Читать книгу The Red Reign - Kellogg Durland - Страница 6

Table of Contents

The white terror—My first conspiracy—A frontier episode—A mixed company—“Vive la Revolution!”—The “Quiet Capital”—A courtesy to Americans—A friend’s narrow escape—A midnight incident—Early bewilderment—Witte “more a stratagem than a man”—The ministerial crisis—The deposed minister—Significant telegrams from the provinces—Off to the Caucasus.

HE wave of revolution which swept over Russia in the year of grace 1905 culminated in a series of insurrections during that week of December which is celebrated throughout the western world in sacred memory of the birth of the Prince of Peace. As the dawn of 1906 crept reluctantly across the torn and disintegrating empire of the czars, there was inaugurated a reign of reaction unparalleled since the melancholy days of ’81 which followed the assassination of Alexander II. Russia named this period of shadow The Repression. The people called it the White Terror. Into this lugubriousness, whatever it be called, I was about to enter. In Berlin I lingered a day or two. Even when a bright northern sun fell not unkindly upon the German capital I could not wholly shake off the disquieting feeling that I dare say most foreigners experience when about to cross the Russian frontier for the first time.

Hordes of Russians were pouring into the city. It seemed that every family who could spare the railroad fare was sending its most beloved members across the borders of the Land of Ominous Promise. According to the Berlin police-records as many as ten thousand sometimes arrived in a single day.

The good Herr proprietor of the Gasthaus where I was quartered came to my room to implore me to reconsider entering the country at so disturbed a time. In his hand he brought, for my edification, and as a warning, a copy of the following notice which was being posted throughout a certain district I would pass on the way to St. Petersburg, commanded by one Colonel Jablonsky. A fleeing Russian had smuggled it out to help him dissuade rash travelers about to enter his country:

I, the manager of the movements of troops, request that energetic measures be taken. Bullets and bayonets must be widely used without any fear for the consequences, if any agitators be seen. If the workmen do not let the locomotives go from the “depot” shoot them. Traffic must be established by evening. I repeat again, do not spare bullets and bayonets.

The machinists who live at the government quarters are to be asked three times to accompany the locomotive, and if they only open their mouths to demur, shoot them on the spot and turn their families out into the street.

Manager of the movements of troops,

(Signed) Jablonsky.

There may have been more bark than bite to this Jablonsky; yet his proclamation suggested anything but a peaceful railway journey.

Toward ten o’clock that evening my luggage was transferred to a cab, and as I appeared in the hotel doorway my friend, the Herr proprietor, once more came forward.

“To-day it is quiet, yes. But to-morrow—,” and the expressive shrug of his fat German shoulders eloquently vouched for his genuine concern for my welfare—or his pocketbook—who shall say which?

The luxurious comfort of the wagon-lits soon dispelled the nervousness created by my stay in Berlin, and the next forenoon, as we rattled across the snow-screened plains of the north, I serenely accepted the counsel of a Russian fellow-traveler and deliberately ripped off the binding of a certain “forbidden” book which I carried, that I might wrap the printed pages about my body, next to my underclothing, to escape its confiscation. The book was Peter Kropotkin’s “Russian Literature,” which I thought I might find a useful book of reference.

The last station in Germany was passed at noon. From here on our speed was noticeably lessened. We rolled noisily past the frozen fields which lie in the narrow strath that marks the dividing-line between the two countries. An ice-bound creek running through the strath was crossed by a small trestle. Close by this miniature bridge a Russian soldier in the characteristic coarse brown coat presented arms. As I looked out upon him I laughingly touched my cap in salute, and his peasant face broke into a broad grin that fairly beamed of friendliness. That smile softened my crude, preconceived notion of Russian soldiers many degrees, and during the thousands of miles that I was presently to travel in the Frozen Kingdom, I always remembered the smile that greeted me when first I crossed the border, and it was rarely indeed that I did not find a cordial response where I spoke a friendly word, or extended a friendly hand.

At Wirballen we changed trains, passed the customs, surrendered our passports for examination and viséing, and submitted to whatever other routine the officers required. Gendarmes swarmed everywhere. The prominence of their arms excited my interest. Swords clanked noisily at their heels, striking the ground with each step they took, large revolvers were attached with threatening convenience to their belts, and always outside of their handsome, gray, winter coats.

The delay here was characteristically tedious. Hours were consumed in despatching business which after all was slight in bulk, but unduly weighted by red tape. Aside from the “dangerous” literature which was securely fastened about my body, I had nothing dutiable, so I thought I could safely expedite the examination for myself in order that I might be an unharassed spectator on this, my first, Russian scene. To accomplish this I innocently offered a Customs Inspector a small piece of silver, which was vehemently refused. Mr. Inspector informed me in a loud voice that he could not think of taking money from an individual for doing what the government paid him for doing. A moment later his back was turned, and a thin ugly hand stole between two of my grips and the half-closed fingers twitched expressively toward the palm. The man’s eyes were on his superior. I dropped a modest coin into his hand, and the same instant a Russian standing next me dropped a much larger coin—gold in fact—into the same palm. The man started in visible surprise and excitedly snapped shut my bags without so much as glancing at them. As he did so he muttered something to me under his breath, in Russian, which I could not understand, but my

Moscow barricades

neighbor—he of the lavish tip—said, sotto voce: “Take two of my bags along with yours.” The meaning of this was not at the moment clear to me, but I meekly complied with the request, and ingenuously submitted the stranger’s grips to the checking officials as if they were my own. Had the man been an absolute stranger I might not have followed his directions so readily, but he was the same man who had showed me how to carry my book so as to escape detection.

Not till the train had actually left the Wirballen station did the man come to claim his luggage. Then he lingered to talk awhile and we became friendly to the point of confidence. Darkness had settled deeply down over the outside world before he left my compartment, and we were running across wide, open fields occasionally broken by forests of fir, into which the engine belched bright sparks from the soft sticks that in Russia are burned instead of coal. My companion watched the sparks scattering against the trees and settling on either side of our steel pathway, and made some allusion to the sparks of liberty that even then were scattering across all Russia, settling around and in every town and village from the Baltic Sea to the waters of the Orient. The man’s eyes flashed, hardly less bright than the darting flecks of flame outside the window. He found a sympathetic listener, and it was then we warmed toward each other and he told me the contents of the bags that I, so innocently, had smuggled safely into the country. They contained hand-grenade models, phials of high explosives and several innocent Browning revolvers. I cannot say that I regretted then, or have I since, this, my first humble service to the revolution.

On this train destined for St. Petersburg there was no other American traveler, but there were several Russians who spoke in English and any number who understood French, so that I had intercourse with many of my fellow-passengers in addition to the revolutionist who now called me “comrade.”

The French Revolution brought into popular usage the word “citizen,” but the Russian revolution has popularized the word “comrade”; and comrade is surely the warmer, the heartier, and the more inspiring.

“What do you think about the plans for the Duma?” I asked of an army surgeon who spoke English.

“I do not think,” was the reply. “The Dutch have a proverb, ‘Nothing thought, nothing done.’ I have learned not to think in this country.”

Later on I succeeded in drawing another man into conversation on the subject. In the midst of the discussion a gentleman entered our carriage, and as he sat down directly opposite us, I thought to include him in the conversation, so told him the drift of our talk. He stared blankly at me a moment and said: “Is there good sledging in Petersburg now, do you think?”

I saw the point and changed the subject. A few minutes later he leaned close to me and said: “I should beg your pardon, but I left the adjoining carriage because the passengers began to talk about politics. Once I was in a theater in Petersburg witnessing a performance of Hamlet. I had a seat in one of the galleries. Two peasants presently came in and sat near me. They removed their greatcoats and their boots. They made themselves comfortable for the evening. But when Hamlet was trying the blade of his sword for the duel, one peasant said to the other: ‘To-morrow morning at five o’clock we leave Petersburg to return to our homes. Is it not so?’ ‘Yes,’ replied the other. ‘Then we must get out of this,’ added the first, ‘for see, they are going to fight. They

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RUSSIA; Mr. Durland’s Route of Travel

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now have their swords out, and if we do not get away we shall be held as witnesses.’ And they left the theater. Those peasants were wise.”

Having an American passport I did not feel it necessary to be as wary as the peasants, and, being anxious to get as many expressions of opinion as possible, I soon went into the adjoining carriage to occupy the place left by this man who had told me the story. In the carriage I found a Polish opera-singer, a fiery young man in the uniform of a student of jurisprudence, a merchant of Archangel, an attaché to a Russian Embassy in a European capital, and an army officer. I had not been long there when the opera-singer and the student grew very free in expressing their determination to spare no effort to overthrow the present government.

“Now the time is not quite ripe,” they said. “Not to-day, but soon. The Duma? There will be no Duma. There cannot be a Duma. The government has not the money, and even if it had it could never be. Russia will be aflame before the Duma meets.”

The student was a very intense fellow. His voice fairly rang with the determination of a man consecrated to a cause.

“My word,” said the officer to me, “these two will be arrested this very hour if the gendarme appears. That student chap cares not whether he dies to-day or to-morrow.”

“Bravo!” I cried, curious for the officer’s reply. Instantly his face sobered.

“Hush, man! Do you forget you are now in Russia?”

I laughed unbelievingly, and the attaché who was sitting next to me and who had been listening said: “Let me tell you a little story. Once I was in a village church when an old woman suddenly made a scene in the gallery. She was carried down-stairs and into the air, where a crowd gathered about her. ‘What is it?’ ‘What is the matter?’ we all asked her. Amid her tears and with shortened breath she said: ‘I was in the gallery. I had no prayer-book, so I asked the sexton to give me one. He went down-stairs and handed one up to me from below.’ ‘Well?’ ‘He stood on the floor and handed me the book—and I was in the gallery.’

“‘That would be impossible, woman,’ we said. ‘No man could reach that distance.’

“‘But I say he did. He did hand it to me,’ protested the woman. At last an old body on the edge of the crowd exclaimed: ‘It could not be the churchman. It was surely the devil.’

“The excited one grew calm then, and after a minute said quietly: ‘Perhaps it was. It is so hard, sometimes, to tell who is man and who is devil.’

“Remember that, sir, as long as you are in Russia—it is hard to tell who is man and who is devil.”

The discussion raged hot till near midnight. Only the officer remained silent. He could not speak. He dared not—then. He listened intently and his eyes often glistened with interest. At last he took from his grip a bottle of liquor and a traveling drinking-cup. Filling the cup he held it high above him and in a voice that sounded to me full of hollow mockery shouted: “Vive la Russie!” The carriage suddenly fell silent. The student evidently hesitated whether to speak his defiance or not. I felt confident that the officer was heart and soul with the sentiments of the student, so I ventured to murmur, distinctly, but not too openly: “Vive la Revolution!”

The glass was near his lips, but at my words he paused, and, leaning toward me, whispered:

Moscow barricades

“That is better, but not so loud, please.” And then, this man, the Russian wearing the uniform of the Czar, drank to the toast—not of “la Russie”—but “la Revolution”!

Punctually at eight-thirty the next morning we rolled into the so-called Warsaw station in the “Quiet Capital,” and I drove directly to a hotel where friends awaited me. Outwardly, St. Petersburg preserved that appearance of calm which makes the city one of the most charming in Europe.

I arrived on Sunday. The bells of St. Isaac’s and the Kazan Cathedral and a score of lesser churches (but not lesser bells) clanged and boomed through the crackling frosty air. Myriad little sledges drawn by little horses scurried through the streets, and on the Morskaia that afternoon aristocracy drove—as madly, as carelessly, and as undisturbed as it drove that memorable Sunday just one year before when in the Winter Palace Square, just close by, Father Gapon’s procession of unarmed working-men were fired upon by the troops of the emperor—their “Little Father!”—as though they were an enemy upon a battle-ground. Impending doom may have dimmed, but it did not darken, the brightness of the city. Whatever of foreboding may have possessed the hearts and minds of the people, there was an outward show of gaiety that was a revelation to me—until I remembered the ball at which French officers danced on the eve of Waterloo; and the festivities of Port Arthur which continued even after the little yellow men had begun to pelt the fatal hand-grenades straight to the heart of Russia’s military prestige.

That night, in company with an American friend, I dined at Palkine’s restaurant on the Nevskii Prospekt. A Rumanian orchestra in native dress was playing a wild, gipsy air when we entered, but as we sat down the music, in a great burst of ecstatic sound, ceased. My companion remarked: “We are already recognized as Americans—now watch.” Almost instantly the swarthy players began the familiar strains of “The Star Spangled Banner,” and followed it with the stirring tune of “Dixie.” At the close we acknowledged the attention of the orchestra and the leader made us a proper bow. American airs are always popular in Russia, and Americans were being especially courted at that moment. Talk of an “impending bankruptcy” was in the air. Negotiations were then under way for floating a new loan in Europe, but these had not progressed far enough for any one to be sanguine. Indeed, the revolutionists and the liberals were still hopeful that the government would find a new loan in Europe impossible, consequently, in official circles the possibilities of finding money in America were being considered. There were not above twoscore Americans all told in St. Petersburg at that time (1906), counting the diplomatic corps, correspondents, and business men, so it was an easy matter to treat all with rare courtesy.

“Why do they not play the Russian national hymn?” I asked of my friend before we left the table.

“Because the national air of Russia, like the ‘Marseillaise,’ is prohibited,” he replied. And thereupon he told me of how, a little while before, he had been one night in a famous St. Petersburg restaurant called “The Bear,” when, during the playing of the national hymn, a guard officer had shot and killed a man ostensibly because he lolled over the back of his chair instead of standing erect, squarely on both feet. The police authorities, fearing further disturbance of a similar nature, immediately prohibited the playing or singing of the national air!

It was nearly midnight when my friend and I returned to our hotel, but there we found other friends still up. Hardly had we laid off our greatcoats when the door was thrown open and in rushed a common acquaintance—a Russian—tremendously excited, but radiant. He had been with a group of intellectuals in a home just around the corner. Suddenly the police appeared and placed all present under arrest. Only our friend escaped, and he through some clever ruse. While he was still relating to us his experience we heard the sound of singing, in the street below, and as we went to the window caught the words of a favorite revolutionary hymn. My blood stirred in my veins when I learned that the singers were being led away to prison, and I thought then, as I often thought later, after wide experience in Russia, that few things on earth are more thrilling than the sound of voices under such circumstances—brave men and women marching through frozen streets, often half-clad, to prison, or tied to Cossack saddles being dragged to tortures, and fearlessly, gloriously singing the words of freedom.

Sleep was slow in coming to my pillow that first night I spent in St. Petersburg. My mind was in a whirl in the vain endeavor to shake free of the conceptions of Russia gained before ever I crossed the frontier. Already I realized that, while Russia might be just as bad as most foreigners think it, it is bad in a different way. And whatever dangers may exist for the traveler in the interior, St. Petersburg, at least, was as secure (to the stranger) as Berlin, Paris, or New York.

One week later the confusion of impressions was even greater. Reports had come in, during these seven days, of clashes between the military and the people in forty-eight provinces. The atmosphere of uncertainty was more intense. Conditions seemed to be ripe for almost any kind of a disaster—imperial insolvency, barricade fighting in the streets, army or navy mutiny, general insurrection—and yet nothing of consequence actually happened. The cabinet crisis grew more acute, it is true. Witte—who has been called “more of a stratagem than a man”—was said to be in perpetual deadlock with M. Durnovo, his unscrupulous minister of interior, and those who had access to the premier told of how this greatest of Russian political adventurers would sit at his desk, in silent despair, toying with his glasses, frequently snapping them in two—sometimes a dozen pair a day.

The second morning after my arrival I was accorded an interview with M. Timirassiroff, whose demission was just announced, because of his liberal tendencies.

M. Timirassiroff had been for many years an admirer and supporter of Count Witte—whom he several times spoke of to me as “a great man”—but he now believed that Witte’s secretiveness, and lack of decisiveness, even of ordinary courage, was ruining his power and perhaps blasting his career.

“A Bismarck goes straight through his difficulties to the goal he has before him. Count Witte goes around his,” said M. Timirassiroff.

The deposed minister also dwelt upon the impractical method of administration then in vogue. Under the existing system each minister reports directly to the emperor, and the prime minister has no way of learning the character of the report of his individual ministers unless they choose to tell him—which in the case of Witte they seldom did. Witte, consequently, preserved a holy silence before his ministers in regard to his own policies. A premier who persistently declines to share with his cabinet information upon which he bases his policies naturally fails to obtain unanimous support.

“I would say to Count Witte,” said M. Timirassiroff, “how can I subscribe my name to that which I know nothing about?”

“You, sir,” the premier would reply, “are occupied with your own department, your own ministry, you cannot know all the cards.” (A favorite phrase with Witte.)

“If I do not know all the cards, then show them to me. I am not merely head of my ministry, I am also a member of your cabinet.”

This Witte never would do. And in the attitude of mutual suspicion, each member at sixes and sevens with the premier and with the other members of the cabinet, all working individually and often at cross-purposes; in this blind but truly Russian way the Witte ministry staggered on—to its fall. Similarly is Russia as a whole reeling toward the abyss. A ministry falls a thousand times more easily than a dynasty, but a dynasty following the same mad tactics that wrecks ministry after ministry must sooner or later collapse also. Follies that pass understanding are laid to the door of the house of Romanoff, and after the revolution had once broken over Russia, every serious person knew that the time element was all that remained as a subject for speculation. This is a big factor, however. The moment marked by this X stands elusively in the distance and between the present and it are weary miles that a nation must tramp, miles marked by many a mirage which like the vision of the oasis in the desert cruelly deceives the faint and exhausted traveler.

One week in St. Petersburg was enough for me to realize all this. The beginning of the end might be to-morrow. Or, with equal likelihood, it might be years away. The temper of the people was such that nothing would be a surprise.

St. Petersburg seemed to reflect the atmosphere of Moscow, which still cowered and quivered from the severe and bloody repression that followed the magnificent fight her mere handful of armed citizens maintained on the barricades for nine days against disciplined troops. Suggestive messages, distorted and censored by government officials, kept coming in from different parts of the empire, the most disquieting, perhaps, from the Baltic provinces, for there General Orloff, “the butcher,” was pressing on with his expedition of “pacification.” Telegrams from Riga and other Baltic towns which leaked through the censor were one mournful chronicle of the “pacification”:

At the Staro-Gulben 20 peasants are shot dead, at Tirsen, 6, and at Sipolena, 2. At Novo-Pebalge an estate is burned down. At Staro-Pebalge a beautiful school building has been destroyed by shells. At the Volosts of Saukin and Noutt, 13 people were shot dead by the dragoons, and 20 peasants were whipped by the “Rozgie.” Troops set fire to the Library of one landlord and all the books were burned, he himself arrested, and his daughter punished by “Rozgie.”

In Wender district, when the people were burying a number of the “Volost” who had been shot by the dragoons, the cemetery was surrounded by the troops, and about 100 peasants taken and punished by “Rozgie.”

In the government of Kurland, 20 estates are burned down,—the inhabitants of which are mostly arrested. In Assorski Volosta, a teacher, M. Stapran, a student and an organist, and an officer—a deserter—were arrested. The first three were shot and the latter sent to Jacobstadt.

In Wenden the shooting of members of the new “Volostny Pravleny” is still going on, though the chief of the Wenden army, General Schiff, absolutely declared to the members of the “Volostny Pravleny” that none of them will be shot any more, without trial.

The “Volksguard” of Salisburg

In the spring of 1906 the revolutionary movement had so far progressed in the Baltic Provinces that independent states were declared by the people in several places. In Salisburg the officials of the independent government and the People’s Guard were so confident of continued independence that they had themselves photographed. Later the troops of the Czar stamped out this revolt and a copy of the above photograph fell into the hands of the police who, through it, were enabled to run down all of these revolutionists and wholesale executions followed.

However, at Pebalga the troops shot 20 men and burned 10 estates.

At Bausk the dragoons shot Messrs. Blankenstein, Pitz, Rassman, and Friedman. They had orders to shoot in all 16 men, and hang a woman dentist, Rachel Wolpe. Not finding her at home the dragoons destroyed all her property. When they did not find Mr. Michelson, they tortured his wife. The latter took her baby in her arms and declared that she was prepared to die, but the dragoons left her alone and came the next day to torture her again for hours. However, they could not force the unfortunate victim to tell them where her husband had hidden himself.

And so on, through a column, sometimes through two columns.

Especially significant telegrams were daily pouring in from the Caucasus. There the wildfires of revolutionary activity were fiercely sweeping from the Black Sea to the Caspian; there the Cossacks—the bulwark of czarism—were in constant action.

One week to a day after my arrival in St. Petersburg I met in the Cave La Grave (a French restaurant much frequented by foreign newspaper correspondents) a friend, a gentleman of the court, who inquired:

“Are you interested in Cossacks? Would you like to visit the Caucasus with a party of Cossack officers?”

The infinite possibilities that such an opportunity as this offered fairly overcame me. My friend continued:

“My officer-brother’s regiment, whose commander is an aide-de-camp to the emperor, has just returned from Manchuria. Fourteen of the officers, with a proper escort, are about to make a long journey through the disturbed country in connection with the disbandment of their regiment, which had been drafted for war service only. If you care to join them I will telegraph them to wait for you.”

The telegram was sent. That night found me speeding south toward the unconquered and unconquerable Caucasus, where the flower of the Russian army was hopelessly struggling to quench the flames of revolt with blood—the blood not only of men, but of women and children.