He served the German interest in a more subtle and redoubtable manner. His very existence was bringing about the collapse of Russia by destroying the faith of the people in the Tsar. All the foremost supporters and friends of the “saint” were of the German orientation. That was not a coincidence. Every one who even tolerated Razputin was helping the enemy.
It being pretty well established that Razputin was the direct cause—in the Empress’s hands—of the Revolution and the downfall of Russia, I would ask what the Ludendorffs and their Russian dupes have to say in justification of the argument that it was the Entente that brought about the Revolution. Razputin’s relationship to the defeatists was so clear to everybody in Russia that people—Russians as well as Allies—fell naturally into the mistake of supposing that the Empress must be pro-German, since she supported Razputin. Who magnified Razputin before the war? The Cologne Gazette. Who was his arch-apologist? The pro-German Witte. The Germans had almost as much to do with the Razputin scandal as they had to do with Lenin and the exploits of his hundred Jews.[5]
The murder of Razputin evoked the greatest outburst of popular rejoicing that any act had ever produced. “Ubili!” (they have killed) was the universal greeting. People did not stop to ask who had been killed. They knew. The whole nation had desired his death, and one wonders that he so long survived. But his murder was, none the less, a mistake, since he was merely an ignorant tool, and the circumstances of his end—the lawless joy that it evoked—only helped the revolutionaries. Thenceforth, the Empress’s name was in the gutter, and there was only one hope of salvation for the Tsar—to dissociate himself from his wife. To do that—to put her away into a monastery as Tsar Peter Alexeievich would have done—was quite beyond the capacity of a gentle soul like Nicholas Alexandrovich....
It had been suggested before the Revolution that she should go alone to England “on a visit.” This argued complete ignorance of the inner life of the Sovereigns. The Razputin scandal had arisen because Alexandra morbidly imagined that the destinies of Russia depended upon their joint faith and prayers—hers and the “saint’s.” Also she was convinced that without her constant presence and support Nicholas would be lost. Sooner would she have died than go away, particularly after the death of her “saint.”
There had been plots to kill Alexandra and even the Tsar. It is curious, indeed, that her life should have been spared. One must bear in mind the probability of German “protection.” It is evident that Alexandra’s death would have put an end to the Razputin scandal and therefore been unprofitable for Germany. As for Nicholas, the people were on his side to the last—till the Revolution extinguished in men’s minds the last vestige of all that was seemly.
The manner of Razputin’s murder is known to all. The man who killed him is no more. His diary has been published. It gives almost a complete account of the murder. One feature has escaped attention, and I mention it because it gives point to the true version of Razputin’s character as related above. The accomplices had prepared a most elaborate scheme for killing him, yet in the end it was Purishkevitch with a vulgar revolver that effected the deed. Poisoned tarts, “doctored” wine, and even a revolver shot had been in vain. The conspirators had innocently administered an antidote with the poison; the shooter’s hand had trembled so that he had failed to hit Razputin standing a few paces away. But why all this rigmarole? The fact is the conspirators were affected by the Razputin propaganda; they also believed that the man was more than mortal. Purishkevich thought that the devil was in him till the third bullet brought him down. That was an epoch-making shot.
Razputin was fond of identifying his own well-being with that of Russia. In this, as in other things, he merely copied the Empress. When Khionia Guseva, incited by the monk Iliodor, who had fallen out with Grishka, stuck a knife into the “saint,” he announced that “much blood would flow” and that there would be “woe unutterable if and when he died.” But he was ever prophesying all sorts of things, good and bad, like the proverbial tipster. It suited the interested or superstitious to proclaim him infallible. Anyhow, it did not require much acumen to read the signs of coming disaster in Russia. Grishka was no fool, and he must have had a shrewd idea what his own friends and supporters were doing. But charlatanism “paid,” and he had a family to support and lots of “friends” coming for assistance, all of which flattered Grishka’s cheap little soul and kept him on his daily round of prayer and debauch.
Razputin the monster is a fiction, bred in the busy brains of politicians and elaborated by the teeming imagination of sensational novelists. Razputin the saint is an imaginary product of a woman’s diseased mind. Even the stories of the sanctifying baths and other khlyst (flagellant) doctrines, supposed to have been applied by a demoniacal Grishka, turn out to be imaginary. It is not unusual for the peasants in certain parts of Russia to take the steam bath in common. No strangers are admitted, and there is nothing unseemly in the practice. It was quite appropriate for a native of Tobolsk. In this and in his gross familiarities with the other sex Grishka was merely Razputin the peasant, a village satyr.
CHAPTER V
CAPTIVES IN A PALACE
Before the Revolution, propagandists of all descriptions aimed their poisoned shafts at the Empress. Her fatal belief in Razputin rendered her an easy prey. The revolutionary section watched over Grishka, just as their German accomplices “protected” Alexandra. Nicholas was left alone, comparatively speaking. After the Revolution all the energies of the dark forces involved were concentrated upon him. It was not enough that he had voluntarily abdicated; he had to be shorn of all prestige, so that the inveterate devotion and loyalty of the people, which had formed the very foundation of Russia’s existence, should be swept away for ever. “The Tsar was a traitor; he and his wife had been in secret communication with the Germans.” In city, village, and camp this poisonous rumour spread.