CHAPTER XIII

THE TRIAL OF THE FOURTEEN—RECOLLECTIONS OF VERA FIGNER—NUMEROUS IMPRISONMENTS—“AGENTS PROVOCATEURS”

When I told the old governor that I was engaged on no plan of escape, I spoke the simple truth. After my establishment in this prison I felt too much wearied out to think of any such matter. Beyond everything else I wanted rest, to recover myself after the frightful tension of the last months. Naturally the desire for freedom did not leave me; no human being in my circumstances could entirely abandon the thought of it. But it remained for the time being in the background of my consciousness; I felt I had not the energy to strive seriously for its fulfilment.

Time at first passed peacefully and quietly; I read a good deal, and talked with my new friends. What they had to tell was in part new to me, and very interesting. I had known nothing at all about the particulars of their trial. It remains to this day an isolated case, in which nearly all the accused were military or naval officers. Two of them, the naval lieutenant Baron von Stromberg and Lieutenant Rogachev, were executed.[49] What most interested me, however, and will most interest others, was to hear about the heroine of this case, the celebrated Vera 116Figner.[50] At that time her name was in everyone’s mouth, and for long she was the most popular personage in revolutionary circles. All the young people worshipped her; and the stories that were told of her talent for organisation, her astonishing powers of invention, her wonderful perseverance, untiring energy, and boundless readiness for self-sacrifice, testified fully to the part she had played in our movement. The dignified and unselfish conduct of this exceptional woman impressed even the members of the court-martial that tried her.

I had come to know Vera Figner personally in Petersburg, during the year 1877, at a time when she had already adopted the idea of going “among the people.” Twenty-two years of age, slender and of striking beauty, she was even then a noteworthy figure among the other prominent women Socialists. Like so many other girls, she had thrown heart and soul into the cause of the Russian peasants, and was ready and willing to sacrifice everything to serve the people.

In the summer of 1879 I again came repeatedly in contact with her. While two years before she had impressed me as a very young propagandist, ready to accept without question the views of her comrades, she had now formed her own independent and keenly logical powers of judgment. As I have previously said, this was a time of hot discussion as to our future programme. Some held the opinion that the whole strength of our party should be concentrated on the terrorist struggle to overthrow the existing machinery of State by attempting the lives of the Tsar and the lesser representatives of despotism. Others contended that revolutionary propaganda ought still to be tried and carried further than hitherto; that revolutionists should work among the people, colonise the villages, and instruct the peasants in the manner of the organisation Zemlyà i Vòlya (Land and Freedom). Vera Figner was one of the most strenuous supporters of the former view.

117I remember well, how once, when our whole circle had met together at Lesnoye, a summer resort near Petersburg, we were arguing hotly with her as to how propaganda among the peasantry might be made to yield the most fruitful results. She had just returned from a small village on the Volga, where she had been living as a peasant, for purposes of propaganda. The impressions she had received there had stirred her deeply, and she described in graphic language the fathomless misery and poverty, the hopeless ignorance of the provincial working classes. The conclusion she drew from it all was that under existing conditions there was no way of helping these people.

“Show me any such way; show me how under present circumstances I can serve the peasants, and I am ready to go back to the villages at once,” she said. And her whole manner left no doubt of her absolute sincerity and readiness to keep her word. But her experience had been that of many others who had idealised “the people,” and also their own power of stirring them; and we were none of us prepared with any definite counsel that could deter her from the new path she had determined to tread—simply because she could see no other leading to the desired end.

When I went to Odessa in the late autumn of the same year I found Vera Figner there. In conjunction with Kibàltchitch, Frolènko,[51] Kolotkèvitch, and Zlatopòlsky she was busy with preparations for an attempt on the life of Alexander II., who was about to return to Petersburg from Livadia. The dynamite was stored in her house; she had now put aside all doubt, and devoted herself with her whole soul to terrorist activity.[52]

She belonged to the Russian aristocracy; her grandfather had won a name for himself in the guerrilla warfare against Napoleon’s invasion. Inflexible determination 118and tireless perseverance were her most prominent qualities; she was never contented with a single task, even the most enthralling, but would carry on work in all sorts of different directions simultaneously. While engaged in making ready for this attempt on the Tsar’s life she was at the same time organising revolutionary societies among the youth of the country, doing propaganda work in the higher ranks of society, and helping us in Odessa with a secret newspaper that we were starting for South Russia.

But Vera Figner was still only in the developing stage of her strength and capacities. She was already highly esteemed by all who came near her, winning their sympathy and confidence; yet even her greatest friends could hardly suspect the depth of character possessed by this radiantly beautiful girl. It was fully shown in 1882, when nearly all her comrades of the Naròdnaia Vòlya were in prison, and the few who had escaped capture had fled into foreign countries; she resolutely declined to entertain the idea of flight, though the danger of arrest menaced her at every turn. In 1883 she fell a victim to the treachery of Degàiev,[53] and was sentenced to death; but “by favour” this was altered to lifelong penal servitude, and she was immured in the living grave of the Schlüsselburg fortress, where she still is (1902).

To return to my comrades in the Moscow prison, Spandoni and Tchuikòv; besides their own narratives of their past experiences I could also avail myself of their formal indictments, which they had with them. The chief characteristic of these documents was their entire failure to show any grounds for the exceptionally heavy sentences inflicted. I will set down here what the Public Prosecutor had to say against these two companions of my captivity.

“Athanasius Spandoni was connected with a secret printing press discovered in Odessa in the house of the married couple Degàiev.” Thus began the indictment, 119and it went on to state that he had refused to make any confession, but that his membership of the secret society Naròdnaia Vòlya was sworn to by Mme. Degàiev, who also stated that he had twice visited her house. That was absolutely all. Two visits to a secret printing office were punished with fifteen years’ penal servitude!

The “crime” of Tchuikòv was scarcely more serious. His indictment ran as follows:—

“When Vera Figner was arrested in Kharkov, the authorities in that place advised us that Vladimir Tchuikòv, among others, had been in correspondence with her. His house being searched, there were found (1) implements for setting up type, (2) implements for making false passports, (3) prussic acid and morphia, (4) various seditious writings (some printed, some in manuscript), (5) a list giving the names of different political criminals, (6) lists for the collection of subscriptions to the Naròdnaia Vòlya. Tchuikòv has acknowledged that he agrees with the principles of the Naròdnaia Vòlya.” And on these grounds he was condemned to twenty years’ penal servitude.

The charge brought against the rest of the accused in this case, the naval and military officers, were of a similar description; and for these “crimes” they were all condemned to death, the sentence being actually carried out as regards two of their number.

For a time we three were the only inmates of the Pugatchev tower, but we were expecting other companions. In about a fortnight after my advent the condemned in the already mentioned Shebalìn case were to arrive from Ki?v—four sentenced to penal servitude and four to exile, among the latter two women. We awaited their coming with the greatest interest, but when the party arrived only two were brought to our tower, the exiles Makàr Vasìliev and Peter Dashkièvitch. Paraskovya Shebalina and a young girl, Barbara Shtchulèpnikòva, also condemned to exile, were of course taken to the 120women’s quarters; but the four other men had quite unexpectedly been sent off to Schlüsselburg, as the outcome of a conflict with the prison authorities, of which I will give some particulars.

I have already tried to give some idea of what all convicts must suffer when their fetters are first put on and their heads shaved. Until the time of which I write it had been customary (and still is, in the case of anyone belonging to the “privileged classes”) to defer the performance of this barbarous ceremony until arrival in Siberia at the town of Tiumen. But it occurred to the officials that the condemned in the Shebalìn case (i.e. Shebalìn, Pankràtov, Karanlov, and Borisòvitch) should be fettered and shaved before their transfer to Moscow. This was hotly resented by the victims themselves, and all the other “politicals” in the Ki?v prison joined in their protest. The authorities then employed force to carry out their intention, and thereupon the prisoners “demonstrated” in the usual fashion, that is, by breaking windows, destroying furniture, etc. The occurrence was reported to Petersburg, and thence the order was at once received to send our four comrades to Schlüsselburg. What that meant I have already indicated: burial alive in a state of perpetual martyrdom. Most of the unhappy victims die in a few years, others lose their reason, and many purposely offer violence to the officials in order to win for themselves a speedy execution. It is easy, then, to imagine our feelings on receiving this news about our comrades, especially as there were some among them at whose door no accusation of any consequence could be laid. Karanlov, for instance, had only been sentenced to four years’ penal servitude, the court-martial having found it impossible to inflict a heavier punishment. He had thereupon married, as his wife would by law be permitted to follow him to Siberia; and his imprisonment in Schlüsselburg meant utter separation for them, as he would not even be allowed to write to her.

121The case of the Shebalìns was even more sad. The young wife had scarcely parted from her husband when her child—an unweaned infant, whom she had with her in prison—fell ill and died. She herself succumbed to her grief, and late in the autumn died in the Moscow prison.

Soon after these arrivals there came fresh batches of “politicals,” until the great prison was full to overflowing. The Lopàtin case contributed many. Hermann Lopàtin is one of the best-known figures in our Russian revolutionary movement. In 1884 he had returned from abroad (whither he had earlier been obliged to flee), in order to resuscitate the organisation of the Naròdnaia Vòlya, all the active members of which were in prison in consequence of Degàiev’s treachery. Lopàtin had almost to begin at the beginning again in reorganising that terrorist society, and travelled for this purpose all over Russia, establishing fresh connections everywhere. As he could not depend on his memory he had to write down the names of members, with notes as to their capacity for usefulness, and he kept the bit of paper with this list on it always about his person, meaning to destroy it if in any danger. Unfortunately, this proved impossible, for one day he was seized in the street by the secret police and overpowered before he could manage to swallow the compromising document, though he had actually got it into his mouth. All whose names were on his list were, of course, arrested, and imprisonments were made all over Russia. The numerous persons who were sent to the central prison in Moscow in consequence of Lopàtin’s capture were for the most part scarcely out of boyhood, and their guilt entirely consisted in their being named in Lopàtin’s list.

One case that especially moved me was that of Rubìnok, a young student from Moscow University, aged only nineteen, highly gifted, and developed intellectually far beyond his years. He was condemned to three years’ exile in Eastern Siberia, and was eventually sent to one 122of the most forsaken corners of the earth—in the province of Yakutsk, beyond the arctic circle. While there he was somehow or other set upon by the half-savage natives and nearly killed, in consequence of which violent treatment he lost his reason and became permanently insane.

There was much said in our prison (and throughout Moscow, too) about the fate of another young student of the Peter Rasoumòvsky Academy. His name was Kovalièv; he had been arrested on some trifling count, and confined in the police prison. A certain officer of the guard, Belino-Bshezòvsky, was also there, under examination for some criminal offence. This representative of our gilded youth entered into league with the gendarmerie to take advantage of the young student’s inexperience; and they planned no less than the concoction of a false attempt at assassination. The officer pretended to Kovalièv that he himself belonged to the revolutionists, and tempted the boy with the suggestion of killing the Public Prosecutor of the Moscow Courts (the present Minister of Justice, Mouravièv). The unwary youth fell into the trap, and the agent provocateur furnished him with a loaded revolver; then, when Kovalièv was to be examined by the Public Prosecutor, he was suddenly seized on his way to the office by the gendarmes (instructed, of course, by Belino-Bshezòvsky), searched, and the weapon found on him. He was at once charged with being caught in an attempt to murder the Public Prosecutor. In his despair he tried to commit suicide, but was prevented. The provocative r?le played by the gendarmerie was here too flagrant to be concealed, and the representations of the victim’s father were successful in rescuing him from their clutches. An order was sent from Petersburg to hush up the affair. Rumours were current everywhere that Mouravièv had been privy to the action of the gendarmerie, his attempted assassination being designed to fix public notice upon him and bring him to the front. But I have no means of knowing how far there was any foundation for this report.