One of these sympathisers with Nihilism was known among the conspirators as the dvornik, because in his anxious care for the safety of his companions he ruled them as tyrannically as the doorkeeper, whose functions as an unpaid assistant of the police have been already described. This man made it his business to impress caution on his comrades, and so strictly, that when anyone was known to be under surveillance he would arrange for his concealment, and insist constantly on changing the hiding-place. The dvornik was quite a specialist in the business of circumventing the police. He knew them by heart and all their ways. On one occasion he hired an apartment exactly opposite the house in which the chief of the secret police lived, and watched it so closely day after day that he became acquainted with numbers of persons employed by the Police. He knew half the spies in St. Petersburg by sight, and had made a study of their peculiar methods, their manner of watching, the way they started on a hunt, how they pursued their quarry. After a time he could “spot” any new spy, could penetrate the cleverest disguises of the old hands and detect small signs that betrayed them to him, but were quite unseen by others. In the same way he had thoroughly mastered St. Petersburg: he knew his way all over the city, was acquainted with all sorts of places of refuge and with every house that had two outlets, so that he was invaluable in helping anyone to escape. A fugitive placed under his guidance could be conveyed with absolute safety from one part of the city to another, so clever was he in covering up his tracks.
Speaking on the general question, Leroy Beaulieu in his monumental work on Russia says: “The police has been at all times a sink of abuses and extortions, because, of all departments, it enjoys the greatest facilities for indulging in them. In spite of the particular attention of which it has always been the object, this department, on which all the rest lean for support, has always been so far one of the most defective. In the cities, especially in the capitals, where they are under the eyes of the highest authorities, the force leave—externally—little to be desired. They are attentive, courteous, helpful, if not always honest. A foreigner who, in St. Petersburg, judged them from the outside only, would think the service perfect. Yet the long unpunished daring of the Nihilists has revealed only too clearly its incompetence and carelessness. The astounding powerlessness which the police displayed on these occasions is traceable chiefly to the habitual vices of Russian administration: ignorance, indolence, venality.”
General Baranof in 1881, when head of the police, found that a great number of his men could not sign their names correctly. Many more, even those of high grades, were supremely ignorant of the laws and regulations they were called upon to administer. The general tone was low, and the force was recruited from a very inferior class, for the police and their work are much despised by respectable citizens. The pay has always been ridiculously small, thereby directly encouraging the dishonest practices, the more or less enforced contributions levied on the public in every direction, by which it has been eked out. The members of a force, driven by extreme penury into illicit earnings, could hardly be loyal, and it has been always easy for the revolutionists to buy relaxed watchfulness, and even complicity. So ineffective was the official police that in 1881 the city of St. Petersburg was invited to reinforce it by electing a council to co-operate in watching over the personal safety of the Czar. It was not the first time that well meaning loyal subjects had desired to assist the Government in the pursuit of its foes. The idea of the droujina, an ancient secret society, was revived. It was a sort of Vigilance Society composed of special police volunteers, acting with the official police, but unpaid, and with no recognised status. The promoters thought that the best method of combating conspiracy was to meet conspirators on their own ground and with their own arms. Its organisation and action were secret. Among other measures it offered rewards to peasants and workmen who would inform the authorities of any plots in progress; another idea was to meet outrage by anticipation, to face the Nihilists with their own weapons, and blow them up with dynamite before they could use it to subvert existing authority. The droujina rejoiced in the epithets of “holy” and “life-saving,” but it achieved nothing tangible. It had the command of considerable funds, freely subscribed, and was carried on by a number of zealous persons, but it is not on record that they arrested a single conspirator, though, like the police, they sometimes took up the wrong people.
The well-known case of Vera Zassoulich showed conclusively how little the police were able to protect themselves. It was she who resolved, like a second Charlotte Corday, to call General Trépoff, the Prefect of civil police in St. Petersburg, to account for his cruel ill-usage of a prisoner, one Bogoli Ouboff. This man at one of Trépoff’s inspections did not remove his hat when the General passed. Trépoff not only struck him with his stick, but ordered him to be flogged. Corporal punishment had been abolished, and the order was therefore illegal; it caused great indignation in St. Petersburg, and nearly produced a serious outbreak in the prison. The story travelled far and wide, finally reaching the ears of Vera Zassoulich in a far-off province, that of Penza, seven months later. She started at once for St. Petersburg, and obtained admission to Trépoff’s presence on pretence of presenting a petition. But directly she saw him she drew a pistol from her pocket and fired at him point-blank. Trépoff was badly wounded in the side, but eventually recovered. Vera was seized and removed, but her demeanour was calm and self-possessed, and she only asked to be allowed to put on her shawl, which she had left in the waiting-room. It was thought that Vera’s attack was a part of a general conspiracy, but there seems to be little doubt that she acted altogether alone and on her own motion.
The sequel was curious, and showed how generally Trépoffs arbitrariness was condemned. Vera was brought before an ordinary tribunal, tried, and acquitted. Her friends then very judiciously got her out of the country, fearing, and with good reason, that this decision would not be allowed to stand. They were perfectly right, for the Government overruled the verdict, although given by a legally constituted tribunal, and ordered Vera to be re-arrested. Happily for her, she was already safe in Switzerland. After this the Government decreed by ukase that all political offences should be tried, not by a jury, but by a specially constituted tribunal. They were, in fact, to be brought before a court-martial having the same powers as in war-time, and inflicting penalties under the military code, which included deportation and the loss of civil rights.
The passport, by which every individual is, or ought to be, held and ticketed so as to be recognised and easily followed wherever he goes, is a terrible burden on a people half of whom are compelled by the climate and the poorness of the soil to spend six months of every year away from home. To be obliged to take out a passport before leaving home is at once a hindrance to movement and a tax upon the pocket. To abolish the passport would be a first great step towards according freedom to the whole population. As it is, no one can choose his own residence, nor follow his profession as he pleases; still less can people collect and group themselves in places where the productiveness of the soil would naturally encourage them to do so. Yet the obligation is by no means effective; it is constantly evaded. The fabrication of false passports is a very flourishing trade, which has been of immense service to the revolutionists in covering up their movements and concealing from the eyes of justice those “wanted.”
A story is told of a Russian gentleman who was in a hurry to leave Odessa and travel to the shores of the Mediterranean. Not choosing to waste time in presenting himself at the Passport Bureau, he accepted the services of a commissionaire, who promised to get him the passport for a comparatively small sum, a little under £4. The would-be traveller accepted the offer, and next day started from home with the passport all in proper form.