The truth about the tsar and the present state of Russia

Preface To Third Edition

In '^ Russia As It Really Is " I pointed out the red smoke issuing from the Tsar's chimney. In ** The Truth About the Tsar " I pointed out that the edifice was on fire, and that if it was to be saved Nicholas must abandon his inheritance of autocracy, side with the people, and give to them the reality, not the shadow of freedom. To-day my message of friendship from the Russian to the Englishspeaking peoples is of a different character.

The late Sir Robert Morier, one of the ablest of English Ambassadors, was accustomed to say that no man should be more than 5 per cent, ahead of the people he sought to influence ; if he was 10 per cent, in advance of current opinion he was considered a crank ; if 20 per cent, a fanatic or even a madman. My two books on Russia contained nothing but sober fact, but they were ahead of public opinion. My predictions have been fulfilled. The Autocrat s massacre of unarmed, peaceful Christians

6 PREFACE

by hired Moslems on January 23 ended the armistice between the people and the Romanoffs. Nicholas Alexandrovitch, who in January was already in the quicksands to his shoulders, is now lost. No constitutional monarch will succeed the autocracy. The United States of Russia hold out the right hand of friendship to the people of Europe and America. It is already time for the latter to decide whether Russian autocracy or freedom is the more congenial to British or American interests. The civil war now raging can only have one end. Violence will be met with violence. Where one head has fallen for freedom ten will be required of autocracy. The sentence pronounced and executed against Sergius has been pronounced against the family of Romanoff. For the anguish and suffering in store for the ladies and little children of that family I feel but cannot speak. Let them seek an asylum outside Russia and they will be unharmed, but the flag of the United States of Russia will fly over the Kremlin whether the Romanoffs elect to perish or to fly.

CARL JOUBERT.

February 1905,

Contents

CHAP.

I. Reverie II. The Past

III. The Present

Chapter I Reverie

Outside my window there was the tramp of feet in the creaking snow — a pause — and then in husky unison, which was not altogether free from a suspicion of strong drink, voices were uplifted in a hymn of praise :

t<

Hark, the Herald Angels sing, Glory to the new-born King !

Peace on earth and mercy mildi9

The singers, who from their voices I judged to be the men of the village choir, were evidently oldfashioned in their carols, or perhaps they had never heard of the *' Revised Version'' of Hymns Ancient and Modern. On that account I was inclined to forgive them for breaking in upon the quiet of the night, although it still wanted a fortnight to Christmas. But the words of the hymn, for better or for worse, struck me as vastly incongruous to the times ; and as the voices came to a welcome pause at the end of the first verse, another aspect of the great Advent which they sang presented itself to my mind: ''Think not that I am come to send peace on earth. I came not to send peace, but a sword."

Never, alas ! has prophecy been more completely fulfilled, I thought, calling to mind the bloody history of the Churches, which have fought and torn, murdered and tortured in the name of Christ for close on two thousand years, and rejoice in the appellation ** militant." But the Christian Churches have no monopoly of the fighting spirit, nor are they to be held responsible for the system of organised murder which has ravaged the earth from the beginning. Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Phoenicians, Medes, Persians, and Lydians all have practised the bloody trade of war. It would seem that cosmos and murder were the twin ofP^ spring of chaos. The survival of the fittest has hitherto meant the organised assassination of the weakest ; and all religions and creeds have accepted the theory, and stand or have fallen by the power of the sword. Their very gods have been murderers — Ammon, Apis, Isis, Osiris, Jupiter, Neptune, Vulcan, Mars, and all the hosts of pagan heavens. The men whom the world has held in highest esteem, and whose names are written in red letters on the pages of history, have been for the most part men of the sword — men whose ambition and genius in the art of slaying have laid the nations prostrate at their feet. From Alexander to Napoleon is a far cry, but there are many accounted great before Alexander, and many since Napoleon, whose sole

REVERIE 11

claim to fame is based upon their aptitude for wholesale slaughter.

The strain of cruelty and the thirst for bloodshed are inherent in the sons of men. The peacemaker is derided as a faddist and visionary. But what was Alexander to Diogenes ? Or what is Nicholas Alexandrovitch to Leon Tolstoy ? Great actions as against great thoughts. Great ambitions as against self-effacement. And yet, as the world reckons, Alexander was a great man, and Diogenes a cynic in a tub — Nicholas Alexandrovitch an autocrat and great war-lord, with equivocal leanings towards peace, and Tolstoy a hopeless visionary.

The hymn of the *' Herald Angels*' came to an end, and the rasping cough of one of the singers, accompanied by a deprecating knock at the front door, gave warning that something more than passive resistance was expected of me. As if to accentuate the cheerlessness of their surroundings they struck up again :

^' See amid the winter snow."

Instantly, in my mind's eye, I saw two vast hosts confronting one another across a river. The snow lay on the ground, and the cold blast of winter penetrated into the trenches and works which, like huge rabbit warrens, had been constructed by the opposing armies on the banks of the Sha-ho. Far away, to the south, a half-starved, beleaguered garrison held tenaciously to their battered forts, in the face of repeated charges of fierce little yellow men, shouting ** Banzai," as they dashed forward to certain death. Here were scenes '*amid the winter snow " to which the eyes of the whole world were directed. But there is another side to it, inglorious and not less real, about which I reflected as I sat by the fireside and listened involuntarily to the carols at my door.

A few days before a colonel of the Russian army had been to visit me. He was a deserter from the forces of the Tsar, having no inclination to fight against an enemy who was no enemy to his country, nor for a cause which did not concern the honour and vital interests of Russia. He was not prepared to draw his sword in defence of the existing Government of his unhappy country, and therefore he had deserted. Numbers of his men, he told me, had also crossed the frontier ; some to France, some to England, some to America.

** But the majority of the men who have deserted from the Russian army have not gone far beyond the frontiers," he said. '* They are waiting to return to their homes later on."

I expressed surprise that the deserters should contemplate an action fraught with so much danger as returning to Russia when the war is over would of a certainty entail.

*' They will return when the signal is given," he answered shortly ; and as I glanced at his face my blood ran cold, for I knew what he meant.

REVERIE 13

**That means more bloodshed and murder!" I exclaimed, aghast at the thought.

'* Yes,'* he said callously, *' more bloodshed ; but I should not call it murder/*

I did not argue the point with him.

*' And what will be the outcome of it ? "

He shrugged his shoulders.

'' I neither know nor care," he answered. ** It is not our fault. The Government should have let us alone ; but since that was not to be, they will have to reckon with us later on."

" Then you are not a believer in Tolstoy s humanity ? '*

'*No! a thousand times no!" he replied hotly, striking his chest with his clenched fist, as is the manner of Russians when they are roused from the lethargy of indifference by the heat of passion. ** We will have nothing to do with Tolstoy's methods. There is no turning back any more from our determination. The Bureaucracy must go! Why do you speak of Tolstoy ? "

'* Because Tolstoy s philosophy stands for humanity, nobleness, meekness and righteousness," I answered. But even as I spoke I was conscious of advocating a doctrine of perfection to which human nature cannot attain. I felt in my own heart that there are, after all, things worth fighting for, and for which no man need be ashamed to die.

^' Go back a few hundred years in the history of your own country if you want a parallel to our present case in Russia," he said. ** Were the rights of the Anglo-Saxon race acquired without bloodshed ? Has tyranny ever burnt itself out? Are we to stand by and watch the flames devouring our country, and not raise a hand to quench them ? That is Tolstoy's doctrine/*

I could not deny the justness of his comparison ; and my heart went out to the renegade colonel, who was prepared to give his life and honour in the cause of liberty. But I answered —

*' Remember, he who takes the sword shall perish by the sword.*'

** Precisely, my friend ! " he replied. '* That is the law to which we appeal, and we shall not shirk the ordeal by combat. It is by the sword that Russia is governed — then let the Government perish by the sword. There is no other way."

When I had reached this point in my reverie I sprang up and threw open the window.

*' Away with you — you fools ! " I cried to the carol singers in the snow beneath. **What have you to do with * peace on earth ' ? Go, sing your sonofs beneath the windows of the War Offices of Europe ! Sing them to the Tsar of Russia, and the Procurator of the Holy Synod. Away ! you idiots, with your Christmas carols — away, from under my window ! For your songs are nothing but falsehoods, and your peace a mockery ! "

Chapter II

Why rake it up ? Would it not be better to leave it to bury its own dead ? It is a rank festering heap of infamy and corruption, I admit ; but the midden of the present is not much more wholesome ; and there are no signs of improvement for the future. And therefore, if we want to get an understanding of things as they are, we must turn over the muckheap of things as they used to be. Otherwise our judgments are apt to be unjust, and our conclusions faulty. In examining the present state of affairs in the Empire of Russia we must take into consideration the influences of the past, and endeavour to trace the march of civilisation for the last century. We shall find that civilisation has been marking time in the dominions of the Tsars of Russia ; and that it has been practising this unprogressive exercise since the Middle Ages. If only a Tsar could be found who would give the word *' Forward," we might look for some improvement in the pace ; but Tsars with progressive tendencies are as extinct as the dodo — if they ever existed. The lust of autocratic power is the inheritance of the Romanoffs. To concede a point to their wretched subjects is a sign of weakness. In times of stress and popular agitation, as at present, concessions may be mentioned, but when the uneasiness is allayed by specious promises no action must be taken. The order is, *' As you were,'' which might well be adopted as the motto of the Russian Empire.

Nicholas I., the great grandfather of Nicholas Alexandrovitch, succeeded to the throne in 1825, and forthwith established the policy which animates the Government of Russia to the present day. The dominant factors in this policy are the sanctity of autocratic power, and Pan- Slavism. In order to uphold the former Nicholas I. strove to gather all the races of his kingdom into one Church, of which he himself was the head ; and thereby to exercise spiritual as well as temporal sway over his subjects. To this end he prosecuted rigorously all religions and creeds, in the hope of compelling the members of them to become Orthodox Greek Catholics. With fanatical zeal he massacred Poles and Jews who would not acknowledge him as the master of their souls as well as of their bodies. At the same time, as an inducement to all to embrace the Greek Church, he threw open the doors of the prisons for the liberation of all criminals who were willing to become members of his Church. In 1831, when the Polish insurrection broke out, he vented his fanatical fury on the heretic Poles, slaughtering impartially those who had risen and those who had not, including women and children. In Suwalki, Lublin, Lithuania and Kovno, the earth ran red with innocent blood. The priests of the Greek Church incited their flocks to kill Poles and Jews ; and prescribed as a penance for murder two days of fasting.

I have elsewhere"^ referred to the treatment meted out to the Jews by Nicholas L in his eiForts to convert them. In 1849 Hebrew children of the age of six and upwards were taken from their parents and sent to regiments in distant parts of Russia, where they were known as '' Kantonisti '' (children of the regiment). They were required to embrace the religion of the Greek Church and kneel before the Cross. With the little ones there could not have been much trouble, for they knew no better. But many thousands of the older children would not be persuaded to embrace the Christian religion, and suffered martyrdom, being horribly tortured and killed for their faith. That was the fate of thousands of Jewish boys in \the reign of Nicholas I. The Hebrew and Roman Catholic girls suffered a worse fate, being handed over to the lust of the priests and soldiery. I have met old women in Russia who have vivid recollections of the days of Nicholas I., women who have suffered nameless wrongs and have been haunted with lifelong shame.

Such were the means by which Nicholas I. sought to enforce the doctrine of the divine right of auto-

* See " Russia as It Really Is."

B cracy. His Pan-Slavism, which was the second string to his poHcy, manifested itself in the stifling of education, in a rigorous censorship of the press, and in the suppression of the languages of conquered States. The dream of Nicholas I. was of a mighty nation, shut off from the influences of Western progress, developing along its own lines. Speaking one language, acknowledging one religion, serving blindly one Tsar, whose word unchallenged swayed the destinies of the whole.

Nicholas I. died in 1855, and was succeeded by his son, Alexander II. Early in his reign Alexander showed signs of falling short, to a grievous extent, of the estimate which his father had formed of his character, when he spoke of him as showing ''the true Russian spirit. '^ For Alexander made some efforts to ameliorate the lot of his people. He emancipated the serfs. He reformed the civil and criminal tribunals, and he established zemstvos in the provinces. His intentions were, without doubt, good ; but, unfortunately, the condition of the serfs under their new name is not one whit more enviable than it was before ; the civil and criminal administration of the law is as corrupt as ever ; and the zemstvos have become a terror rather than a blessing to the* people. The reason for the failure of Alexander's reforms is to be found in the fact that he omitted from his programme the elements of all social reforms — education and enlightenment.

It was during his reign that Nihilism came to the front as a force to be reckoned with. The iron hand of Nicholas I. had immediately crushed any symptoms of discontent, but Alexander was good- natured and anxious to propitiate the nation. He dallied with the reformers, and they led him ever further from " the true Russian spirit '' which his father had predicted for him. When, at last, he realised to what length he was being taken, and that the more he gave the more was demanded of him, he drew back, and began to institute repressive measures against the extreme section of the Nihilists ; until at last he fell a victim to those whom he had sought to placate, and Sophia Perovskaja laid him low in 1881.

Alexander III., who succeeded him, was a true Russian moujik by nature, a worthy descendant of Nicholas I. Ill-educated, he could swear like a strugovtchik, and drink like a fish. His manners were uncouth, and he would behave himself in the presence of ladies of the Court with all the abandon of a bargee. His courage was not eqpal to his bad manners. It was two years before he would trust himself to face the ordeal of coronation, dreading the fate of his father if he ventured out of his palace at Gatschina. He inaugurated his reign with M. Pobiedonostseff as Procurator of the Holy Synod, a post invented for that gentleman's benefit, and a wholesale slaughter of Jews in the South- Western provinces of his kingdom. Having thus made his presence felt, he proceeded to carry out the reactionary policy which his grandfather had inaugurated ; and Russia became a perfect inferno, which it would require a Dante to describe. He rescinded or annulled all the legislation of his father which leant towards progress, and left to M. Pobiedonostseif the congenial task of framing laws of oppression against the Jews and other undesirables. Education sank to its lowest ebb ; and in the universities, polytechnics, and gymnasiums ignorant Russian professors were appointed to take the places of the educated foreign instructors who had hitherto occupied the chairs of learning. I was told by enlightened people in Taganrog that the rule of Nicholas I. was infinitely to be preferred to that erf* Alexander III. — and they had experienced both.

It was in the reign of Alexander III. that young Russians first began to migrate to foreign universities for education, and to acquire there the lessons which were to make them dangerous enemies to the peace of their country.

It was Alexander III. who gave utterance to the famous words : '' Jalka, Jalka chto Nicholai speet!" (what a pity that Nicholas sleeps !), and the circumstances were as follows : The massacres and persecutions of the Jews had reached a climax. The civilised world, and a good many Russians as well, were aghast at the infamies which were perpetrated on the unfortunate Hebrews. A certain noble lady ventured to remonstrate, or rather to supplicate, the Tsar on behalf of the Jews ; and he, calling to mind the implacable hatred of his grandfather and his own efforts to follow in his footsteps, gave vent to the now famous phrase.

He reverted absolutely to the ideal policy of Nicholas I., with its two outstanding features, namely, the sanctity of autocracy, and the Pan- Slavonic doctrine : One language — one religion — one Tsar. The Poles, Finns, and Jews suffered under his rule as no other subject nation has ever suffered. The Polish language was suppressed, and education was denied to all but a trifling percentage. The liberties which Finland had enjoyed for centuries were revoked, and the Orthodox Church instituted a Holy Inquisition in the unhappy country. The fate of the Jews I have dealt with at some length in '* Russia as It Really Is/' and I shall not refer to the subject again here.

Such were the traditions which Nicholas II. inherited, along with the throne of his ancestors, in 1894. I have given this slight sketch of his predecessors because the only excuse for Nicholas II. is to be found in the influence of heredity. The son of Alexander III. and the great grandson of Nicholas I. cannot be expected to escape a strain of cruelty and obstinacy. I make the acknowledgment gladly, for what it is worth.

Though I have met Nicholas Alexandrovitch on my travels in and out of Russia I do not claim on that account to be in a position to speak on my own authority of his personal characteristics, as certain people do who have been honoured with an Imperial hand-shake and a cigarette. The knowledge which I have of the Tsar of Russia has been derived from officials in the Tsars service, and others v/hose business has brought them into contact with his Majesty.

As to his personal appearance, he is spare and short in stature, with narrow shoulders, and he has none of the outward characteristics of his father or grandfather. Like most little men he is highly endowed with self-importance. So much for his general appearance. We have heard a great deal lately of his character as a man and as a monarch, and but little more remains to be said. He is not remarkable for physical or for moral courage, and he lives in a perpetual state of nervous anxiety. On one occasion, when he was driving through the streets in an open carriage, a little girl, bravely decked out in all her best clothes, threw a bouquet of flowers into the carriage. A certain general officer, who was seated by him, had to fish Nicholas up from the bottom of the carriage ; but not before he had convinced him that they were very fine flowers indeed, and quite harmless. It was some time before he recovered from the shock to the system which this incident caused ; whilst the newspapers of the whole world announced extensively *' Attempted Assassination of the Tsar/' The officers of his bodyguard, some of whom are known to me, are still laughing in their sleeves at the joke.

But the general who played the part of rescuer is no longer in St. Petersburg. He was given a post in a distant Government, where he is not perpetually brought face to face with his Imperial Majesty.

The grand visit which Nicholas II. paid to France a few years ago was a period of severe strain both to himself and to his gentlemen-in-waiting. So long as he was at sea Nicholas was happy enough ; but his troubles began when he landed in France. He was very far from happy whilst he was in Paris, though the newspapers had a great deal to say about his magnificent entry in state. But the newspapers did not tell their readers what his gentlemen-in-waiting had to undergo. Twice a day he received absolution from his chaplain. In his clothes was concealed a small piece of garlic, as a talisman against the plots of his enemies. A pope of the Orthodox Church used to lick his left eye twice a day as a preventative against the machinations of the Nihilists. No one but Baron Freedericksz knows the extent of the misery which he suffered until he returned to Russia again. Even when he was in England there was always a haunted look in his eyes, which was remarked by all who saw him. But we are a charitable nation, and our newspapers attributed the uneasy bearing of the Tsar to modesty ! Indeed, ofsuch a retiring disposition was Nicholas II. when he was in this country, that when he paid a visit to the house of a private individual all the inmates of the household, including servants and guests, were inspected and cross-examined by detectives before his arrival, to ensure that no person had smuggled himself into the house who might shock the modesty of the august monarch.

Another attribute which has been imputed to Nicholas Alexandrovitch by a section of the press in this country is humanity. We are being told perpetually of his ** humane intentions," and the Peace Conference at the Hague is trotted out as evidence of the truth of the assertion. There are, then, according to his admirers in Great Britain, two virtues which stand out pre-eminently in the character of Nicholas II.— modesty and humanity. Is it permissible to inquire to which of these virtues certain of his public acts have been due ?

It was, of course, modesty that prompted him to summon the nations to a conference at the Hague. And it was humanity which impelled him to force Japan into war. But was it modesty or humanity which urged him on to complete the Russification of Finland, and to appoint General Bobrikoff as the instrument of his will ? To which of these virtues are we to ascribe the massacre of Kishineff, and the fiasco which followed at the trial of the murderers ? Knowing his own weakness, it is to be presumed that modesty was at the bottom of the appointment of M. de Plehve as Minister of the Interior. But was it for reasons of humanity that he drove that good man and capable Minister, M. de Witte, from his post.'* It was modesty which made him pledge his word to retire from Manchuria ; but was it humanity that made him break it ? If so, he is scarcely justified by the results. Then again it is difficult to classify the massacre of Blagovestchensks under either of these virtues. Then as regards the flogging of women in his dominions — are we to ascribe the practice to modesty, or humanity ? On the day of his coronation three thousand people were crushed to death in the Khodiniskoje field in Moscow, was it humanity which made him attend the Ambassador s ball the same evening ?

If these things constitute modesty and humane intentions, then I say that Nicholas Alexandrovitch is the most modest and the most humane monarch in the world.

Chapter III

The civilised world, for reasons of sentiment or of policy, looks with favour on Nicholas Alexandrovitch and the present form of government in Russia. Generally speaking the civilised world is a snob, and dearly loves the autocrat ; and of no countries is this more true than of those which possess a democratic form of government. That is the reason why we hear so much fulsome nonsense about the enlightened reforms which the Tsar is reported to be introducing in Russia. The pious aspirations of Nicholas 11. , as expressed from time to time by promises of amelioration of the lot of the downtrodden masses of his empire, find their way into the columns of the foreign newspapers, and excite the editors to glowing comments. The philanthropic reader lifts his eyes to heaven and murmurs a comfortable, " Thank God ! " The intimate tone of the article which he has read makes him feel that the Tsar is, after all, a very good fellow, and that he himself would have done very little better had he been Tsar of All the Russias.

But what have all these ** reforms " amounted to during the ten years of Nicholas IL's reign ? Or, in what respect are the people of Russia better off under the present regime than they were under Nicholas I. ? There is no reform in Russia, nor win there be until the right moment arrives. I have already pointed out that the liberation of the serfs was a mockery, and that the Zemstvos, having become a terror to autocracy and bureaucracy, were reduced to impotence in so far as their representative faculties were concerned, by being handed over to the control of the governors and officials. That the Zemstvos have shown marked activity of late is a matter about which I shall have something to say later. My intention in referring to them here was merely to point out that, as a means of raising the social status of the people, the Zemstvos have hitherto been useless. As to the rest, in spite of gracious promises, the knout descends with regularity upon the bare backs of the moujik and his wife. Prisoners are still condemned without trial, and maltreated and shot down on their way to penal settlements. The fact that the railways are urgently wanted at present for the transport of troops and stores to Manchuria has increased the miseries of the unfortunate prisoners, who are now frequently kept immured in dungeons until they are on the verge of starvation and madness. Liberty, Justice and Mercy, are as unknown in Russia to-day as they were under Nicholas I. Bribery and corruption, savage cruelty and oppression, are still rampant in the land.

Here are a few examples of the existing state of affairs : On October 24 in Saratov twelve girls were outraged by soldiers. The fathers of the unfortunates complained to the authorities ; but the soldiers are still wearing the Tsar's uniform, whilst the parents of the children have disappeared, and it is not known what has become of them. On November 5 in Suwalki nine Hebrew homes were destroyed, two men were killed, and one young woman is missing. Up to the present no investigation has been held concerning the affair by the police. On November 19 in the Government of Mogileff, a party of moujiks assembled and attacked the Jewish quarter, and carried off all that they could lay hands on. One woman, who was ill in bed with a child by her side, cried out for help. A moujik hearing her cries picked up a heavy samovar and hurled it at her, killing her instantaneously.