Immediately after her funeral imposing manifestations by students took place in front of the Kazan Cathedral, and proclamations were freely distributed among the public relating the details of this terrible death.
The sensation caused by it was equal to that which seized upon Russian Society when, under the reign of Alexander II., Vera Zassoulitch fired upon the Prefect of St. Petersburg, General Trépoff. That attempted murder was the beginning of another phase of the revolutionary movement which ended with the assassination of the Emperor. Mademoiselle Vietroff’s suicide opened the later phase out of which was to burst the Revolution which claimed so many victims in 1905.
The country did not recover its calm after that sad occurrence. Students and Universities became more active than ever in trying to sow discontent among the working classes, and especially in the factories, where anarchist ideas generally find the most support. The Government, as usual, blundered; either they did not see the danger, or saw it too late, or, again, looked for it there where it did not exist. It persecuted uselessly young boys led astray by their comrades, and utterly unable to endanger public order, and it let alone the most mischievous leaders of the movement who succeeded in removing suspicion from themselves. The police behaved atrociously in its measures of repression. Sure of the protection of the Tsar, the police proceeded in the most ruthless manner to persecute every manifestation of public opinion, when it imagined it was directed against its authority, and it had no regard as to the personality of those whom it thought fit to attack. Thus one day, a general in a very high position, who held the important post of administrator of the private fortune of the Imperial Family, Prince Viazemsky, happened to pass along the square opposite the Kazan Cathedral whilst the police were trying to disperse some groups of students who had assembled there for a funeral mass for one of their comrades. He was so indignant at the brutality displayed in securing the dispersal that he interfered in order to put an end to it. Immediately the head of the secret service of the Okhrana complained to the Emperor, who, without even listening to the explanations which Prince Viazemsky wanted to offer, deprived him of his post, and ordered him to go abroad at once, exiling him from the capital, without even allowing him to try to clear himself.
When the war with Japan broke out it was felt that whatever might be its end, the miseries that it would entail, even if victory came to the Russian arms, would serve as subjects not only of discontent, but also of encouragement to the revolutionist party. Consequently, rigorous measures became more frequent than before. The Minister of the Interior at the time was M. de Plehve, a man well known for his despotic character, who had for long been at the head of the secret political police before he became a member of the Cabinet. He was perhaps the most intensely hated personage in Russia, and in a certain measure he had deserved the dislike and the animosity of the public, whom he persecuted ruthlessly whenever he thought he could detect the least symptom of opinions not in accord with those which he advocated. During his tenure of office people without number were exiled or imprisoned; a good many were hanged in secret in the courtyards of the various prisons in which they were confined; and consciences as well as individuals were terrorised not into submission, but into silence.
But Plehve, with all his faults, at least was an honest man, a conscientious man, and not a flatterer. He knew he was destined to be murdered, but he would not have gone one step to escape the danger that he felt was continually lurking over his head. He was inexorable in the way in which he fulfilled his duties, but he would have been incapable of telling a lie to please his Sovereign or to gain some personal advantage. Yet his sarcastic temper and want of consideration for the feelings of others were bound to create enemies even among his colleagues; indeed, they did not scruple to use every means to destroy his influence.
The Emperor considered him something like a watch-dog, whose services and vigilance one could not do without, but whom one had no necessity to treat decently or to admit into one’s confidence. One day, when Plehve wanted to deal with some matter not immediately connected with his department, Nicholas II. told him quite plainly that he ought not to speak to him about things which concerned other people. And yet when the offended Minister offered his resignation the Emperor refused to accept it, giving as his reason that “He had no one at the moment who could replace him so well at the head of the police.” “At the moment,” you will note, to the servant of his own creation!
Plehve was very fond of knowing everything that was going on, and while knowing perfectly well that he had any number of adversaries among those who surrounded the Sovereign, he wished to be kept aware of everything that was going on in the family circle of Nicholas II. Having at his disposal all the necessary means of being well informed, it was related that he had organised a police service at the Imperial Palace of Tsarskoye Selo which kept him conversant with all that was being done and said there. It was even said that he had had his telephone wires connected with those of the private telephone of the Emperor, and could thus listen to the latter’s conversations. This fact, so the report continues, came to the knowledge of the Sovereign after the murder of M. Plehve, and he was so enraged that he forgot the respect due to the dead. He did not attend the funeral ceremonies, and it was only with the utmost difficulty that he was persuaded to consent to a pension being given to the widow of the deceased statesman.
Plehve was murdered under the most awful conditions. He was driving to the Warsaw railway station on his way to Tsarskoye Selo for his weekly report to the Tsar. When almost opposite the station a bomb was thrown in the front of his carriage. The effect was terrible. The carriage and its occupant were reduced to pieces, and it was with great difficulty that some remains of torn flesh and bones were found and gathered together to be brought home. To recognise them was impossible; nothing remained to tell that a mighty Minister had been blown into atoms.
The news of the event was at once telephoned to Tsarskoye Selo. The only comment which the Emperor made was that it would be necessary to send immediately a high official to put under seal the papers of M. Plehve, so that none should get lost or mislaid. He did not even send a message of condolence to the widow. It was said by way of explanation that the news of the murder must be held back from the Empress, who was on the eve of her confinement, and whose nerves might receive a shock in consequence, and that the Emperor did not want to leave her at such a time.
This explanation was not believed by the general public. The Emperor, however, did not mind what the world thought about him, or in what light it regarded his actions. He was only thinking of the child the Empress was expected to give birth to. Would it at last be a son, an heir to the dynasty of the Romanoffs, or would another daughter be born to him? That was the thought which alone engrossed him, and was the first object of his preoccupations. The war with Japan had already begun; our first ships had been sunk, several battles had been fought and lost, the Petropavlovsk had gone down with its load of men, brave Admiral Makaroff at their head; our soldiers were trudging in the dusty, hot plains of Manchuria, suffering from the torrid heat until they should perish from the icy cold; thousands of homes were mourning their dear ones fallen under the bullets of the enemy; revolt was brooding in the country, Ministers and people in high positions were daily falling under the knives or pistols of assassins. Yet none of these things concerned Nicholas II. so much as the yearning that God should give him a son.