“Athanasius Spandoni was connected with a secret printing press discovered in Odessa in the house of the married couple Degàiev.” Thus began the indictment, and it went on to state that he had refused to make any confession, but that his membership of the secret society Naròdnaia Vòlya was sworn to by Mme. Degàiev, who also stated that he had twice visited her house. That was absolutely all. Two visits to a secret printing office were punished with fifteen years’ penal servitude!
The “crime” of Tchuikòv was scarcely more serious. His indictment ran as follows:—
“When Vera Figner was arrested in Kharkov, the authorities in that place advised us that Vladimir Tchuikòv, among others, had been in correspondence with her. His house being searched, there were found (1) implements for setting up type, (2) implements for making false passports, (3) prussic acid and morphia, (4) various seditious writings (some printed, some in manuscript), (5) a list giving the names of different political criminals, (6) lists for the collection of subscriptions to the Naròdnaia Vòlya. Tchuikòv has acknowledged that he agrees with the principles of the Naròdnaia Vòlya.” And on these grounds he was condemned to twenty years’ penal servitude.
The charge brought against the rest of the accused in this case, the naval and military officers, were of a similar description; and for these “crimes” they were all condemned to death, the sentence being actually carried out as regards two of their number.
For a time we three were the only inmates of the Pugatchev tower, but we were expecting other companions. In about a fortnight after my advent the condemned in the already mentioned Shebalìn case were to arrive from Kiëv—four sentenced to penal servitude and four to exile, among the latter two women. We awaited their coming with the greatest interest, but when the party arrived only two were brought to our tower, the exiles Makàr Vasìliev and Peter Dashkièvitch. Paraskovya Shebalina and a young girl, Barbara Shtchulèpnikòva, also condemned to exile, were of course taken to the women’s quarters; but the four other men had quite unexpectedly been sent off to Schlüsselburg, as the outcome of a conflict with the prison authorities, of which I will give some particulars.
I have already tried to give some idea of what all convicts must suffer when their fetters are first put on and their heads shaved. Until the time of which I write it had been customary (and still is, in the case of anyone belonging to the “privileged classes”) to defer the performance of this barbarous ceremony until arrival in Siberia at the town of Tiumen. But it occurred to the officials that the condemned in the Shebalìn case (i.e. Shebalìn, Pankràtov, Karanlov, and Borisòvitch) should be fettered and shaved before their transfer to Moscow. This was hotly resented by the victims themselves, and all the other “politicals” in the Kiëv prison joined in their protest. The authorities then employed force to carry out their intention, and thereupon the prisoners “demonstrated” in the usual fashion, that is, by breaking windows, destroying furniture, etc. The occurrence was reported to Petersburg, and thence the order was at once received to send our four comrades to Schlüsselburg. What that meant I have already indicated: burial alive in a state of perpetual martyrdom. Most of the unhappy victims die in a few years, others lose their reason, and many purposely offer violence to the officials in order to win for themselves a speedy execution. It is easy, then, to imagine our feelings on receiving this news about our comrades, especially as there were some among them at whose door no accusation of any consequence could be laid. Karanlov, for instance, had only been sentenced to four years’ penal servitude, the court-martial having found it impossible to inflict a heavier punishment. He had thereupon married, as his wife would by law be permitted to follow him to Siberia; and his imprisonment in Schlüsselburg meant utter separation for them, as he would not even be allowed to write to her.
The case of the Shebalìns was even more sad. The young wife had scarcely parted from her husband when her child—an unweaned infant, whom she had with her in prison—fell ill and died. She herself succumbed to her grief, and late in the autumn died in the Moscow prison.
Soon after these arrivals there came fresh batches of “politicals,” until the great prison was full to overflowing. The Lopàtin case contributed many. Hermann Lopàtin is one of the best-known figures in our Russian revolutionary movement. In 1884 he had returned from abroad (whither he had earlier been obliged to flee), in order to resuscitate the organisation of the Naròdnaia Vòlya, all the active members of which were in prison in consequence of Degàiev’s treachery. Lopàtin had almost to begin at the beginning again in reorganising that terrorist society, and travelled for this purpose all over Russia, establishing fresh connections everywhere. As he could not depend on his memory he had to write down the names of members, with notes as to their capacity for usefulness, and he kept the bit of paper with this list on it always about his person, meaning to destroy it if in any danger. Unfortunately, this proved impossible, for one day he was seized in the street by the secret police and overpowered before he could manage to swallow the compromising document, though he had actually got it into his mouth. All whose names were on his list were, of course, arrested, and imprisonments were made all over Russia. The numerous persons who were sent to the central prison in Moscow in consequence of Lopàtin’s capture were for the most part scarcely out of boyhood, and their guilt entirely consisted in their being named in Lopàtin’s list.