thought. In the first place, the real charges against us might be serious in themselves, and whether they were or not, we were in prison, no one in the world knew of our whereabouts, and we might lie there till we rotted without discovering any means of escape or rescue. It is this absolute uncertainty of the outcome that makes arrest in Russia so distinctly unpleasant. After reflecting upon thoughts like these for a time, my companion and I began to feel a bit desperate.
The plan we finally adopted was a simple one: In the door of our cell was a small window looking into the corridor. Every time we heard a footstep up or down the corridor we placed our faces close to the little window and raised our voices right lustily in a prolonged miserere. We fairly yelled ourselves hoarse. At last an officer had to come to see who the two disturbers were. By this man we sent a third appeal to the commanding officer of the prison, and a third message was brought back to us:
“I command the prisoners to be silent.”
The third day of our arrest we were paroled pending an investigation by order of the governor—who, by the way, was M. Stolypin, soon to be introduced to the world as the prime minister of Russia. Nothing of a serious nature was discovered against us, and in due time we were released. There was no apology, no explanation. The espravnik ventured to congratulate us that we were not flogged by some of the gendarmes. This often happens, he told us, and we were lucky to have escaped.
We had evidently run amuck of the unutterably stupid police administration which the peasants are finding intolerable. During the year 1906 I was arrested five times, and this instance is thoroughly characteristic of each performance. A traveler, like myself, finds it inconvenient and annoying. The peasants find it brutal and not infrequently cruel. Whatever of faith has been lost in the Czar, the direct aim of the jacquerie of the next few years will be the landlords and the police administration.
A tyrannical régime—A young girl’s daring—Tortures and outrages—Entertained by the governor—A kindly police-master—Grim prison walls—Difficulties—Appeal to the governor—Shackled prisoners—Marie Spiradonova—A terrible tale—Interruptions—A Spartan mother—Letters from the fair prisoner—“Greetings to France, to England, and to America.”
ADJOINING the province of Saratoff, where I was arrested, is Tamboff, another government within the famine belt, where the long northern winters are more bitter because of the cruel ravages of starvation and hideous disease; and where there is—worst of all—the living, stalking dread of inhuman officialdom, martial law (which means Cossack excesses), police brutality, and governmental impositions that warrant the maddest crimes of men.
Here lived a young woman of twenty-one—a modern Charlotte Corday—who, early in the year 1906, killed the lieutenant-governor of the province. When her ghastly deed had been noised abroad—and the penalty she paid—the peasants gathered in their churches to offer thanksgiving and praise for using this girl as an instrument of His Divine Justice.
At the moment that I emerged from my Saratoff experience Marie Spiradonova was the most talked-of person in Russia, and perhaps the most notable prisoner in the world. The grim white-washed walls of Tamboff prison held her securely, while newspapers in Russia that dared to set forth the facts of her deed and the treatment she afterward received were confiscated by the police, and a Spiradonova League in France rolled up a lengthy list of subscribers. Correspondents from Germany, from France, from England, were sent to Tamboff to penetrate those stern walls and gather from the girl’s own lips the tragic story that was then thrilling a nation and interesting a continent. But for once neither diplomacy nor influence were of avail. Marie’s isolation was absolute and no one save her mother was privileged to so much as see her. In the meantime alarming reports of her precarious condition were emanating from Tamboff and in many sections there was intense excitement concerning her. It seemed well-nigh hopeless for me to reach her, yet I greatly desired to interview this daring spirit and to verify the extraordinary details of her ill-treatment that had kindled such intense feeling throughout Russia. Through the merest chance I succeeded. No one else has seen her or talked with her even up to the present time (she is now at hard labor in the mines of Akatui in central Siberia).
The story of Marie Spiradonova, which I set out to examine, was as follows: The lieutenant-governor of the province of Tamboff, one Luchenovsky, was one of the most tyrannical administrators in all Russia. His systematic cruelty and excessive severity spread terror throughout all the district where his power extended. He ordered the flogging of peasants and the burning of homes. It was said that he did not rebuke, if he did not actually and openly encourage, Cossack outrages; and all who knew of the inhumanities he practised and
encouraged declared that for so wicked a man this world had no place. One day Luchenovsky was in a village where some Cossacks captured a young peasant girl and kept her awhile for their sport. When they had done with her they threw her dishonored body into a near-by lake. Marie Spiradonova chanced to be in the village when this happened and she knew that Luchenovsky was aware of this incident and that he took no steps either to punish or to prevent further outrage.
A few days later Luchenovsky stood on a railroad station-platform waiting for a coming train. With a Browning revolver in her hand, Marie Spiradonova from a longish range took careful aim and fired five shots, each shot taking effect, though Luchenovsky did not die till a month afterward. During the time of his lingering death Marie wrote from her prison-cell to her sister, “I gave him five bullets. I did not know he was so thick as to need a cannon.”
She turned the sixth bullet toward her own breast, but not before a crowd, mostly soldiers, closed round her, tore the revolver from her hand, and began to beat her. They tore her clothing from her body. A Cossack officer seized her by the plait of her hair—brown hair, dark and wavy—and threw her forcibly to the ground. Consciousness left her. Eye-witnesses told how the officer then grasped one of her ankles and dragged her along the ground to a carriage in which she was conveyed to a near-by gendarmerie.
In this temporary prison she was in charge of two men, the same Cossack officer, Zhdanov, who had dragged her away, and a police officer of the rank of priestoff, named Abramoff. These two men remained with their prisoner and began drinking heavily of vodka. Then they stripped their prisoner, stark naked, and even at the sight of her bruised and bleeding body did not stop their hellish inquisition of sensuous debauchery and torture. They scarred her quivering flesh with the lighted ends of their cigarettes. They caressed and they pounded her by turns. Immediately afterward all of these revolting details were given to the world, yet no steps were taken by the officials, or by the government, to in any way reprove or censure these two men—one an officer of the police, the other an army officer. A writer in a prominent Moscow paper dared to speak out against this shame, and declared fearlessly that this girl had deliberately and thoughtfully staked her life against the life of a tyrant in order that her people might be saved from his administration of blood and suffering. For this temerity the paper was at once suppressed, and not only the writer, but the whole editorial staff, was forced to flee into hiding.
Marie Spiradonova was an assassin, therefore the military court decreed that she should die. Such was the situation when I visited Tamboff. The outcry which went up against taking the life of this girl eventually became so loud that her sentence was commuted to twenty years at hard labor. But at the time of my visit she was still under sentence of death.
Before presenting my request for an interview to any official in Tamboff, I decided to cultivate the acquaintance of the governor of the province, to discover what manner of man I had to deal with. With this in view, I called at the official residence the morning after my arrival in the city, and in due time was presented to his excellency, Governor Xanugievitch. For an hour we discussed the agrarian situation, the famine, the Duma elections, and other topics pertinent to the hour, but never a word of the real object of my visit. The Governor proved most affable and hospitable, and he extended a cordial invitation to me to dine with him.
At dinner we toasted the Czar, President Roosevelt, the Duma, and ourselves. We talked politics, art, literature, travel, and epicureanism. My host was a charmingly cultivated man and he impressed me as a much more competent and conscientious administrator than other governors whom I had met.
The next man below me at table was the police-master of Tamboff. Casually he asked me if I knew about Marie Spiradonova. I was startled by the abruptness with which he introduced the subject that was giving me so much concern, but I answered carelessly:
“I have seen her name in the papers.”
“The papers say terrible things about our treatment of her,” he added.
“Newspapers are the same the world over,” I responded diplomatically.
After a pause the police-master went on: “It is very hard on an official like myself. You see she is in a prison in my city, and many people—revolutionists and fanatics—believe I am responsible for all the cruelties that the newspapers say she has suffered.”
“Did you know the man she shot?” I asked.
“Yes—and while I cannot countenance assassination, I must say that he was a very bad man and deserved all he got.”
This was the first time an official had ever been so outspoken, and I was surprised. The next thing he said fairly made my heart thump.
“So many lies have been told about this girl that I wish some one who would tell the literal truth would interview her and give the facts to the world—up to now no one has seen her at all.”
“I should think you could easily find some one to do that,” I replied.
“No,” said he, “it is not easy to find one you can trust.”
With all the nonchalance I could command I then said:
“If you care to arrange for me to see her I will not only report truthfully, but I will show you my report before I publish it.”
The man looked deeply grateful, and at once petitioned the governor to grant me permission to visit the much-talked-of prisoner in her cell. The governor hesitated at first, but finally consented; thus before I had really begun the difficult task of securing entrance to the prison, the whole matter seemed settled for me.
In the light of the revelations that followed I can only explain the attitude of the police-master and the governor in one way. Both of them are honest men, and neither had, up to that time, I really believe, a true version of the story.
No attempt was made to prejudice me against Spiradonova. “I will grant you permission to see her, and I shall be interested in learning your opinion,” was all the governor said. The police-master offered to escort us to the prison himself. I was to be accompanied by Mr. Nahum Luboshitz of London, a photographer and interpreter. The rendezvous was at the prison-gate at three o’clock in the afternoon.
We arrived first, Luboshitz and I. A soldier in a long, brown coat, with a gun over his shoulder, paced slowly before the great iron gate that joined the strong walls.
“Please don’t look so intently, sir,” he said approaching.
“The superior officer is very severe,” he answered. “He will punish me if you look so sharply at the prison.”
As if mortal eye could penetrate those walls!
As the clock struck three a carriage drove up and the police-master joined us.
A peep-hole cut in the small door of the huge gate was slipped back in response to the heavy knock sounded by the chief of police. A pair of eyes surveyed us, and the small door was thrown open. The chief bowed his head to escape the low portal, and stepped in. We followed. Several soldiers stood in the breach between the outer wall and the prison proper. These saluted. We went directly to the kontora, or office, where we found the prison-master—a burly, blue-eyed, sandy-bearded fellow, who looked the bully.
Now, the rank of prison-master is equal with the rank of police-master, and between these two men, as also with the commander of the military forces in and about the prison, who again is of equal rank, is a constant clash and friction. The police-master presented us to the prison-master and told him we had come to see Spiradonova. The prison-master greeted us pleasantly enough, surveyed us with obvious and open suspicion, and replied that this we might not do without a written order from the governor. The chief told him that the governor had sanctioned our coming, and asked him to escort us. This made little impression upon the little czar, whose kingdom is encircled with iron bars and strong walls. It took a good deal of persuasion to get him to yield even to the extent of telephoning to the governor to learn if it was his wish that we should see Spiradonova. This was finally done, however, and an affirmative answer received.
The prison-master, from the moment we entered the prison, put every obstacle in our way that he could, and took advantage of every opportunity to thwart our purpose—which was to get the true story of the girl from her own lips. When the governor telephoned that he had asked the police-master to accompany us to see that every courtesy was extended to us, and to insure that we saw Marie Spiradonova in her own cell, there seemed nothing else for the prison-master to do but to yield.
Shackles, clamped round human ankles, clanked and rattled in the dark, damp corridors down which we were led. At a turning stood a group of “politicals”—beardless college boys in their student jackets. We crossed a yard, passed the windows of a workshop where busy looms rattled. A long, low workshop, from which issued noises of the forge, of iron whelting and hammer strokes, stood in the center of the yard. We passed round it and entered a court, at the end of which stood a similar, but smaller, building of whitewashed stone and low roof, with iron-grated windows. The door stood to one side and was approached by a small, wooden porch. We entered the outer door and turned abruptly to the left and stood before a barred door with a small peep-hole, crossed by iron, cut at eye level. The chief of police headed our file; I followed, and at my heels Mr. Luboshitz, behind him the prison-master, a military officer, several soldiers and three prison officials. The chief threw open the door and held it wide with extended arm for me to pass in first.
I stepped over the threshold and stood face to face with the most famous “terrorist” in Russia.
She was a delicate girl with soft, blue eyes that deepened to violet as the pink in her clear cheeks deepened to a hectic red as she talked. Her wavy brown hair was parted in the middle and draped over her temples to hide hideous scars left by the kicks of the Cossacks. Her costume was a simple, blue, prison dress.
She stood quietly awaiting our approach, a little mystified apparently.
The chief of police was the first to speak.
“Mademoiselle,” he said, removing his hat and addressing her with all the courtesy of a gentleman approaching any lady in his wife’s drawing-room; “Mademoiselle, these gentlemen are from America. They would like to talk with you for a few minutes if you feel equal to it.”
“Certainly,” she replied, and turned with a grateful smile toward me.
With characteristic delicacy the very polite chief of police at once withdrew, and as long as we remained with her he continued to pace the outer court. Not so the prison-master, soldiers, and other officials.
“Do you speak French, mademoiselle?” I asked.
“Yes, monsieur, a little; or German.”
“What about English?”
“A leetle,” she answered, laughing nervously.
She was still standing. There was but one chair in the room, a wooden chair. This I drew toward her and she sat down. As she did so her handkerchief dropped from her hand. We all noticed it, for it was wet and stained with blood.
Luboshitz picked it up and handed it to her. As he turned away I saw beads of cold sweat standing on his brow, and he told me afterward that he thought he was on the point of fainting.
“Once I knew all the languages, monsieur,” she went on, “but since my head was hurt I find it difficult to remember.”
Her voice was soft and rich, even melodious.
“Are you comfortable—and well?” I asked—with awkwardness, I must confess.
“Je suis très malade.”
The prison-master interrupted.
“Speak only in Russian,” he said.
We knew it would be difficult to talk freely in a language which he and the soldiers understood, and so Luboshitz began at once to photograph her. While he was doing this I stood near her, and as frequently as seemed expedient we exchanged sentences in French.
“Did you come to Tamboff expressly to see me, monsieur?”
“Yes, mademoiselle. Of course.”
“Then people are talking about me?”
“They are, indeed. And not in Russia only, but in other countries. In France there is a Spiradonova League.”
“Speak Russian!” commanded the prison-master.
As she leaned against the white wall near her barred window, she said:
“That is what I mind most, monsieur—that soldier who is always looking in at me.”
Her head rested against the cold plaster, and a half shadow fell across her face. Her delicate mouth was drawn tight, but her eyes shot bright glances toward us. She was so pathetically glad at our coming—probably the first bit of cheerful change since her incarceration. In the room was a dingy bed and a shaky table, which with the one chair comprised all of the furniture. As she talked a beautiful expression played over her regular features, and I thought of the word applied to her by the police-master—“Exalté.”
“To see you, mademoiselle,” I ventured again in
French, “one would think that you looked upon your situation here as if it were the hour of your greatest happiness—”
“Ah, monsieur, in a way I am happy, but—”
A hand rested on my shoulder.
Once too often had we defied the authorities.
“Very well,” I answered. “Let her tell her story in Russian, from the very beginning.”
“She may not speak further,” added the prison-master.
“But we came here to listen to her story.”
“That is impossible.”
“But we have the governor’s permission.”
“Have you it in writing?”
“The police-master is our cicerone.”
We called to him and asked him if it was not his understanding that we were to hear her story from her own lips.
“Assuredly. It was the governor’s expressed wish,” he answered.
“I cannot permit it,” sternly returned the prison-master.
“You must. That is why I came with them, to see that they got every word from her.”
“I am the responsible man here, and I cannot permit her to speak.”
The parley continued, but the prison-master was obdurate.
At last Spiradonova spoke: “Believe absolutely nothing unless you hear it from me.”
She uttered the words slowly, distinctly, each syllable weighted with meaning.
The situation was most uncomfortable. The police-master was deeply embarrassed and annoyed. The prison-master grim. Spiradonova cool, contained, and, in her attitude toward the prison-master, defiant and scornful.
Turning to me, the police-master said: “The man is a fool—a beast! Does he not see that here is his opportunity to clear away those awful charges? What story can you report now? That he would not let you talk to her! Fool!”
The prison-master was determined that the story of Marie Spiradonova should not be told us by her. Recognizing the futility of further parleying, I finally asked her if the letter she had succeeded in smuggling out to a friend a little while before was true in every detail.
“Yes,” she answered, “in every word!”
When the interview was forced to a conclusion, I extended my hand toward her. Her fingers closed round mine with a firm and certain grip. She looked me fairly in the eyes. I felt that I stood in the presence of one whose inner calm was strong, and whose motives were as noble as pure. It was Napoleon who said: “One may be deceived in a face. But in a hand never.” The hand of Spiradonova is large and full. Her fingers are slightly tapering, but strong—the hand of a strong woman.
“Monsieur,” she called, as I stepped over the threshold, “take my greetings to France, to England, and to America.”
Her letter, describing the incidents which followed her shooting of Luchenovsky, is a remarkable transcript of a present-day inquisition. Here is the body of the letter:
When I had fired five times at him, the escort recovered themselves. The platform was crowded with Cossacks, and there were shouts of “Strike,” “Slash,” “Fire”! and swords were drawn. When I saw this, I thought my end had come, and I decided not to give myself up alive. With this in view, I pointed my revolver at my head, when I was stunned by several blows, and fell flat on the platform. Further blows on the face and head sent a thrill of pain through my whole body. I tried to say “Leave me to be shot,” but blows fell continuously. I tried to protect my face with my hands, but they were pushed away with the butts of the rifles. Then the Cossack officers seized me by my braid of hair, lifted me up bodily, and with a great swing threw me down on the platform. I lost my senses. My hands were unclasped, and the blows fell on my face and head. Then they dragged me by one leg down the stair-case, my head bumping on each step. Then they took me again by the braid, and lifted me on to the vehicle of the isvoschik. They took me to a house, and the Cossack officer asked me my name. When making the attempt I had decided not to hide my name, but at this moment I forgot my name. They beat me again on the face and breast. When I was taken to the police station they undressed me and searched me, and took me to a cold cell with a wet, dirty, stone floor. At about noon or one o’clock, the assistant chief of police, Zhdanov, and a Cossack officer, Abramov, came. They stayed in my cell, with short intervals, till eleven at night. They examined me with refined methods of torture that Ivan the Terrible might have envied. Zhdanov would kick me into the corner of the cell, and then the Cossack would throw me back to Zhdanov, who put his foot on my neck. They ordered me to be stripped, at the same time preventing the cold cell from being warmed. They flogged me with the nagaika, with terrible oaths, saying: “Now, then ..., deliver us a thrilling speech!” One of my eyes was quite closed at that time, and the right side of my face terribly bruised. Pressing on that sore place, they would ask: “Painful, dear?” with a sardonic smile. “Now tell us, who are your comrades?” I was often delirious, but had a sense of dread of saying anything, and I am sure there was nothing in what I said but unconnected nonsense.
When I came to, I told them that I would answer the questions put to me by the proper officials; also that I belonged to the town of Tamboff, and that Procuror Kamenev and other gendarmes could testify to this. This provoked quite a storm of indignation. They pulled hairs out of my head one by one, and asked where other revolutionists could be found. They pressed their lighted cigarettes on my bare body, saying: “Cry out, then, you wretch!” They stamped on my feet with their heavy boots, pressed them as if in a vise, and shouted: “Scream, then, you ——. We have made whole villages bellow, but you, miserable little girl, haven’t screamed once, either at the station or here. But we will make you scream. We will amuse ourselves with your sufferings. We will give you to the Cossacks for the night.” “No,” said Abramov, “we will have you for ourselves first, and then give you to the Cossacks.” Brutal hugging followed, with shouts of “Scream, then!” But I am positive that I did not scream once, either at the station or police office. I only talked half-consciously. At eleven o’clock, they had recorded my disposition, but they declined to produce it in Tamboff, because I was delirious all the time.
Then I was taken by train to Tamboff. The train is moving slowly. It is cold and dark. The air is thick with Abramov’s brutal oaths. He swears at me terribly. I felt the breath of death. Even the Cossacks felt uneasy. “Why are you silent, men? Sing! Let those wretches die with our merriment.” Then shouting and whistling began. Passions ran high. Eyes and teeth glittered, and the singing was disgusting. I was raving “Water!” No water. Then the officer takes me to the second class. He is drunk and very amiable. His arms embrace me. He unbuttons my dress. His drunken lips mutter in a beastly way: “What a velvet breast! What a magnificent body!” I have no more strength to repulse him, no voice to call out, and what use if I had? I would willingly dash my head against something, if there were anything, but this brutalized scoundrel will not allow it. He kicks me in order to disable me. I call upon the police officer, who is asleep. The Cossack officer murmurs, caressing my chin: “Why do you clench your little teeth? Look out, you may break them?” I could not get a moment of sleep that night. In the daytime he offers me wine and chocolate, and when people go away he caresses me again. Just before reaching Tamboff I fell asleep for an hour. I awoke because the officer’s arm was upon me. While taking me to the prison, he said: “After all, I am embracing you.” In Tamboff I was delirious again, and fell terribly ill.
When Marie was brought to trial her judges looked upon her youth, and listened to the terrible recital of her tortures unmoved. She had killed a man, an official of the bureaucracy, therefore she must die. An opportunity was given her to speak, and she rose up and quietly said:
“Gentlemen Judges! Look around you! Where do you see the light faces of the happy and contented? There are no such faces. Even those who seem, now, to have the victorious hand, are afflicted by grief—they know their hour of triumph is brief.
“I am about to be sent from this life. You may kill me—you may kill me over and over again as you already have done. You may subject me to the most terrible penalties—but you can add nothing to what I have already endured. I do not fear death. You may, now, kill my body, but you cannot destroy my belief that the time of the people’s happiness and freedom is surely coming, a time when the life of the people will express itself in forms in which truth and justice will be realized—when the ideas of brotherhood and freedom will be no more empty sounds, but part of our every-day, real life. If this is truth it is no grief to lay down one’s life—
“I have finished.”
A few days later the following letter was received from her by some friends in Tamboff, smuggled out through a chain of civil criminals:
My Dear Comrades:
Turn over my money partly to Jennie, the balance, the greatest, turn over to T. I often pass sleepless nights, but I feel courageously and I know how to save my energy, which has accumulated owing to idleness.
I dream of the time to hand. My wish is growing stronger and I fear that I will commit suicide if the autocracy will show me clemency. My death appears to me of such a value to my people that I will receive any act of clemency from the Czar as an act of revenge and insult.
If it will be possible and if they will not kill me soon, I will try to be useful by gathering new followers.
I would like to know how things are in Tamboff. Have you sufficient books for the peasants now in prison? Do your duty. It is important that they should leave prison as revolutionists or near that.
I embrace all my old comrades and shake the hands of the new ones.
Send me your postals with your handwriting. They will be dear to me.
My greetings to all.
Yours,
M.
P.S. The treatment is good. My health: Fever, cough, headache.
I forgot to say my comradeship in the party of the revolutionists is taken by me, not only as an acceptance of its program and tactics, but much higher. It means to me sacrifice of life, of hopes, of sentiments, for the realization of its ideas. It means to dispose of each minute of life in such a way that the cause shall gain.
M.
Luchenovsky was succeeded by a wise and humane man, who valued human life, even that of simple peasants. In the province of Tamboff Cossacks ceased to riot through the villages, looting at will and preying upon the helpless inhabitants. The taking of this one life, at the sacrifice of her own, ended for the time, at least, an era of darkness in Tamboff and saved the honor of untold women and the lives of many.
The two officers who so foully abused her went unpunished so far as the Russian authorities were concerned, but after the lapse of a few weeks Abramov was found dead in the street one night, and several weeks later Zhdanov’s lifeless body was also discovered.
Hundreds of men in Tamboff had wished and prayed for the death of Luchenovsky. But only a girl dared. Whether that girl had hysteria (as some asserted), or not, is of small consequence. Joan of Arc was a neurasthenic.
That night, after my visit to Spiradonova, when dark had settled over Tamboff, I stumbled down a littered street not more than a hundred yards from the prison to a poor little cottage, once painted red, now weather-worn and shabby. Within sat a middle-aged woman with large, dark eyes and creased, anxious face. I found her in an inner room, sitting with folded arms by a low-burning lamp. “Yes, Marie Spiradonova is my daughter,” she said. Then with quiet voice, not untouched with pride, she told me about the childhood days of the girl now shut apart from her by prison walls. She told me how from an early age Marie was studious, and thought to study medicine. Her three sisters all turned toward medicine, and two are dentists. Marie’s ambition was to be a doctor. She studied very hard, but when her country fell under deeper and darker oppressions, she could think of nothing but the sufferings of her people, so she gave up everything to serve the movement that was making for freedom.
I knew that two of Marie’s sisters were also in prison at that time, one for merely having received a letter from Marie, and the other had been taken as a suspected propagandist. There was no direct charge against her.
“Madame,” I said to the mother, “how does it make you feel to have three of your daughters in prison at one time on political charges?”
The old lady was thoughtful for a moment and then, in a voice fervent and earnest, a voice I shall never forget, she replied:
“It makes me the proudest mother in all Russia.”
Shortly after my return to St. Petersburg I received the following letter. Like the others it had been smuggled out of the prison, as I afterward learned, through a chain of civil criminals:
I am very sorry that I could not speak more with you. The conditions of my arrest are heavy, because I am isolated and the soldiers are always at my window. During the three months of my arrest I have not once slept without my clothes—the soldiers keep looking in upon me all the time. I am embarrassed at each movement. You can understand how such constant scrutiny amounts to torture, for I cannot get rid of civilized customs to the extent of undressing before the eyes of men.
The physicians find it necessary that I should be quiet, and to walk continuously in the fresh air for one hour each day. The government gives me this hour of freedom, but under disagreeable conditions, owing to the curiosity of the soldiers.
If the people of America are interested in the fate of this Russian girl, tell them that they must rather interest themselves in the fatherland of this girl. The revolutionary movement here is now making for liberty. I want for nothing personally because for a long time I have not existed personally. My heart and my soul are given to this movement—the movement which is in the service of the people.
There is no basis for comparison, this solitude of the soul. The feeling of shame makes me shudder. It will not leave my memory, and can never be effaced. There is nothing with which to liken this torture of the pride, of the self-respect. This suffering is as poignant as the blows of my tormentors. The same hands that beat the hungering peasants caressed and slapped me!... Still, the government, with all its experience in lies, and its permission of illegal actions among its servants, will not succeed in rehabilitating these two men. They are condemned beyond recall, branded with the scorn of the people.
I was glad to see free people, from a quiet, liberty-loving land, to receive their salutations....
My spirit is now strong, and without fear I await deportation and catagora. If the government does not succeed in killing me with tortures during these years I believe I shall be free.
Good-by—I give you both my hands.”
(Signed) Marie Spiradonova.
The famous October manifesto—Skepticism of Russian people toward promise of Constitution—Difficulties placed in way of honest voting—Czar’s insincerity and duplicity—Fundamental and exceptional laws—Ministerial change on eve of Duma—St. Petersburg possessed by troops—The Winter Palace spectacle—The throne speech—Disappointment of deputies—“Amnesty! Amnesty!”—“The first shot”—Make-up of first Duma—First session—Zeal of representatives—Hostile attitude of government—Work of Duma—Governmental policy of obstruction—Dissolution—The Viborg manifesto—The present peril—The promise of the future in the light of the attitude of the Czar.
THE famous manifesto granting representative government to the Russian people was issued October 30, 1905. After brief delays and one postponement the date for the meeting of the first parliament (to be called Duma, which is to say “Think”) was set for May 10, 1906.
“Forty days of freedom” followed the manifesto, when the world at large accepted the promise contained in the October manifesto as genuine. Then black reaction shut down over all Russia and the people began to understand that all is not gold that glitters even when molded into royal insignia. Prince B——, a well-known courtier, told me, a month before the day appointed for the convocation, that he knew absolutely there would be no parliament in Russia for many years to come. The Czar had been coerced into promising representative government by Count Witte at a time when a wave of revolt, mutiny, and rebellion had caught the imperial camp napping, and to stay this tide for the nonce the manifesto was issued. One week before the meeting a general in command of one of the most important branches of the army said in my hearing: “Duma?” There will be no Duma. Or if it meets it will merely be that we may capture the members on our bayonets.” The people themselves had but little more faith in the royal pledge. Both of the revolutionary parties—the Social Democrats and the Social Revolutionaries—openly mocked the gullibility of the intellectual constitutionalists (who pretended to believe in the manifesto), and boycotted the elections. The elections, therefore, were often farcical. The situation was not improved by the discriminating rules governing the voting issued by the government, nor by the menacing attitude of the military and police authorities on balloting-days. I was in Rostoff-on-Don, for example, on the day set for the voting and the guard of Cossacks stationed at the polling-places was so large and the men were so hostile in their attitude that the Rostoff citizens could not be hired to approach the voting-booths. About noon a proclamation was issued setting another day for the elections.
When a local governor was displeased with the electors chosen, or with the deputy finally selected to go to the imperial Duma, he sometimes declared the entire election “illegal,” or found a slender and often ridiculous pretext for annulling the vote cast for the man actually chosen, or even for exiling the candidate to the North or to Siberia.
Two months later, when this Duma had been dissolved, the Czar said in the presence of Prince T——, a good friend of mine: “I believe Russia can run for twenty
years more without a parliament, and I intend to do all I can to guide my country back to where we were before the October manifesto.” These are the words of the Czar. They attain especial significance in the light of later events, and it is evident to every thoughtful observer that the Czar had already determined upon his policy before the Duma had met at all. Every act of his indicates this: the promulgation of the fundamental laws on May 8, his false and empty speech from the throne, his refusal to receive the Duma’s response to the throne speech, the dissolution, the dissolution of succeeding dumas, and the gradual retrenchment and curtailment of every liberty he had ever promised. It is highly important to interpret the history of Russia’s parliamentary beginnings in the light of the attitude of the Czar.
On the eve of the meeting of the Duma the government issued a lengthy list of so-called “fundamental” and “exceptional” laws which prenatally devitalized and emasculated the new Duma. These laws were declared unalterable by the Duma. The powers of the Czar, as autocrat, were defined to include the sole right of proposing changes in the fundamental laws to the Council of Empire[9] and the Duma; the right of veto; the appointment of executive, the ministers, the judges; the decisions of peace and war; the control and command of the army and navy. Ordinary laws could not be passed without the consent of both houses and the Czar, but the Czar might promulgate “special” laws, and under the cloak of “martial” law any number or any kind of special laws might be established. The council of ministers, too, might promulgate “temporary” laws—with the consent of the Czar. (“Temporary” special legislation against the Jews enacted fifty years ago still remains.) While the parliament was to meet annually, the Czar reserved the right to dismiss it at any time. The parliament was to have no control over the public debt, or the expenses of the court or ministry. War taxes and foreign loans might be made without the advice or consent of the Duma. The ministers were to remain responsible to the Czar and not to the Duma.
Thus Russia’s first parliament was left a mere shell, empty of power and authority.
In spite of the doubting attitude of the people at large toward the good faith of the Emperor and the government, in spite of the restrictions of the elections, a remarkably sane and liberal body of men returned to the Duma.
On May 1 Count Witte ceased to be premier, and an impotent little gentleman named Gorymekin succeeded him.
On May 2 M. Durnovo, the unscrupulous and reactionary minister of interior, notified the governors of the provinces that they were to prevent peasant deputies from traveling to St. Petersburg with Constitutional Democrats! The Constitutional Democrats being composed almost entirely of university professors, professional men, and other “intellectuals,” it was evidently feared that the unlettered peasants might be contaminated.
Two days later M. Durnovo relinquished his portfolio, but became secretary of state and retained the dignity of senator.
Thus with a new and untried cabinet, Russia awaited the assembling of her first Duma.
All through the night of May 9 troops were poured into St. Petersburg. The sun rose the morning of the 10th upon a miniature army in possession of the capital. From dawn the streets were a-flutter with excitement. Flags were extended from myriad windows. Squadrons of cavalry and regiments of infantry were moving hither and yon—mostly in the direction of the Winter Palace. All streets tending that way were early blockaded. Orderlies and aides-de-camp galloped through the most crowded thoroughfares. Officers in their most splendid uniforms filled the hotel lobbies.
The spacious square before the Winter Palace was occupied by more troops than on any occasion since that Sunday, fifteen months before, when Father Gapon headed a certain procession of working-men who sought to wait upon the Czar, their “Little Father,” and were shot down like an enemy on a battle plain. On both occasions the shadow of the statue of an angel of peace supporting a cross—symbol of surpassing love and infinite compassion—fell across the square. Cossacks of the royal guard in coats of scarlet, and dashing Lancers, were quartered about that beautiful figure, and the slender shadow cast by the towering column touched them as with a warning finger.
The privileges of the balcony in the throne room were extended to the foreign correspondents whose credentials had satisfied the police and palace authorities. Arrayed in evening clothes since mid-forenoon, we sweltered with the soldiers in the piping hot square before the palace. Shortly after one o’clock the doors were thrown open to us, and we filed past various and sundry officials, who scrutinized our passes (each one of which bore the authenticated photograph of the bearer), and we passed in more haste than dignity to our several coigns of vantage around the marble gallery.
Presently the privileged of the bureaucracy who had been “commanded” to appear in full court dress began to take their places—the senators and councilors of state, the generals and admirals, the foreign ambassadors, and, lastly, the Duma deputies. With mild interest we watched these groups gather. These were but the spectacular background for an intense, though brief, drama about to be enacted—how significant, how tragic, no one knew, nor cared to guess.
It was not yet two o’clock when the strains of the national anthem were heard in a distant chamber, heralding royalty’s approach. The magnificent procession advanced with measured steps. A strained hush spread over the room. Twelve hundred eyes turned toward the portal, and neither the dazzling glitter of imperial insignia, nor the splendor of the royal standard, caused a quiver of distraction. Neither grand dukes nor grand duchesses, Empress or Dowager-Empress, not even Trepoff himself, commanded a single glance. Eagerly every eye in the room sought one figure—the Czar!
The first view of him spoke only of pathos. Unutterably lonely he appeared—a slight shuffling figure with a pale, set face.
Three paces into the room his feet strayed out from the line of procession; his head jerked awkwardly. His breast heaved markedly and his shoulders were squared with an effort. There was timidity in his glance and his step was never sure. Those of us who were to his right, and near enough, saw him fumble for his trousers-pocket