From Vyatka I traveled by a new railroad to Vologda and St. Petersburg, arriving in the capital early in October, when the nights were lengthening and the icy air was calling out the winter furs.
CHAPTER XVIII
MY FRIENDS, THE TERRORISTS
“Terrorism” almost universally misunderstood in America—Terrorism a philosophy based on logical, intelligent, dispassionate reasoning—Exceptional incidents that merely prove the rule—Relation of terrorists to the whole revolutionary movement—Differentiation of the several leading revolutionary parties—Thoughtful and humane methods of recent terrorists—Capture of “The Bear”—Two girl terrorists executed at Kronstadt—The daring Maximalists—“Flying Bands”—Rigid morals of terrorists—Total abstainers—Personnel of the Maximalists—A famous “expropriation”—Plot on the Duma—Bomb in the home of Prime Minister Stolypin—The most daring plot of all.
Y interview with Marie Spiradonova on the eve of her deportation to Siberia led to my meeting a good many terrorists. A Moscow newspaper made so bold as to print a short account of my experience in the Tamboff prison and the entire edition of the journal was confiscated by the police. A week or two later, in St. Petersburg, Professor Paul Miliukoff’s paper, the “Retsch,” the official organ of the Constitutional Democratic Party, published one or two of the photographs of Marie that Luboshitz had taken on the occasion of our visit, and the police descended upon it. Some one, unknown to me, procured one of these newspaper reprints and used it for an edition of Marie Spiradonova postcards. A Moscow book-shop placed these cards on sale and the police permanently closed the shop—after taking all of the cards. These and other incidents which developed out of the Tamboff visit seemed to offer a guarantee to the members of the Extreme Left that I was trustworthy. I may have been needlessly reckless, perhaps, in the way I availed myself of the opportunities presented through this chance means, for nowhere in the world to-day is playing with fire apt to lead to deeper burns.
I need look back over only as many months as I can count on my fingers to realize the appalling price these daring men and women of the skirmish line of the revolution pay for devotion to their ideals of a free Russia. Some died where they stood when they cast their one blow for Russia; some died, blindfolded, bullet-riddled, as the dawn wind blew fresh across the fortress courtyard; others swung ignominiously from a hangman’s scaffold, the sunlight and the wide, blue sky shut away from their last vision by a hood of black; at least two checkmated their captors and laughingly claimed their heritage of death by their own hands; several lie in living death in the far north; several rot in pestiferous prisons; a handful are in voluntary exile abroad—dreaming, planning, watching for the moment when they may most effectively return to the fight.
Terrorism and assassination are the monumental bugbears—in America. Of all the complexities of the Russian situation, nothing is so little understood, so frequently—I might almost say so universally—misunderstood in America as terrorism. Terrorism in America means “anarchy,” and that suggests Haymarket riots or Czolgosz fanaticism—both of which are entirely outside the pale of terrorism as it is understood in Russia. Terrorism is a philosophy and a policy, rather than the impulsive action of human passions. It is true, of course, in individual cases, that the father or husband of an outraged girl will seek reprisal himself when hopeless of lawful aid, but cases of individual revenge have nothing in common with terrorism properly so-called.
Incidental to the terrorism of political origin is a certain amount of assassination worthy of mention. I mean assassination resulting from specific acts of military or administrative officials. For example, last year a number of women teachers in the Caucasus met to confer upon educational methods, and to lay out a plan for an improved curriculum. The government disapproved of their taking so much upon themselves, and sent Cossacks to break up the meeting. Not content with dispersing it, the colonel of the Cossacks said to his soldiers: “These women are yours.” The Cossacks then outraged all the teachers. Neither the colonel nor any of his men were punished. It is not difficult to understand how the friends and near ones of these young women felt toward the colonel who was responsible. It is not to be wondered at if some one—a father, a brother, a lover, or perhaps one of the dishonored women—took up bomb or revolver in retaliation. What would American fathers, or brothers, or lovers, do under like circumstances?
So long as the Russian government and the military and police authorities encourage massacres, and do not rebuke such enormities as these, absolutism will continue to be tempered by assassination. Under such pressure as this the strongest wall of reason, the finest ideals of manhood, fall away, and the impulse of the moment becomes not merely the supreme, but the only dynamic of life.
Terrorism, however, does not rest on a mere personal basis. These incidents—to which might easily be added a vast number—simply account for the picking off of a man here and there, usually a man of subordinate rank.