The wreck of M. Stolypin’s room
M. Stolypin was in this room when the bomb exploded. Twenty-eight persons were killed and a score more wounded, but he was uninjured
tremendous set-back the party began suddenly to grow and develop fresh strength. Young blood from different parts of the country offered their services to the Maximalists. They were prepared to perform any commission that would be a blow against the government. The government was still in sore need for money as the new foreign loan had not then been negotiated, and so it seemed that the confiscation of government funds from every possible source was a most effective way of worrying the administration. Also, these robberies following one upon another in rapid succession, continuing for weeks, demonstrated to the world the weakness of the government in regard to its police administration, and helped to increase the feeling abroad of the government’s powerlessness. At the same time the revolution was in sad straits for money. The government had sent expeditions everywhere to disarm the people. To re-arm half of Russia every now and again is a huge task, and terribly costly; therefore, this policy of the Maximalists was practical revolutionary service (however one may regard it ethically), inasmuch as it was embarrassing to the government.
The next big plot was arranged in June. It was to blow up the ministers in the Duma. This plot has never before been disclosed, but I can vouch for its authenticity. Indeed I was conversant with the details of the plan from the day it was concocted.
The Duma had asked the ministers to resign. The Duma had gone further—it had demanded that the ministry resign. When any minister appeared in the Duma tribunal to speak, he was hissed and hooted. Yet there was no word of demission. The Maximalists then said: “As an auxiliary body it is now our duty to impress upon the whole world that the word of the Duma must be obeyed. The Duma is the people. When the Duma cries to the ministers: ‘Resign’! that cry must be understood as coming from the country at large. Since they do not resign of their own will, the Maximalists will undertake to coerce them.”
The plan finally adopted was to teach all of the ministers of autocracy a grand lesson by blowing up as many of the ministers as could be caught together in an accessible place. At that time the ministers were frequenting the Duma. It was not unusual for five and six ministers and assistant ministers to gather in the ministerial box of an afternoon to listen to the people’s chosen representatives proclaiming diatribes against the wicked administration.
The Maximalists procured plans of the Duma, found a means of access through forged tickets carefully copied from an original ticket of admission, and the men who were to take part in the plot were all chosen. There were to be six men with bombs besides a “covering group.” Three of the six were to throw their bombs simultaneously, while the other three were to loiter in the background to watch the effect of the first fire. If any of the first three failed to explode, or if the damage done seemed insufficient, the others were to throw their packets of death and destruction. When this plan was about to be executed, the question arose among some of the members of the Maximalist group: is it wise to have this thing in the Duma? Will it not react unfavorably upon the Duma itself? Opinion was divided. In spite of these questionings, however, the plot would undoubtedly have been carried out as planned, in the Duma, had not a very curious chance intervened.
The men who were to throw the bombs were one afternoon scrutinizing the plans when some one pointed out that the ministerial box was separated from the foreign correspondents’ box only by a narrow aisle. Some, if not all, of the correspondents would thus inevitably be made victims of the explosions. The carefully arranged plot was there and then abandoned on grounds that correspondents were, theoretically at least, non-combatants, and as such must not be exposed to death in this way.
The determination to do away with the ministers, however, was not abandoned at this time, and the question next to be settled was: where else are the ministers sometimes gathered together? Why, in the upper house, or Council of Empire. Therefore plans of that building were obtained, and as there was no press-box in juxtaposition to the ministerial box, it seemed as if the plot would be carried out here. But about that time the dissolution of the Duma—early in July—caused a suspension of the sittings of the Council of Empire, and thereby was this plan of the Maximalists frustrated.