–48;
in Little Russia, 212–214;
in Odessa, 223
Presna or Presnensky, manufacturing district, 182;
revolution in, 183;
bombardment of and slaughter in, 183–190;
estimates of killed and wounded in, 190–191;
methods of execution in, 191–193
Press, brief freedom of, 64–74.
_See_ NEWSPAPERS.
Prison, life of “political” in, 235;
fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, 237;
Kresty (Cross), 238;
greetings to deputies from, 326;
estimate of numbers in, 238
_Punch_, cartoon blacked out, 34
Redigers, Minister of War, 242
Revolutionists, hesitation among, 136–137;
bombarded, 139–140;
arrested and shot, 141;
numbers estimated, 141–142;
plan of action in Moscow, 145–147, 163;
loot gun-shop, 156–157;
private ambulance of, 158;
sledge-drivers refuse aid to, 159;
deprive officer of sword, 169;
confiscate photographs, 171;
passive bravery of, 172;
last stand of, 174;
call for volunteers, 175;
girl leader of, 183;
tear up railway-line, 183;
slaughter of in Presnensky district, 183–194;
women among, 199, 308;
“dress rehearsal” of, 198;
union among, 199, 308;
propaganda in army of, 200, 298–299;
need of money among, 201;
shot at Kieff, 210;
concert given for, 255–261;
butchered in Baltic provinces, 262–281;
persistence of, 308
Riga, revolt in, 78
Riots, in Moscow, 2, 112;
of students, 7;
in Poland, 13, 14;
in Kieff, Warsaw, and Odessa, 21
Roditcheff, member of Duma, 339
Rostoff regiment, mutiny in, 101;
proves its loyalty, 186
Russians, intelligence of, 69;
home-life of nobility, 85–86;
peasant life of, 87;
democratic qualities of, 256–267;
poverty among, 212–214;
misery of, 307;
persistence of, 308
Sakharoff, Minister of War, assassinated, 77
“Salt Town,” meetings at, 50, 51
Sassoulitch, Vera, as journalist, 67;
last “political” tried by jury, 233
Saratoff, peasant member for, 339
Schlüsselberg, description of road to, 37, 230;
prison turned into mint, 239–240
Schmidt, Lieutenant, leader of Sevastopol mutiny, 49;
sentenced to be hanged, 310;
shot, 311;
body dug up and thrown into sea, 312
Schwanebach, Imperial Comptroller, 315
Semenoffsky Guards, employed in massacres with Cossacks, 186;
distinguished by their zeal, 194;
chosen to guard Winter Palace, 316
Sergius, Grand Duke, assassinated, 13;
place of his death, 124
Sharpshooters in bell-tower of Strastnoi Convent, 153, 161
Shipoff, Minister of Finance, 241, 309
Siberia, still used for exiles, 243;
Polish trade with, 288, 289
Sieczka, Vincentz, tortured, 311
Sipiaguine, Minister of Interior, assassinated, 2
Skallon, Governor-General in Warsaw, tries to seduce
revolutionists, 300
Sobolevski, editor of _Russian News_, 111
Social Democrats, minimum programme of, 3;
unbending attitude of, 4, 59;
organ of, 65;
strength of, 73;
young girls among, 76;
compared with Government, 231;
in Poland, 296–298
Social Revolutionists, 74;
member shoots Sakharoff, 77
Soldiers, return from war with Japan, 97–100, 307;
how treated as reservists, 99–101;
refuse to kill work-people, 2;
mutiny, 101;
propaganda among, 200, 298–299
Sollogub, Governor-General in Baltic provinces, reproached for
mildness, 265
Soskice, David, translator and lecturer, 246
Spies, at teachers’ conference, 53;
post and telegraph clerk protest against, 53–54;
use of, 138
Spiridinova, Marie, tortured, outraged, avenged, 311
Stcheglovitoff, Minister of Justice, 315
Stepniak, supporter of Russian freedom, 2, 48
Stishinsky, Minister of Agriculture, 315
Stolypin, Minister of Interior, 315
Strastnoi bell-tower, sharpshooters placed in, 153, 161
Strikes, on railways, 18;
throughout Russia, 19;
in sympathy with Poland, 22;
failure of second general strike, 23;
result in factory villages, 38;
under Russian laws, 43;
as agents of abstinence, 47;
of post and telegraph service, 49, 60, 61, 81, 114;
in St. Petersburgh and Moscow, 101, 103, 132, 314;
fund seized by Government, 104;
on railway, 130;
meeting at Aquarium, dispersed by troops and police, 136–138;
effect on trade, 289;
power of, 302;
in Poland, Kieff, Moscow, and St. Petersburg, 314
Strikes (Central Committee of), distrusts Imperial manifestoes,
20–21;
calls for military organization, 24;
meets in Hall of Free Economics, 25–36;
orders withdrawal of money from savings-banks, 77;
President of, arrested, 78;
members of, arrested, 80;
new Council and Executive appointed, 80;
manifesto to citizens, 229
Strikers, attack mail-cart, 101;
dispersed, 102;
demands of, 112;
condemned by _Novoe Vremya_, 114;
meet in Moscow Aquarium, 136;
passive resistance of, 229–230
Struve, editor of _Emancipation_, 246
Sumsky Dragoons, brutality of, 193
Suvorin, editor of _Novoe Vremya_, his son among revolutionists, 68
Sytin Printing Works destroyed by Government, 181
Taurida Palace, given up to Duma, 327;
guarded, 332
_Times_, Tolstoy’s protest in, 4;
statistics quoted from, 240;
financial figures quoted from, 309–310
Tolstoy, Demitri, Minister of Education, 241
Tolstoy, Leo, protests against war with Japan, 4;
position among revolutionists of, 56;
visit to, 91–96
Torture of prisoners, 192–195, 311
Toula, mutiny at, 2;
typical town, 81
Trepoff, first Governor-General of St. Petersburg, 13;
assistant Minister of Interior and Chief of Police, 14;
dismissal demanded, 21;
resigns, 22;
regretted, 33;
caricatured, 72;
connected with Odessa massacres, 233;
Master of Ceremonies, 319–320
Trepoff (the Elder), attempted assassination of, 233
Troubetzkoy, Prince Sergius, President of Moscow Zemstvo, inspires
reform, 7, 246–248;
sudden death of, 17;
regretted, 110
Tsar, flees to Tsarkoe Selo, 13;
promises reforms, 15, 19, 21, 22;
withdraws promises, 22, 80, 103, 120, 121, 215;
as forester, 213;
builds palace for ex-mistress, 238;
pleasant myths about, 243;
meditates new Peace Conference, 308;
issues Ukase on Fundamental Laws, 314;
leaves Tsarskoe Selo for Peterhof, 316;
enters St. Petersburg by river, 319;
sprinkled with holy water, 323;
reads address in Winter Palace, 325;
flees back to Peterhof, 329
Unions, Trade, 104, 107
Vistula, dead bodies in, 300
“Vladimir’s Day,” or “Bloody Sunday,” 12, 319
Voiloshnikoff, chief of secret police, “executed,” 177–178
Vorobieff, Dr., murder of, 187
War, return of soldiers from, 97–100, 131;
effect on Poland, 288–289
Warsaw, trade of, 288;
political parties in, 293–299;
prisoners in, 299–300;
Governor-General’s offer to revolutionary Jewesses, 300
Winter Palace, massacre before, 11, 12;
how guarded, 319;
brilliant assembly in, 321–327
Witte, President of Committee of Ministers, 3, 241;
deputation to, 18;
replies, 19;
distrusted by Liberals, 22;
fatherly appeal to workers, 22;
caricatured, 72;
leaders of finance petition to, 103;
character discussed, 110;
whining of, 202, 241;
afraid of Constitutional Democrats, 244;
his affectation of liberalism, 308;
resigns, 313;
his removal makes Duma possible, 318;
in Council of Empire, 331
Workmen, demand universal sufferage, 18, 19;
dress of, 26;
patience of, 28;
first council of delegates, 37;
homes of, 38–48;
locked out, 40;
hours of labour, 42;
wages, 44;
standard of food and work, 45, 114;
amusements of, 47;
connection with land, 48;
shot down, 81;
equality of their women, 26;
their unions in Moscow, 105;
“living in,” 113;
wages increased, 114;
quarters in order, 232;
growing importance of, 288;
in Poland, 289;
their candidates for Duma imprisoned, 311;
only fifteen in Duma, 337
Zemstvos, recommend reforms, 2;
send petition of Rights, 7
Zemstvoists, meet in secret, 6;
discuss promised Duma, 16;
draw up programme of political aims, 16–17;
debate Witte’s character, and vanish, 110
Zilliacus, writer on struggle for Russian freedom, 2
THE END
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See especially his book on “The Russian Peasant.”
[2] After the rising was suppressed, this officer was detained for a
fortnight and then released.
[3] The following is the text of this appeal:--“The anniversary of the
9th (22nd) of January, 1905, lies immediately before us. Russia has not
forgotten that day, and will never forget it. The memory of those who
in the streets of the capital were attacked by the hosts of violence,
and sacrificed their lives to their confidence in our rulers, their
faith in the possibility of influencing them by peaceful means--the
memory of these martyrs is engraved upon the hearts of the Russian
people in words of sorrow and rage.
“Citizens of St. Petersburg! We appeal to you to honour a memory like
theirs! We appeal to you to celebrate the first anniversary of that
dark day! Henceforward let the 9th of January be a day of universal
mourning among us. To honour the memory of those who fell for the
people’s freedom, let all citizens abstain from their ordinary work.
For this day let the toil of our city’s life be laid aside, so that
a peaceful stillness may serve as the symbol of our general sorrow.
On this day let not our mourning be broken by customary pleasures. On
the day of the people’s sorrow what have we to do with song and art?
Citizens, we call on you not only to avoid places of entertainment, but
not to visit the banks or other public institutions. Draw down your
blinds, and in the evening hang curtains before your windows, so that
no light may be cast upon the streets from the houses. Let the day
consecrated to the martyrs of January 9th be kept as a day of absolute
silence, a day of deep and universal mourning, a day for sad and angry
remembrance of all the victims which have been torn from our midst by
the enemies of the people’s freedom.”
[4] Figures from the _Times_ of February 24, 1906.
[5] See Carlyle’s “Frederick the Great,” Book II. ch. vi.
[6] Figures from the _Times_ of January 15, 1906.
[7] The text of the speech was as follows:--
“Divine Providence has laid on me the care of the welfare of the
Fatherland, and has moved me to summon representatives elected by the
people, to co-operate in the work of framing laws.
“With an ardent belief in a prosperous future for Russia, I welcome in
you the best men, to whose election I commanded my beloved subjects to
proceed.
“Difficult and complicated labours await you, but I believe that the
ardent wishes of the dear native land will inspire you and will unite
you.
“I with unwavering firmness will uphold the institutions which I have
established, in the firm conviction that you will devote all your
powers to the self-sacrificing service of the Fatherland, to a clear
presentation of the needs of the peasants, which lie so close to my
heart, to the enlightenment of the people, and to the development of
its well-being. You must realize that for the great welfare of the
State, not only is Liberty necessary, but also order on the basis of
law.
“May my ardent wishes be fulfilled! may I see my people happy, and be
able to bequeath to my son as his inheritance a firmly-established,
well-ordered, and enlightened State!
“May God bless me, in conjunction with the Council of Empire and the
Duma, in the work before us, and may this day prove the rejuvenation of
Russia’s moral outlook and the reincarnation of her best powers.
“Go to the work to which I have summoned you, and justify worthily the
trust of your Tsar and your country! God help me and you!”
[8] The following were the chief points suggested by the Committee
for the answer to the Tsar’s speech. They defined the programme of
the majority:--The responsibility of Ministers to the majority in the
Duma; universal suffrage (women’s suffrage was afterwards added);
the abolition of the State Council; the necessity of land reform and
universal education; the equality of rights for all classes before
the law; freedom of conscience, person, domicile, speech, press, and
meeting; control of the budget and redistribution of taxation; local
self-government for separate nationalities; amnesty and the abolition
of capital punishment.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
3. Italics are shown as _xxx_.
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