Memoirs of a revolutionist

by kniaz Petr Alekseevich Kropotkin

On the other side, the advanced parties in Russia saw that no hope could any longer be placed in Alexander’s reformatory initiative: he was clearly drifting into the reactionary camp. To men of forethought it was evident that the liberation of the serfs, under the conditions of redemption which were imposed upon them, meant their certain ruin, and revolutionary proclamations were issued in May at St. Petersburg calling the people and the army to a general revolt, while the educated classes were asked to insist upon the necessity of a National Convention. Under such circumstances, to disorganize the machine of the government might have entered into the plans of some revolutionists.

Finally, the indefinite character of the emancipation had produced a great deal of fermentation among the peasants, who constitute a considerable part of the population in all Russian cities; and through all the history of Russia, every time such a fermentation has begun it has resulted in anonymous letters foretelling fires, and eventually in incendiarism.

It was possible that the idea of setting the Apráxin market on fire might occur to isolated men in the revolutionary camp, but neither the most searching inquiries nor the wholesale arrests which began all over Russia and Poland immediately after the fire revealed the slightest indication showing that such was really the case. If anything of the sort had been found, the reactionary party would have made capital out of it. Many reminiscences and volumes of correspondence from those times have since been published, but they contain no hint whatever in support of this suspicion.

On the contrary, when similar conflagrations broke out in several towns on the Vólga, and especially at Sarátoff, and when Zhdánoff, a member of the Senate, was sent by the Tsar to make a searching inquiry, he returned with the firm conviction that the conflagration at Sarátoff was the work of the reactionary party. There was among that party a general belief that it would be possible to induce Alexander II. to postpone the final abolition of serfdom, which was to take place on February 19, 1863. They knew the weakness of his character, and immediately after the great fire at St. Petersburg they began a violent campaign for postponement, and for the revision of the emancipation law in its practical applications. It was rumoured in well-informed legal circles that Senator Zhdánoff was in fact returning with positive proofs of the culpability of the reactionaries at Sarátoff; but he died on his way back, his portfolio disappeared, and it has never been found.

Be it as it may, the Apráxin fire had the most deplorable consequences. After it Alexander II. surrendered to the reactionaries, and—what was still worse—the public opinion of that part of society at St. Petersburg, and especially at Moscow, which carried most weight with the government suddenly threw off its liberal garb, and turned against not only the more advanced section of the reform party, but even against its moderate wing. A few days after the conflagration I went on Sunday to see my cousin, the aide-de-camp of the emperor, in whose apartment I had often heard the Horse Guard officers expressing sympathy with Chernyshévsky; my cousin himself had been up till then an assiduous reader of ‘The Contemporary’ (the organ of the advanced reform party). Now he brought several numbers of ‘The Contemporary,’ and, putting them on the table I was sitting at, said to me: ‘Well, now, after this I will have no more of that incendiary stuff; enough of it’—and these words expressed the opinion of ‘all St. Petersburg.’ It became improper to talk of reforms. The whole atmosphere was laden with a reactionary spirit. ‘The Contemporary’ and other similar reviews were suppressed; the Sunday schools were prohibited under any form; wholesale arrests began. The capital was placed under a state of siege.

A fortnight later, on June 13 (25), the time which we pages and cadets had so long looked for came at last. The emperor gave us a sort of military examination in all kinds of evolutions—during which we commanded the companies and I paraded on a horse before the battalion—and we were promoted to be officers.

When the parade was over, Alexander II. loudly called out, ‘The promoted officers to me!’ and we gathered round him. He remained on horseback.

Here I saw him in a quite new light. The man who the next year appeared in the rôle of a bloodthirsty and vindictive suppressor of the insurrection in Poland rose now, full size, before my eyes, in the speech he addressed to us.

He began in a quiet tone. ‘I congratulate you: you are officers.’ He spoke about military duty and loyalty as they are usually spoken of on such occasions. ‘But if any one of you,’ he went on, distinctly shouting out every word, his face suddenly contorted with anger, ‘but if any one of you—which God preserve you from—should under any circumstances prove disloyal to the Tsar, the throne, and the fatherland—take heed of what I say—he will be treated with all the se-ve-ri-ty of the laws, without the slightest com-mi-se-ra-tion!’

His voice failed; his face was peevish, full of that expression of blind rage which I saw in my childhood on the faces of landlords when they threatened their serfs ‘to skin them under the rods.’ He violently spurred his horse, and rode out of our circle. Next morning, June 14, by his orders three officers were shot at Módlin in Poland, and one soldier, Szur by name, was killed under the rods.