Rasputin and the Russian Revolution

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

What I have been writing is fact, which has been proved publicly, and never contradicted by so much as one single word of protestation. It accounts for the hatred with which the “Prophet” came to be viewed. As time went on it was felt that something ought to be attempted against the imposter who had contrived to break through barriers one could have believed to be absolutely impregnable. But no one knew how this was to be done, and at the time I am referring to the idea of a political assassination of Rasputin had not entered into the people’s heads. It was a woman who was to bring it before the public in the following circumstances:

During the spring of the year 1914, Rasputin, to the general surprise of everybody, declared to his friends that he intended to leave the capital and to return for a few months to his native village of Pokrovskoie in Siberia to rest from his labours. Strenuous efforts were made to detain him in Petrograd, but he remained inflexible and rudely thrust aside those who would fain have kept him back. He declared that he was tired and weary of the existence which he had been leading the last year, and that the various annoyances and difficulties that had been put in his way by his numerous enemies had quite sickened him. Such, at least, was the explanation which he chose to give and to which he stuck. Others, it is true, declared that the real reason for his departure was that he had been given to understand that he would do better to absent himself from St. Petersburg during the time when the visit of the President of the French Republic was expected, as his presence there might prove embarrassing from more than one point of view. The hint had enraged him, and he had determined to go away for a much longer time than he had been told to do. He had even declared to a few of his closest friends that he was not going to return to the capital any more, but that he would remain in Siberia, where, as he graphically put it, “there was a great deal more money to be made than anywhere else in the world.”

Whether the above is strictly true or not, I am not in a position to say, but it does not sound improbable. The fact remains that Rasputin left St. Petersburg for Pokrovskoie, where he arrived in the first days of June, 1914, accompanied by the “Sisters,” who were his constant companions. He was received with such honours that he might have been the Sovereign himself instead of the simple peasant he was. A crowd composed of several thousand men and women met him at the gates of the village and threw themselves at his feet imploring his blessing and calling upon him to pray with them, and to show them the real way to God which he was supposed to be the only one in Russia capable of indicating. For a few days this kind of thing continued, and Rasputin’s house was literally besieged by crowds of people who had gathered at Pokrovskoie from all parts of Siberia eager to pay homage to their national hero, for such he was considered to be. Rasputin smiled and chuckled and rubbed his hands, as was his wont in those moments when he allowed his satisfaction at anything to overpower him. If in St. Petersburg he had been considered as a prophet, here in this remote corner of Siberia he was fast becoming a kind of small god at whose shrine a whole nation was worshipping. This was just the sort of thing to please him and to make him forget any small unpleasantnesses he might have experienced before his departure from the capital.

One morning, it was the 13th of July, 1914, Rasputin was leaving his house on his way to church, whither it was his custom to repair every day. On the threshold of his dwelling a woman was awaiting him. She had her face muffled in a shawl in spite of the warm weather. When she saw him she threw herself on her knees before him, as persons of her kind invariably did when they met him. The “Prophet” stopped and asked her what it was she wanted from him. Her only reply was to plunge into his stomach a large kitchen knife, which she had held the whole time hidden under her shawl.

Rasputin uttered one cry and sank upon the ground. The crowd which was always following him rushed toward him and lifted him up, while two local policemen who had been set by the authorities to protect and guard him threw themselves upon the woman and seized her violently by both arms. She remained perfectly quiet, declaring that they need not hold her as she had not the slightest intention of running away. She knew very well what she had done, and she had meant to do it for a long time. When asked what had been her motives, she declared that she would speak before the magistrates, and only asked to be protected in the meanwhile against the fury of the mob that was threatening to tear her to pieces in its rage. She did not seem to be in the least disturbed by what she had done and throughout she showed the most extraordinary coolness and self-possession.

Very soon it was ascertained that she was a native of the government of Saratoff, and that her name was Gousieva. When Rasputin had been preaching in Saratoff she was among the women who had been taken in by his speeches, and though married she had left her husband and family to follow the “Prophet.” He very soon proceeded to “cleanse her from her sins,” according to his favourite expression. We know, of course, what this meant, and Gousieva, who at that time was young and pretty, only shared the fate of so many other women, deluded by the mealy mouthed utterances of the “new Saviour,” that it was only by means of a complete union with himself that they could be saved and their sins forgiven them. The unfortunate Gousieva had been only one of many. When she had found it out an intense rage had taken hold of her, which had been further enhanced and strengthened by the monk Illiodore, to whom she had related her misfortune. He had already at the time she sought him out become the deadly enemy of his former friend Rasputin. The miserable woman had lost everything—home, children, husband, relatives—on account of her mad infatuation for the deceiver who had made her forget her duties by the fascination which he had exercised over her weak mind. She swore that she would revenge herself and kill the “Prophet,” so that at least other women could be saved from the awful fate which had befallen her.

After Rasputin had dismissed her she had been compelled to lead a dreadful kind of existence in order to obtain a piece of bread. At last she had become attacked by an awful disease, which had already eaten away a part of her nose and completely disfigured her face. This, too, she attributed to the “Prophet.” In her despair she decided that as she had nothing to lose the best and only thing left for her to do was to try and rid the world from the awful impostor who had caused so much misery, brought about such abominable misfortunes and occasioned so much distress to such a number of innocent women. She had followed Rasputin for a long time in St. Petersburg, but had never been able to approach him near enough to execute her design. But when it had come to her knowledge that he was returning to Pokrovskoie she had taken it as an indication that the Almighty would be with her in the deed which she was contemplating, and she, too, started for the distant Siberian village. There she had spent three days waiting for a favourable opportunity until the morning when she had at last succeeded in getting close enough to him to plant in his body the knife which she had carried about with her for more than two years.

This whole story was related by Gousieva with the utmost composure, and without any hesitation at all. She considered Rasputin as the incarnation of the devil, and she had thought it a good deed to put him out of the way of committing any more evil. For the rest, she did not care what was to become of her. As it was she knew that she had not long to live, and with the illness with which she was afflicted existence in itself was not so sweet that she should sacrifice her revenge in order to retain it. She had had no accomplices, and she had consulted no one. In spite of the efforts which were made to induce her to say that she had acted under the directions and the inspiration of Illiodore, she denied it absolutely, adding that had she spoken to him about her intention she knew that he would have dissuaded her from it and that he might even have warned the police so as to frustrate her design.

In the meanwhile, Rasputin had been carried back to his room and telegrams dispatched everywhere for a doctor. The wound, though deep, was not a serious one and it had not attacked any vital organs. The man was in no danger, but his disciples chose to say that it was a miracle of Providence that he had not succumbed at once under the blow which had been dealt at him. The “Prophet,” when he had felt himself stabbed, had cried out that some one was to “arrest that b——h who had hit him.” Then he caused several telegrams to be sent to his friends in St. Petersburg in which he described the attempt against his life as the work of the devil, who had inspired the woman Gousieva and induced her to commit her abominable action. He added that at the moment when her weapon had touched him he had seen an angel descend from Heaven, stop her arm, and then put a hand on his wound so as to stop it from bleeding, and that it was only due to this direct intervention of the Almighty that he had escaped with his life. Of course, the story was believed by the credulous people who accepted every one of his words as a manifestation of the will of the Lord, and he became more than ever a saint, to whom the people began to raise altars, and to regard in the light of another Saviour come to redeem mankind from the terrors of sin.

In St. Petersburg the news of the attempted assassination of Rasputin had produced an immense impression, and had been commented upon in different ways. Some people saw in it an intervention of the secret police, who had been told to get rid in some way or other of a man who was fast becoming a public nuisance and embarrassment for everybody, even for those who had benefited through their acquaintance with him. Others declared that it was a just punishment for his evil deeds, and that the woman Gousieva had not been badly inspired when she had tried to revenge herself on him for the terrible wrong which he had done to her. Every one was anxious to learn how the news would be received in certain quarters and among the bevy of feminine worshippers whose existence was wrapped up in that of Rasputin. Public curiosity, however, was not destined to be satisfied, because nothing was heard concerning the feelings of these adepts of his on this remarkable occasion.