The Kronstadt insurrection
Loyal troops sent to quell Kronstadt mutiny
hugeness of Russia makes the revolutionary movement unwieldy. Every man, or woman, who is educated, or who shows liberal tendencies, is liable to be marked, and at the first opportunity, reasonable or unreasonable, clapped into prison, or exiled. The best disciplined army in the world would fall asunder if practically all of the officers were suddenly snatched away. It is only the great underlying principle of the revolution which now moves the masses on. The reign of anarchy which threatens Russia to-day is a far more terrible menace than the bloodiest revolution fought out on a civil-war basis. When a whole people become utterly lawless, each man striking blindly, and all striking, the result is chaos for the time being. The existing weak government is rapidly bringing Russia to this. For the government, while able to demoralize the ranks of the revolution, is yet unable to administer, to rule, or to guide. The great mass of the people are against the government. Many, especially of the middle classes, are silent because they dare not openly fight. But the very moment the tide of success turns into the channels of the revolutionists, the ranks of the government’s enemies will swell enormously. The number of people all over the country who are as it were “on the fence” who will join the revolution as soon as the propitious moment seems to have arrived is inestimably large. So it is with the army. The percentage of the men favorable to revolution is large, but for their own necks’ sake they refrain from premature revolt. When the wave of success finally sweeps high over the existing order, the army will turn by regiments and brigades. The officers know this perfectly well, and are straining every resource to put off the day when this cataclysm will overtake them. But it is coming as surely as night follows day. Discipline in the army is such that it can be stayed but it cannot be ultimately avoided. Men now have no other alternative than to obey. For example, when an execution is to take place and there is the slightest doubt about the soldiers who are to do the shooting, a file of infantry are ranged at a given spot; directly behind the soldiers a file of, say, marines; directly behind these again a file of Cossacks. The command is given to the front rank to fire. Every man whose gun doesn’t go off is shot by the man behind him; if any man in the second rank fails, the Cossacks in the rear—who can always be depended upon—shoot.
Paul and Pasha, and all of the other ardent men and women whom I saw working in Kronstadt in June, were either killed, imprisoned, or exiled, in August. But by September there were other Pauls, other Pashas, established in Kronstadt, working just as earnestly and fearlessly, and just as hopeful of the ultimate outcome. They all believe in this revolution with the same gloriously blind faith, for they recognize revolution as the inevitable result of the anachronous and rotten social, economic, and political conditions which have for so long sapped the vitality of Russia.
CHAPTER XII
GOVERNMENTAL TERRORISM
Arrived in Bielostok—First impressions—Stories of the injured—The crucifix as a weapon of death—The hospital fired upon—Children victims—Failure of government to place responsibility—Mass of evidence proving governmental complicity in massacres—Other massacres officially instigated—Prince Urusoff’s speech—The assassination of Professor Hertzenstein—A celebrated Moscow physician murdered—Warsaw horrors—Upon whom rests the responsibility?—Arrest of Pasha—Shooting a girl in prison—Bureaucracy guilty of murder and assassination—Placing the responsibility on the Czar—The arch-terrorist and assassin of Russia.