CHAPTER XXII

FIRST DAYS AT KARA—FRIENDS OLD AND NEW

We entered a long, dimly-lighted corridor. Close to the door stood a man in convict dress beside a mighty chest. “Good day, Martinòvsky!” said I; for although I had never seen him before, I knew from our comrades’ descriptions that he, being stàrosta, remained on duty from early morning till late evening by this big chest, which was the prisoners’ larder. He looked a little surprised at the greeting, but on our announcing our names a pleasant smile lighted up his grave features, and he shook hands with us warmly.

“Deutsch goes to No. 2 and Tchuikòv to No. 4!” The gendarme’s announcement interrupted us. A door was opened, and I stepped into my room. It was a large apartment; a long table and benches stood in the middle; round three walls ran the bed-shelves; there was a huge stove, and three great windows admitted plenty of light.

My new companions welcomed me warmly. There were fifteen men in the room, two of them—Sundelèvitch and Paul Orlov—being already known to me from of old. The first question to be settled was where my sleeping-place should be, and it was decided that I should lie next to Sundelèvitch, which meant that Starinkyèvitch, whose place this had been, must find room elsewhere. I found later that it was a great sacrifice this comrade had made for me, for Starinkyèvitch was thereby separated from his friend Martinòvsky. In a room where so many men lived constantly crowded together, the only possibility of close 210intercourse and the sharing of intimate thoughts between two friends was when they lay side by side on the bed-shelf, and it was only subsequently that I found out what significance this had in our situation.

When we arrived, supper was already over, but we were given each a glass of tea with a tiny scrap of sugar, and a piece of black bread. I was overwhelmed with questions, and was made to tell all about my arrest, my adventures, and what was going on in Russia. We chattered, joked, and laughed as only the young can, for except Berezniàk and Dzvonkyèvitch, who were forty and forty-five respectively, we were all between the ages of twenty-four and thirty. I had an odd feeling, as if after a long absence I found myself once more in an intimate family circle. Time flew, and it was late at night before I lay down to sleep, spreading on the wooden boards of the bed-shelf a little mattress that I had brought with me. My journey from Moscow had lasted seven months; I was sick of moving about, and now experienced a real feeling of comfort at the idea of having come to anchor for years.

I had been rejoicing much beforehand at the prospect of meeting in Kara my old friend Jacob Stefanòvitch,[78] 211from whom I had last parted four years ago, in Switzerland. He had then returned to Russia, had been arrested in February, 1882, convicted in the “Case of the Seventeen,” and sentenced to eight years’ “katorga.” He had been two years in Kara before my arrival. As he was lodged in another room I could only pay him a flying visit that evening, for soon after our entrance the rounds were made and the doors all locked for the night. Next morning, as soon as the rounds had been made and the roll-call got over, I called to the gendarmes through the peephole in our door, and made them take me to No. 1 room, where Stefanòvitch was. During the daytime we were permitted to go from one room to another—a privilege obtained by the “politicals” only after a long, hard fight, although in the criminals’ prison the doors of the rooms had never been kept locked by day.

In No. 1 there were also sixteen men, that being the complete number; and now that we had arrived every room was full. After greeting the comrades here and chatting with my friend, I visited all the other rooms. Of course, the advent of a new-comer is a great event in the prison, and is generally expected beforehand, for notwithstanding all official precaution, a good deal of intelligence from without finds its way through the walls. The arrival is awaited with the greatest impatience, as may be imagined; and for a few days the monotony of the life is enlivened by the new-comer’s tidings of the world in general and of the revolutionary movement in particular.

Not only had I much to tell, but I was much interested in learning the views of my comrades, though all that I 212heard was not entirely to my liking. I recollect a conversation I had with an old acquaintance, Volòshenko,[79] who passed for a very intelligent man. He had been arrested at Ki?v in 1879, and sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude, afterwards increased by eleven years more in consequence of an attempted escape. When I spoke of the new tendencies in the Russian revolutionary movement, and mentioned that a Socialist group had been formed calling itself the “League for the Emancipation of Labour,” and professing the Marxian views held by the German Social Democrats, Volòshenko seemed highly amused.

“Social Democrats in Russia! That’s a comical idea! Who are these people?”

“You see one of them before you,” I replied.

Volòshenko and many others in the room stared in blank astonishment. Had I announced myself a follower of the prophet Mahomet they could scarcely have been more surprised. The ideas of Karl Marx were at that time but little known in Russia. It was indeed thought one’s duty to read the first volume of Das Kapital, which had appeared in a Russian translation, and it was usual to find educated people in European Russia recognising Marx’s services to the science of political economy; but in Kara they had not progressed even so far. As to the philosophical basis of Marx’s theory of Socialism practically nothing was known; nevertheless it was rejected, partly owing to the influence of Eugene Dühring, partly to that of the Russian author N. Mihailovsky, and finally on account of a dictum of so-called “sane common sense” that Marx’s ideas were quite inapplicable to Russia. This last was Volòshenko’s contention, fortified, however, by no personal knowledge of Marx’s writings.

I was in a position to give more than verbal tidings of the new tendency. We had succeeded, despite all official scrutiny, in smuggling various prohibited writings into the prison, and among them the first publication of our group, 213Plehànov’s Socialism and the Political Struggle. For a long time no forbidden literature had penetrated to Kara; the excitement was great, and the new material for thought was seized on with avidity. I was very anxious to discover Sundelèvitch’s attitude towards this problem, for in the old days, when we were nearly all Terrorists, he was considered as more or less of a Social Democrat—at any rate, he had been known to approve of the German development on those lines, so far as that country was concerned. We had been acquainted in 1878, when he had in charge the transport of forbidden literature for the Zemlyà i Vòlya (Land and Liberty) group; and he had made use of his special experience in such illegal traffic to get Stefanòvitch and myself safely across the frontier after our flight from Ki?v prison. At that time we had had many hot discussions with Sundelèvitch over the methods of conducting our struggle in Russia; for I was then a decided opponent of the Social Democrats, and as a Terrorist and “Naròdnik” (i.e. member of the party whose object it was to organise revolts among the peasants) held the peaceful tactics of German Socialists to be utterly ineffectual—naturally, therefore, I would have all the more scouted the idea of introducing them into Russia. Sundelèvitch, on the contrary, did not believe in “the People,” and thought agitation among the Russian working-classes quite futile. In his opinion the first thing to do was to fight for political freedom; and then, as soon as that was obtained, to resort to the constitutional methods of the German Social-Democratic party. Consequently, he did not join the terrorist party till it began its political activity in 1878; and he was one of the first to enunciate the idea that its methods were only temporarily adopted because they offered the sole possible means in Russia of overthrowing the existing political order. He was one of the most energetic in organising terrorist conspiracies, and the party owed much to his help in carrying through their active work; he was invaluable in striking out the most 214effective and practical suggestions. He was arrested quite by chance in a public library in Petersburg during the autumn of 1879, and was prosecuted in the “Case of the Sixteen,” when Kviatkòvsky and Pressnyàkov were sentenced to death, and he himself to lifelong penal servitude.

I had been thinking much about our former arguments, for I had since been converted to the views Sundelèvitch then advocated, and I now hoped to find a kindred spirit in him. Even on purely personal grounds I desired it; for when a man is convinced of the rightness of his own plan of action, it must be irksome to live for years with others who, while sharing his principles, differ entirely as to the best means of carrying them out; and this is especially so when what one holds most sacred is in question, no matter how tolerant one may be. I earnestly hoped I should not be alone in my views, and I could have asked for no better friend than Sundelèvitch, who was incomparable as a comrade—one of the finest natures I have ever known, unselfish, trustworthy, judicious.

As I now lay beside him during the long evenings we talked of our common friends still in freedom and fighting for the cause, of the victims of that fight who had died the death of heroes or were languishing in Schlüsselburg; but instinctively I shrank at first from touching on theoretical subjects, dreading that we might be out of sympathy, for I soon heard that he was no longer of his old way of thinking. Like many others during their first years of imprisonment, Sundelèvitch experienced a reaction; he absolutely threw over the Marxian doctrine, and would not admit the economic teaching of Das Kapital to be sound. In time we fought many a tough battle on this head, my friend declaring that for Germans Social Democracy might do, but that such ideas would never effect anything in Russia.

With my other friend, Stefanòvitch, I had less opportunity for conversation, as we inhabited different rooms; 215but to him also my opinions came unexpectedly, and seemed strange and incomprehensible. When we had parted four years back we had been quite at one, and he had remained, as he was then, half Naròdnik, half Terrorist; while I, having thoroughly assimilated the new ideas, had, with some other companions, founded the Social Democratic organisation, Tchòrny Peredyèl (Redivision of the Land). He learned this now for the first time, and could not tell off-hand how he should regard it; but being unusually thoughtful and far-seeing, he appreciated the importance of the change that had come over the opinions of his comrades in the struggle. He grasped the trend of the new doctrine, and tried to comprehend it fully. It was clear to him that through our organisation a way was being laid in Russia for a perfectly new outlook on the world; he doubted whether it would find favour in our country, but was far from meeting the idea with enmity or contempt, as the shallower minds among the revolutionists did both then and later.

This common life of so many young people in the prison had led to the development of a peculiar jargon. Each room had its nickname: the first was “the Sanhedrin,” the second “the nobles’ room,” the third “Yakutsk,” and the fourth “Volost,” i.e. “the commune.” These names had their origin in the dim and distant past, and I never discovered what had given rise to them.

The inmates of the “nobles’ room,” in which I was located, were all clever, well-educated young men, full of life and vigour; each in a way represented a different type, and some had a really remarkable force of character. Among these latter I would especially class Nicholas Yatzèvitch, who was the son of a priest in Poltava. When a seventeen-year-old student in the Veterinary College at Kharkov he was arrested for attempting to rescue Alexei Medvediev[80] from prison, was tried, and sentenced to fifteen years’ “katorga.” He had escaped 216(as I have said before) from the Irkutsk prison, had been recaptured, and condemned to another fourteen years’ penal servitude. He was barely nineteen when brought to Kara, where he gained the goodwill of everyone by his admirable qualities. Modest even to bashfulness, silent and reserved, he yet exercised over his companions a quite wonderful influence. His thirst for knowledge was without limit; he studied various subjects with unflagging industry while in prison, especially natural science, philosophy, and literature, besides learning several languages. He found time, too, for manual work, at which he proved himself very quick and adroit. He was on friendly terms with every one of his comrades in prison without exception, always affectionate and ready to help. No wonder he gained the esteem of all, and was willingly looked up to as an authority, despite his youth (he was but five-and-twenty when I first went to Kara); whether the question were one of household affairs or an abstruse theoretical problem, his opinion was sure to find favour with the majority. The bent of his mind was towards metaphysics, and in philosophy as well as social science he gave himself out as an eclectic; he shared the opinions of Dühring and the Neo-Kantians, and in political economy was a follower of Carey, Bastian, and similar bourgeois theorists. Of course, therefore, he counted among the opponents of Marxism.

Of very different character were the two bosom friends Martinòvsky and Starinkyèvitch, usually called “the two Vanitchki,” though really only one of them answered to the name of Ivan. Starinkyèvitch was another favourite of our little society, invariably good-tempered and full of fun. His jokes, bon-mots, and nonsense would often send us all into fits of laughter, when his own hearty ringing laugh was sure to dominate all the others. He too was talented, but not steady and persevering like Yatzèvitch. He was one of those fortunate beings who are able to get the gist of a passage with one rapid 217glance; but he squandered his gifts, attempting everything, and doing nothing thoroughly. He was almost girlishly tender, clinging, and confiding by nature; but could on occasion become passionate and violent. Moscow was his birthplace, and he was sent straight from the University in 1881, when a mere boyish student, to twenty years’ imprisonment, simply because he refused to say from whom he had received a manifesto that was found in his possession. He was an enthusiastic member of the Naròdnaia Vòlya.

They say that two friends are generally of opposite temperaments, and the two Vanitchki certainly bore out that theory. While Starinkyèvitch was gay and lighthearted, Martinòvsky was grave, sedate, almost morose. He seldom smiled, and I can never remember hearing him laugh. He was a man of iron will, commanding and even despotic in character. I cannot imagine his ever being brought to yield a hair’s-breadth on any subject; on the contrary, he seemed always to contrive to bring others round to the fulfilment of his wishes. He was without doubt an extremely gifted and capable man, who might have made his mark as a leader in public affairs if he had had the chance. He was above all things practical; yet could immerse himself on occasion in theoretical problems, and was one of the first in the prison to take up the study of Marxism. He too came from Moscow, and like his friend Starinkyèvitch, had been condemned to twenty years’ imprisonment. Martinòvsky had been sentenced, in the same case as Sundelèvitch, Kviatkòvsky, and others, to fourteen years’ “katorga,” and an attempted escape brought him an addition of another six years. His having been chosen stàrosta (head-man) by his comrades proves the complete trust they placed in him, and he was in every way a model representative of our interests.

The following story concerns another of my fellow-prisoners at Kara. On the 25th December, 1879, General Drenteln was driving in his carriage through the streets 218of Petersburg. He had just been appointed chief of gendarmerie, in succession to General Mezentzev, (killed by the revolutionists; see pp. 92 and 263,) and was also the head of the notorious “third section.”[81] Suddenly a man riding a beautiful thorough-bred stopped the carriage and fired several shots at the General through the window, none of the bullets hitting their mark. The rider made off, the General cried to the coachman to follow him, and a wild chase began. The people in the streets understood nothing about what had occurred, and saw with amazement this strange race between the General’s carriage and a magnificently mounted horseman. More than once the latter seemed on the point of being brought to bay, but always escaped down some side street, closely followed by the General’s fast trotters. At last the rider made a dash, left his pursuers behind, and was in hot flight, when his horse stumbled and fell. The fugitive did not lose his presence of mind, however; beckoning to a policeman, he said: “My good man, this horse is hurt; just look after it for me while I go and fetch the groom.” The policeman obediently took the bridle, and the horseman vanished round the corner, cut through a passage, called a droschky, and was seen no more. General Drenteln foamed with rage when he found the horse in such safe keeping, but the rider gone. The police were set to work, and easily discovered the steed to be a racehorse named “Lady,” which had been hired from a riding-school by a student named Mirsky,[82] already under police observation. Mirsky was by this time no longer to be found in Petersburg; he had escaped to South Russia. Several months later, however, he met his fate at Taganrock, while under the roof of a friend and comrade named Tarhov, a lieutenant in the artillery. Another officer, having suspicions about Tarhov’s guest, put the police on the scent, and the house was surrounded. 219Mirsky, unwilling to surrender without a struggle, fired several revolver-shots at the police, and tried to break through their cordon. He was overpowered, however; was made prisoner, and in 1880 was brought before a court-martial, together with Tarhov, the poet A. Olchin, and some others. That was a time when even people not actually implicated in terrorist attempts were condemned to death off-hand by the courts-martial, and no one doubted that Mirsky—whose assault upon the chief of gendarmerie was undisputed—would be executed. Only he himself seemed to think otherwise. I remember how, shortly before the trial, somebody who had visited him in prison came to us and said that Mirsky wanted us to send him black clothes and a white tie, to wear when he went before the court. We were all very much surprised, and laughed rather mournfully over his odd whim. It was the first time it had occurred to any revolutionist to trouble himself about what sort of coat he should put on to face his judges. But of course we provided him with the means of shining for the last time in public; the papers remarked that “the chief defendant presented a very gentlemanly appearance,” and his speech of defence was reported with approval in various foreign journals. He was condemned to death; and although this sentence was commuted to one of penal servitude for life, he very narrowly escaped suffering the full rigour of the law. Had the attempt—planned for that very day—to kill Alexander II. at the station in Alexandrovskaia been successful, or had the trial taken place two days later, after the 19th November, when the Tsar’s train was blown up at Moscow,—all would have been over for Mirsky. As it was, however, he escaped with his life, and was confined in the famous Alexei-Ravelin tower of the Fortress of Peter and Paul, where at that time the most important “politicals” were imprisoned. Four years later he was brought to Kara, and he was one of my companions in the “nobles’ room.”

Instead of a slender, aristocratic youth, as Mirsky was 220described at the time of his trial, I knew him as a robust, somewhat undersized but well-built man, of about twenty-seven. And he had changed in more than outward appearance; he was no longer the hot-headed boy, ready for any rash deed, but a serious man who had been through much and had thought deeply. Keen-witted and well educated, he had formed his own conclusions as to social conditions in Russia and their development in the future. The teaching of Marx was unknown to him, but he had attained a similar standpoint by following out his own reasoning. He was particularly sceptical concerning the views then prevalent among Russian revolutionists, according to which a purely Russian programme should be based on the organisation of the artèls (workmen’s unions), and on the already existing system of the joint ownership of land by the village communes; a programme which must differ essentially from that of Socialists in all other civilised countries. He did not believe that anything further could be built on these remnants of patriarchal institutions. He was of opinion that the complete overthrow of the existing political régime was the first thing to be aimed at in Russia, but he was convinced that terrorist tactics would never entirely bring this about; and he expected equally little from any uprising of the working classes, since the mass of the people were sunk in apathetic resignation and hopelessness. Yet still the question tortured him—how should this task be approached?—and he was of all the prisoners in Kara the best prepared for the philosophical arguments of a Marxist.

Mirsky had been a medical student; but during his imprisonment he took up the study of jurisprudence, and was credited with such a thorough knowledge of legal affairs that his judgments were more trusted than those of some graduate lawyers who were among us. Mirsky was of Polish extraction; but having been brought up in Russia he was in every respect a thoroughly Russian Socialist.