“It happened that members of the police supposed in all good faith that such measures were taken for show, for decency’s sake; but that they knew the real object of the Government, they read between the lines, and above the orders of the Governor they heard a voice from afar in which they placed greater faith. In a word the result was incredible confusion, utter disorganisation, and the complete demoralisation of authority. In the meantime in St. Petersburg, so far back as the autumn of 1905 (and it appears up to the time when the October Ministry took office), in No. 16, Fontanka, in an out-of-the-way room of the Department of Police, a printing-press was at work, bought at the expense of the Department. An officer of the gendarmerie in mufti, Komissaroff, worked the press, and with the help of a few assistants prepared the proclamation. The secret of the existence of this printing-press was so well kept, and the doings of its manager were so cleverly concealed, that not only in the Ministry but even in the Department of the Police, there were few people who knew of its existence. In the meantime the work of the organisation, of which the press was the instrument, was evidently successful; since Komissaroff, in answer to some one who stumbled on it by chance and asked him a question about the work, said: ‘We can arrange any massacre you like; a massacre of ten or a massacre of ten thousand.’ Sir, this phrase is historical (Sensation.) I can add that in Kiev a massacre of ten thousand had been arranged to take place on February 3rd, but it was successfully averted. (Great sensation.)
“The Prime Minister (Count Witte) had, it is said, a serious fit of nervous asthma when these facts were communicated to him. He sent for Komissaroff, who reported as to his actions and the authority which had been given him, and in a few hours neither printing-press nor proclamations were to be found in the Department, and that is why nobody, not even the Minister of the Interior, will be able to satisfy the wish of the Duma to learn the names of the men who created the organisation, assured its members of immunity, acted like magic on the police and other officials, and even managed to obtain promotion and reward for the most active among them. I will now proceed to my conclusions. My first is this: That the declaration of the Minister of the Interior affords us no serious guarantee with regard to the cessation of organisations which take part in the preparation of huge massacres and draw Government officials into their sphere of action. It is clear that the chief organisers and inspirers are outside the sphere of the Government, and as far as their business is concerned it is equally indifferent to them whether the Minister of the Interior will observe a benevolent neutrality towards them or take a line of opposition. Further, I affirm that no Ministry, even if it were chosen from the Duma, could restore order in the country so long as certain unknown persons who stand outside, behind an impassable barrier, continue to lay their brutal fingers on certain parts of the machine of State, disturbing its political balance with experiments on living organisations, and performing a kind of political vivisection. My second conclusion is still more melancholy—it concerns the Duma.
“Sirs, from all parts of Russia we have come hither not only with complaints and indignation, but with a keen thirst for action, for self-sacrifice and truth, with true patriotism. There are many among us here whose income depends on their property, and have we heard from them one word against compulsory expropriation of the land in the interests of the working man? And is it not this very ‘revolutionary Duma’ which from the first day of its activity up to the last few days has attempted to raise the authority of the Crown, to place it above party strife and above our errors, and to preserve it from the responsibility for those errors? What sort of a Duma is necessary now that the hour of inevitable reform has struck, if not such a one in which party interests and the class-division have given way to the triumph of the union of the welfare of the people and the welfare of the State? Nevertheless, we feel that those dark forces are arming against us, and dividing us from the Crown, and are preventing the Crown from having confidence in us. They will not allow us to accomplish that union with the Crown which, according to the law granting us a new order of things, is the indispensable condition and the only pledge of the peaceful development of the life of our country. Herein lies a great danger, and this danger will not disappear so long as in the direction of affairs and in the fortunes of our country we continue to feel the influence of men who have the education of policemen and sergeants, and are massacre-mongers on principle.”
CHAPTER XXIII
NAZARENKO AND OTHER PEASANT MEMBERS
St. Petersburg, July 6th.
After a week’s absence in England I returned to St. Petersburg to find the situation much as I had left it, except that the tension has perhaps imperceptibly grown greater. The main factors of the situation are unchanged.
Rumours are current that a change of Ministry is probable, but it is generally considered that the appointment of a Ministry chosen from the Ministry itself is out of the question. One fact should be borne in mind in considering the rumours with regard to the latest phase of Court opinion and Government policy, namely, that there is probably no fixed policy in those spheres; up to the present no such policy has been perceptible, and what has been done one day has been countermanded and contradicted the next. Therefore, as far as the Government and the Court are concerned, all things are possible. One might apply to them a phrase used by a French historian with regard to Louis XVI.: “Il n’eut que des velléités, des répugnances. Il céda tour à tour, sans plan, sans dessein quelconque, aux influences qui l’entouraient, à l’influence de la reine, du Comte d’Artois, de Necker ... il vécut au jour le jour, disant oui, disant non, selon que le conseiller du moment était plus importun et plus pressant.” This is an exact definition of the policy manifested by the Russian Government and Court combined during the last two years.
As far as the Duma is concerned, there is the same deadlock which has existed ever since it met; the Duma insisting on the creation of responsible Ministers, the Ministers admitting the existence of the Duma in theory and denying it in practice. The tension of feeling in the Duma itself is greater than when I left, although the debates of the last three days have been fairly quiet. But it is a significant if not an ominous fact that the Constitutional Democrats are now attacked by men who have hitherto supported them on account of the mildness of their tactics.
A week spent in England enabled me to realise to a certain extent what is the English opinion with regard to Russian affairs. After one has been in Russia for some time certain things become so familiar that one takes for granted that they are too well known to mention. If one then visits England one realizes that there is a great gulf of ignorance between England and the elementary facts of the situation in Russia. I think the principal thing which struck me in what I heard Englishmen say about the Duma was that no sort of distinction was made among the elements of which it is composed. It is generally supposed to be a body exclusively consisting of violent Socialists. This is not the case; although, owing to the abnormal situation created by the Duma being face to face with a Ministry which does not seriously admit its existence, it will at any moment be ready to show a unanimous front of opposition towards the Government. The second thing which struck me was that people in England judge affairs in Russia according to an English standard. They forget that the conditions are different. The Russian Government, in some of its unofficial utterances in the English Press, reminds us of this fact when it wishes to lay stress on the opinion that the Duma is not a Parliament, and must not be considered as such. Their argument cuts both ways, and it might be applied to the Russian Government, comparing it with the Governments of other countries, but I would rather apply this reasoning to the demands of the Duma. The Government says these demands are impossible, and public opinion in England is apt to re-echo this sentiment, feeling that this standpoint is a safe and sound one. I am not going into the question in detail; only I wish to point out a few facts which perhaps make these demands seem less extravagant than they appear to be at first sight.
Let us take first the abolition of capital punishment. People say: “They are asking for the abolition of capital punishment in Russia, whereas in an enlightened country like ours we hang women. It is absurd.” Now, capital punishment, except for regicides, was abolished in Russia by the Empress Elizabeth in 1753; and it has only been applied lately in virtue of martial law. If you committed an ordinary murder in Russia you were put in prison for a certain number of years, often not for a very long period. Ordinary murders did not increase in consequence, and the Russians were satisfied with this detail of their legislation. Now, since the revolutionary movement began last year, and more especially since the prevalence of martial law in many districts, what has happened is this: that whereas capital punishment was still in abeyance in respect to ordinary criminals, it obtained as far as political offenders were concerned. It is objected, of course, that people who throw bombs must expect to be killed and that the murder of innocent policemen is wholly unjustifiable. But the other side rejoins as follows: “What is terrorism but the inevitable result of the continued lawlessness of the local authorities representing the Government?” While admitting to the full that it is deplorable, how can one expect it to diminish as long as the Government continues to condone guilty officials, or only punishes them in a ludicrously inadequate manner? It is here that the Government’s case breaks down. A man who kills a policeman is, if he is caught, at least certain of punishment, but if a police officer walks into a house and kills, as Ermolov did in Moscow, an utterly inoffensive doctor, he is certain to be let off (Ermolov was sentenced to deprivation of military rank and a short term of imprisonment). That is what the Liberals complain of, pointing at the same time to utterly indiscriminate executions carried out under martial law by generals in Moscow, in the Baltic provinces, and in Siberia. I cannot say that I think their position is wildly unreasonable. The Government’s argument is exceedingly specious, and it is the easiest thing in the world to convince any Englishman of its soundness, only it omits half the truth and the whole cause of the agitation.