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 They were, however, withdrawn, probably owing to representations made to the Government that an attack upon Finland at such a moment would prove an obstacle to the much-needed loan from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.