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24 chapters
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Importance of movement called Russian revolution—Its varied aspects—Inevitableness of revolution in Russia—Causes—The disease of autocracy—Insincerity of manifesto of October, 1905, seen in gradual withdrawal of constitutional rights then guaranteed—Elements of disintegration in Russian state—Ninety per cent. of Russian people now oppose existing régime—Startling record of killed and wounded in 1906—Compared to French Terror—Length of Russian struggle compared to other revolutions in history—Aut
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CHAPTER I INTO THE SHADOW
CHAPTER I INTO THE SHADOW
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. T 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 cele
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CHAPTER II AMONG OFFICERS OF THE CZAR
CHAPTER II AMONG OFFICERS OF THE CZAR
Welcomed by officers of the guard—Being Cossackized —An interrupted sleep—Presentation to the governor-general—An amusing interview—The general’s vanity and how it was tickled—The story of the Cossacks—An Ingoosh brigand—An expedition into the mountains. P RINCE ANDRONNIKOV, some time lieutenant in the Terskoi-Koubansky Cossack regiment, presently attached to the person of the empress, received me in Vladikavkas with a graciousness known only in the East—charming formality blended with cordial w
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CHAPTER III AT HOME WITH COSSACKS
CHAPTER III AT HOME WITH COSSACKS
A Cossack village—An exhibition of horsemanship—An accident—How Cossacks are trained for service—Cossack local government—Basis of Cossack loyalty—Their attitude toward massacres—Cossacks of the Caucasus, like other tribes of the mountains, still unconquered—Back to Vladikavkaz. T HERE is nothing straggling about a Terek Cossack stanitza. The houses run as a line, east and west, north and south. A paling defines the line. Without the pale is the steppe and the forest, within is the village. Ther
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CHAPTER IV UNDER MARTIAL LAW
CHAPTER IV UNDER MARTIAL LAW
The journey to the “Oil City”—First view of the Caspian—Armenians and Tartars—Russia’s monstrous misrule—Tiflis blood-stained and battered—How to wield a Caucasian dagger—Daily perils—Chiaroscuro of officers’ life—A stirring departure. T HE officers occupied the first-class compartments of two cars attached to a regular train, run from Moscow to Baku and Tiflis, and the escort of some forty odd Cossacks who accompanied our party were relegated to a fourth-class car somewhere at the rear of the t
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CHAPTER V WITH THE ARMY OF “PACIFICATION”
CHAPTER V WITH THE ARMY OF “PACIFICATION”
Arrival in Kutais—A siege city—“The very walls have ears”—Cossack barracks—Loot—“Bloody” Alikhanoff—A dramatic interview—Justification for burning homes—Military outrages—Why the inhabitants of the Caucasus are revolutionists and terrorists. I VAN called me at daybreak. At seven o’clock we alighted at Kutais station. Besides ourselves only officers left the train. A small force of infantry held and guarded the station. The early morning air was heavy with the odor of charred wood; opposite the p
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CHAPTER VI COURTING ARREST
CHAPTER VI COURTING ARREST
A journey in the interior—Warned back—The start—A typical Volga province—Causes of the famine—Arrival at Tsaritzin—Two medical students—“Open! Open to the Police!”—The search—Condition of the peasants—Pesky—A group of remarkable personalities—Village customs—A dramatic meeting—A night ride—A sudden interruption in our plan. O CCASIONAL massacres of Jews, of Armenians, of Tartars, of intellectuals in interior towns—these the world knows about. Massacres are instituted to accomplish certain defini
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CHAPTER VII IN PRISON
CHAPTER VII IN PRISON
“Cossacks”—Questioned—Taken—Five charges to account for—Accused of being an agitator—Eighteen versts to the gendarmerie—A tedious night—Back to Saratoff—“Take the dogs away”—Prison—Clamoring for freedom—Discouragement—Parole—Release. S LEEP laid siege to us instantly we entered the warm room of the station-house. I noticed two girls asleep in a bed in one corner of the room, and a young man, rolled in an overcoat, on the bare floor, snoring loudly in the opposite corner. More than twenty hours h
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CHAPTER VIII A VISIT TO MARIE SPIRADONOVA
CHAPTER VIII A VISIT TO MARIE SPIRADONOVA
A tyrannical régime—A young girl’s daring—Tortures and outrages—Entertained by the governor—A kindly police-master—Grim prison walls—Difficulties—Appeal to the governor—Shackled prisoners—Marie Spiradonova—A terrible tale—Interruptions—A Spartan mother—Letters from the fair prisoner—“Greetings to France, to England, and to America.” A DJOINING the province of Saratoff, where I was arrested, is Tamboff, another government within the famine belt, where the long northern winters are more bitter bec
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CHAPTER IX WATCHING THE DUMA AT WORK
CHAPTER IX WATCHING THE DUMA AT WORK
The famous October manifesto—Skepticism of Russian people toward promise of Constitution—Difficulties placed in way of honest voting—Czar’s insincerity and duplicity—Fundamental and exceptional laws—Ministerial change on eve of Duma—St. Petersburg possessed by troops—The Winter Palace spectacle—The throne speech—Disappointment of deputies—“Amnesty! Amnesty!”—“The first shot”—Make-up of first Duma—First session—Zeal of representatives—Hostile attitude of government—Work of Duma—Governmental polic
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CHAPTER X A CONSPIRATIVE MEETING
CHAPTER X A CONSPIRATIVE MEETING
A member of the military organization—Realities of the revolution—Kronstadt—Revolutionary headquarters among the soldiers and sailors—A conspirative gathering—Smuggling forbidden literature—A surprise—Disguised as a Russian sailor—A thrilling experience—An inspiring episode—Shadowed!—Flight—Plan of escape—Capture deferred. P ASHA belonged to the military organization, so called because the members work exclusively among the soldiers and sailors. In other words, Pasha mounted the gallows steps ev
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CHAPTER XI THE KRONSTADT UPRISING
CHAPTER XI THE KRONSTADT UPRISING
Kronstadt on the eve of mutiny—Influences encouraging uprising—Make-up of the garrison—Wild rumors—A grand plan for general army and navy uprising—A successful beginning—Silence—A momentous telegram—A sudden signal—Mutiny—Trapped!—Slaughter—Illuminating lessons of the Kronstadt fiasco—The terrible cost in life and liberty. T HE Kronstadt fiasco revealed the value to the government of the agent provocateur . [12] During the entire year 1906 there was no shrewder nor cleverer piece of work execute
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CHAPTER XII GOVERNMENTAL TERRORISM
CHAPTER XII GOVERNMENTAL TERRORISM
Arrived in Bielostok—First impressions—Stories of the injured—The crucifix as a weapon of death—The hospital fired upon—Children victims—Failure of government to place responsibility—Mass of evidence proving governmental complicity in massacres—Other massacres officially instigated—Prince Urusoff’s speech—The assassination of Professor Hertzenstein—A celebrated Moscow physician murdered—Warsaw horrors—Upon whom rests the responsibility?—Arrest of Pasha—Shooting a girl in prison—Bureaucracy guilt
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CHAPTER XIII AMID WARSAW CONTRASTS
CHAPTER XIII AMID WARSAW CONTRASTS
Seething Poland—Governmental lawlessness—Overwhelming little Poland by sheer force of numbers—Twice over the Polish frontier—A panic of Warsaw Jews—Russian oppression—A nervous populace—Campaign to exterminate Warsaw police—Hopeless plight of latter—A pathetic incident—Where poverty stalks—Effect of era of misery and chaos upon Warsovians—Traffic in white slaves—Daily occurrences—A Warsaw hospital—Chiaroscuro in the Polish capital—Parties of Poland—Poles traditional revolutionists—Hope and optim
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CHAPTER XIV AMONG THE MUZHIKS
CHAPTER XIV AMONG THE MUZHIKS
Importance of the muzhik in the future—Ancient republican traditions—Greek church and bureaucracy run Russian institutions—Weight of the peasant vote in the Duma—How the peasant’s belief in “God and Czar” is waning—Strokes of disillusionment—Indifference to time—Muzhik nonchalance—Strange sects—Muzhik religion—A characteristic legend—Practical ethics—The muzhik not necessarily lazy—Muzhik shrewdness—The dawning of self-consciousness. T HE future of Russia lies in the muzhik. With an agrarian pop
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CHAPTER XV THE PEASANT AWAKENING
CHAPTER XV THE PEASANT AWAKENING
The period of repression following the Duma dissolution—Under arrest in Moscow—The cradle of the Romanoffs—A peasant gathering—Outspoken muzhiks—A “constituent assembly”—Rational opinions of the Viborg manifesto—Nijni Novgorod—The great fair—A disturbed province—Kazan—A journey to the interior—A visit to Prince Ouktomsky—Professor Vassiliev and his family—Advanced ideas of the peasants—Simbirsk, the “Mountain of the Winds”—An illiterate government—What the peasants want—Entering the famine belt.
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CHAPTER XVI THROUGH THE “HUNGRY COUNTRY”
CHAPTER XVI THROUGH THE “HUNGRY COUNTRY”
Heart of the famine region—Terrible pictures of starvation—Peasants feeding the thatch from the roofs of their houses to cattle—Auctioning cattle and horses for a song—How the workers and breadwinners suffer first—Inability of the government to cope with situation—Peasants pledge their labor for years to come to secure food for their families for the present time—Another arrest—Expulsion from the province. S AMARA province marks the heart of the “hungry country,” which includes all of the Volga
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CHAPTER XVII IN THE LAND OF LOST LEADERS
CHAPTER XVII IN THE LAND OF LOST LEADERS
Across the Urals—Into Siberia—The Treimen waiting-prison—First exiles—The journey to Tobolsk—Secret night meeting of politicals—Hardships of exile—Splendid personnel of prisoners—Forced into daily contact with foul disease—Starvation—Life among the Ostiaks—Lack of medical aid—Siberia, a monumental crime—The journey back. U FA held little to interest me, so that after only a brief pause I continued my journey east to Cheliabinsk, the western terminal of the Trans-Siberian Railway. It had not orig
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CHAPTER XVIII MY FRIENDS, THE TERRORISTS
CHAPTER XVIII MY FRIENDS, THE TERRORISTS
“Terrorism” almost universally misunderstood in America—Terrorism a philosophy based on logical, intelligent, dispassionate reasoning—Exceptional incidents that merely prove the rule—Relation of terrorists to the whole revolutionary movement—Differentiation of the several leading revolutionary parties—Thoughtful and humane methods of recent terrorists—Capture of “The Bear”—Two girl terrorists executed at Kronstadt—The daring Maximalists—“Flying Bands”—Rigid morals of terrorists—Total abstainers—
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CHAPTER XIX A CLOSE CALL
CHAPTER XIX A CLOSE CALL
A midnight meeting—An unusual request—Four women of “the movement”—A sharp engagement—How the plot was carried out—Plans for escape—Disappointment—An educated cab driver—A bold scheme—A unique “bridal” party—No news—Alarm—On the trail—A gendarme companion—Suspicious incidents—A night alarm—Caught—A desperate chance—“Au revoir”—Found—Back to the fight—Watched—Final escape. O NE silver night in late October I was returning home a little before midnight. St. Petersburg was subdued, but not hushed.
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CHAPTER XX WITH THE RUSSIAN WORKMAN
CHAPTER XX WITH THE RUSSIAN WORKMAN
Yusofka for a week-end—An exciting journey—A late welcome—Guarded slumber—The story of Yusofka—The Black Country of Russia—Time of small consequence to Russian workmen—Russian holidays numerous—The working-day—Cost of living not low—Coal mines—The Artel—Morality—The drink question—Through a Russian coal mine—The Russian engineer an obstacle to progress—Child-labor laws good—Conditions compared with Scotland and Pennsylvania—Comparative wage scale—Standards of living—Departure from Yusofka. M R.
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CHAPTER XXI TOLSTOI—ODESSA—CONSTANTINOPLE
CHAPTER XXI TOLSTOI—ODESSA—CONSTANTINOPLE
A visit to Russia’s grand old man—An interesting yamschik—Tolstoi’s views on the present struggle—His world-wide interests—The varied and interesting Tolstoi household—On to the Crimea—Odessa—The Black Hundred organization—Promoting massacres—Quitting Odessa during a dock strike—A Black Hundred crew—Difficulties at sea—Back to Odessa—A fresh start—A motley cargo of passengers—Bokhara pilgrims bound for Mecca, Central Asia Jews journeying to Jerusalem, German Lutherans—Crossing the Black Sea—Arri
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CHAPTER XXII THE TREND
CHAPTER XXII THE TREND
Whither? The future of Russia—Why the revolution has not yet succeeded—Probable outcome of the struggle—Inevitableness of eventual overthrow of present régime—Attitude of foreign Powers—The Russian people during the period of rebellion—Effect upon national character—The Czar and the people—The Czar and the world—What we may expect. W HEN the troubled year 1906 ended, the shadow of reaction began to deepen over the Russian empire. One by one the granted liberties and promised reforms of the manif
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APPENDICES
APPENDICES
A—Caucasian testimony; B—The Duma’s Reply to the Throne Speech; C—M. Lopuchin’s letter to M. Stolypin; D—Report on Siedlce pogrom; E—Notes on Wages and Cost of Living. TRANSLATION OF A FEW PAGES OF TESTIMONY FROM A WHOLE VOLUME OF SIMILAR EVIDENCE COLLECTED BY A SOCIETY OF TIFLIS LAWYERS ON THE “PACIFICATION” IN TRANS-CAUCASIA, 1905-1906 THE EXCERPTS HERE PRINTED ARE NOT OF EXCEPTIONAL CASES, BUT ARE APPALLINGLY REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ENTIRE TEXT. The Village Sos , April 4, 1905. (1) Parish Pries
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