Sixteen years in Siberia: Some experiences of a Russian revolutionist

by L. G. Deich

To face page 308

I confess that I myself indulged in such hopes, though I knew but too well how deceptive these “favours” of the Tsar might be. To the Coronation manifesto there had been attached numberless limitations and exceptions, and it was not to be expected that this time the pardon of which we had been hearing rumours would be extended to everyone. “But who knows? They have let me out of prison at last; perhaps now I shall be made an exile, unlikely though it seems!” Hope and fear alternated, and optimism gained the upper hand.

While in the Petersburg government-offices the question had to be settled as to carrying out the proclamation—who was to benefit by it, and who must be excluded from its operation—the authorities in Siberia had another care upon them: how to avert all danger from the path of the Heir-Apparent, as he journeyed through a land where dwelt so many embittered victims of Tsarism. The gentlemen of the official world solved this problem eventually in a simple fashion: all along the Prince’s route we (busy with our hopes of freedom!) were to be locked up for the time being; and though Kara was a good fifty versts distant from the high-road by which the journey of state was made, we were shut up in prison the day before the Cesarèvitch[^[108]] passed, and only set free again a day after he had got safely through our neighbourhood.

For long afterwards we awaited with the greatest excitement the advent of the post every week or ten days, always hoping that some decision as to the scope of the manifesto would arrive. But government departments take their time; those who amused themselves with thoughts of the Tsar’s grace had still to endure uncertainty as best they could. A whole year elapsed before we received the long-expected news, and then it was disappointing enough; nearly half the inhabitants of the Kara penal settlement were excepted from the operation of the manifesto, the rest had but a very short curtailment of their sentences. I was among those who got nothing at all, and was obliged to reconcile myself to the thought of another four years in Kara. It was bitter to have one’s hopes thus destroyed.

It was the more bitter that our first joy over release from prison had soon worn off, and life in the settlement had now become almost as irksome as the life in prison had been. Our days seemed as monotonous and empty as ever; and while in prison one had been constrained to accept the unalleviated barrenness of life, here in the settlement one felt the tug of the chain at every turn, and chafed at it. There we had known from the first that all reasonable and profitable activity was denied us, that we were condemned to an uninteresting and aimless existence; and under such conditions one’s mental alertness becomes dulled—almost atrophied. In the settlement, on the contrary, it was quite otherwise; here we were in the midst of life again, the state of lethargy that had reigned in the prison passed away; and although the pulse of life could hardly be said to beat high, yet we could see people exerting themselves, undertaking enterprises, pursuing their various interests, fighting with difficulties and dangers. We ourselves the while were restricted to the work of our narrow household economy; work which naturally could not satisfy our aspirations. Most of us yearned to set our powers to work—to do something that should call forth all our energies and capabilities, not merely to chop wood and make hay. But in this forsaken spot, and hemmed in as we were by all manner of restrictions, we could find no congenial outlet for our activities. To all appearance we were now at liberty to undertake many things that had been forbidden in prison; but this appearance was mainly illusory. It was just this contradiction between our apparent rights and our actual possibilities that galled us and weighed heavy on our spirits, making us sometimes inclined to think we would almost rather return to prison, if thereby we might escape from this torment of inactivity. We found it irksome in the extreme to have to take enormous pains and waste much time over mere trifles—the details of our primitive household management—which, under the difficult conditions of our life, made exorbitant demands upon us. Especially at first, when we were new to it all, it often happened that for weeks at a time one could never take up a book or a newspaper, and for educated, intellectual men that was naturally very wearisome. The only interesting mental occupation open to us was to observe the lives of the dwellers in this strange place; as already mentioned, they were an oddly mixed lot, and we had plenty of opportunity for studying them.

FEMALE CRIMINALS AT KARA DRAWING WATER-CART

To face page 310

I have often been in the criminal prison of Kara, and witnessed there the life of the convicts in their cells and in the workshops, as they went about their various occupations. The employment of convict labour in the gold-washing had been abandoned by that time, having been found too costly; and the convicts were occupied with so-called “domestic work.” Among other things they were used in transport, to take the place of beasts of burden; and the spectacle of men—even of women—harnessed to heavy carts, and moving painfully along like oxen in a yoke, was altogether revolting.

About a year after our establishment in the settlement, convict labour in Kara was entirely given up; the convicts were taken away, some to serve in the construction of the Siberian railway, (then just begun,) some to the island of Saghalien or to other penitentiaries. With the convicts departed their guards, the Cossacks, and other officials; our settlement was well-nigh depopulated, and life became more monotonous than ever. However, one advantage ensued for us: we could use the abandoned dwellings of the officials, and so lived more comfortably henceforward. We were on the best of terms with the few inhabitants who were left; we taught their children, assisted them with our counsel when we could, and gave them medical and legal advice. To these people a “political” seemed a compendium of learning, and they applied to us on every kind of occasion. Now it was strictly forbidden us to engage in any work that could interfere with that of practitioners of the “liberal professions”; by law we were not allowed to teach or to give medical aid; yet, circumstanced as we were, the officials themselves were not above calling for our help, notwithstanding the infringement of the law. Of course, therefore, they could not very well bring us to account for our dealings with civilians. Only on one occasion did this kind of thing lead to any unpleasantness, and I will briefly relate that occurrence.