August 18, 2025 • 20 mins
In Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Vol. 1, Peter Kropotkin, a notable Russian anarcho-communist and scientist, invites readers into his captivating life journey. This autobiography not only chronicles his personal experiences but also sheds light on the intricate tapestry of 19th-century Russian society and politics. Born into nobility and educated in the military, Kropotkin ultimately rejected the values of his social class to champion anti-authoritarian socialism, standing against both the Tsarist regime and the authoritarian Bolsheviks. With a diverse range of interests spanning literature, biology, economics, and geographical exploration, Kropotkins memoirs begin with his childhood and education, leading to his transformative time in Siberia. (Introduction by Elin)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Siberia, chapter three of Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Eilin.
In January eighteen sixty three, Poland rose against Russian rule.
Insurrectionary bands were formed and of war began, which lasted
(00:22):
for full eighteen months. The London refugees had implored the
Polish revolutionary committees to postpone the movement. They foresaw that
it would be crushed and would put an end to
the reform period in Russia. But it could not be helped.
The repression of the nationalist manifestations which took place at
Warsaw in eighteen sixty one. In the cruel, quite unprovoked
(00:45):
executions which followed exasperated the Poles. The die was cast.
Never before had the Polish caused so many sympathizers in
Russia as at that time. I do not speak of
the revolutionists, but even among them more moderate elements of
Russian society. It was thought, and was openly said, that
it would be a benefit for Russia to have in
(01:07):
Poland a friendly neighbor instead of a hostile subject. Poland
will never lose her national character it is too strongly developed.
She has and will have her own literature, her own
art and industry. Russia can keep her in servitude only
by means of sheer force and oppression, a condition of
things which has hitherto favored and necessarily will favor oppression
(01:30):
in Russia herself. Even the peaceful Slavofields were of that opinion,
And while I was at school, Saint Petersburg's society greeted
with full approval the dream which the Slavo field Ivan
Ozakov had the courage to print in his paper the day.
His dream was that the Russian troops had evacuated Poland,
and he discussed the excellent results which would follow. When
(01:55):
the Revolution of eighteen sixty three broke out, several Russian
officers refus used to march against the Poles, while others
openly took their part and died either on the scaffold
or on the battlefield. Funds for the insurrection were collected
all over Russia, quite openly in Siberia and in the
Russian universities, the students equipped those of their comrades who
(02:18):
were going to join the revolutionists. Then, amidst this effervescence,
the news spread over Russia that during the night of
January tenth, bands of insurgents had fallen upon the soldiers
who were canon in the villages and had murdered them
in their beds. Although on the very eve of that
day the relations of the troops with the Poles seemed
(02:39):
to be quite friendly. There was some exaggeration in the report,
but unfortunately there was also truth in it, and the
impression it produced in Russia was most disasters. The old
antipathies between the two nations, saw akin in their origins
but so different in their national characters, woke up once more.
(03:00):
Gradually the bad feeling faded away to some extent. The
gallant fight of the always brave sons of Poland and
the indomitable energy with which they resisted a formidable army
one sympathy for that heroic nation. But it became known
that the Polish Revolutionary Committee, in its demand for the
re establishment of Poland with its old frontiers, included the
(03:23):
little Russian or Ukrainian provinces, the Greek Orthodox population of
which hated their Polish rulers and more than once in
the course of the last three centuries slaughtered them wholesale. Moreover,
Napoleon the Third began to menace Russia with a new war,
a vain menace which did more harm to the Poles
than all other things put together. And finally, the radical
(03:47):
elements of Russia saw with regret that now the purely
nationalist elements of Poland had got the upper hand. The
revolutionary government did not care in the least to grant
the land to the serfs, a blunder of which the
Russian government did not fail to take advantage in order
to appear in the position of protector of the peasants
against their Polish landlords. When the revolution broke out in Poland,
(04:11):
it was generally believed in Russia that it would take
a democratic, republican turn, and that the liberation of the
serfs on a broad democratic basis would be the first
thing which a revolutionary government fighting for the independence of
the country would accomplish. The emancipation law, as it had
been enacted at Saint Petersburg in eighteen sixty one, provided
(04:33):
ample opportunity for such a course of action. The personal
obligations of the serfs towards their owners only came to
an end on February nineteenth, eighteen sixty three. Then a
very slow process had to be gone through in order
to obtain a sort of agreement between the landlords and
the serfs as to the size and the locality of
(04:53):
the land allotments which were to be given to the
liberated serfs. The yearly payments for the u these allotments,
disproportionately high, were fixed by law at so much per acre,
But the peasants had also to pay an additional sum
for their homesteads, and of this sum the maximum only
had been fixed by the statute, it having been thought
(05:14):
that the landlords might be induced to forego that additional payment,
or to be satisfied with only a part of it.
As to the so called redemption of the land, in
which case the government undertook to pay the landlord its
full value in state bonds, and the peasants receiving the
land had to pay in return for forty nine years
(05:35):
six percent on that sum as interest and annuities. Not
only were these payments extravagant and ruinous for the peasants,
but no term was even fixed for the redemption. It
was left to the will of the landlord, and in
an immense number of cases the redemption arrangements had not
been entered upon twenty years after the emancipation. Under such conditions,
(05:58):
a revolutionary government had ample opportunity for immensely approving upon
the Russian law. It was bound to accomplish an act
of justice towards the serfs, whose condition in Poland was
as bad as and often worse than in Russia itself,
by granting them better and more definite conditions of emancipation.
But nothing of the sort was done. The purely nationalist
(06:21):
party and the aristocratic one having obtained the upper hand
in the movement, this all absorbing matter was left out
of sight. It was thus easy for the Russian government
to win the peasants to its side. Full advantage was
taken of this fault when Nicholas Milutin was sent to
Poland by Alexander the Second with the mission to liberate
(06:42):
the peasants in the way he intended doing it in Russia.
Go to Poland, apply there your red program against the
Polish landlords, said Alexander the Second to him, and Milutin,
together with Prince Tcherkasky and many others, really did their
best to take the land from the landlords and give
full sized allotments to the peasants. I once met one
(07:05):
of the Russian functionaries who went to Poland under Miluten
and Prince Teeriksky, we had full liberty. He said to
me to hold out the hand to the peasants. My
usual plan was to go to a village and convoke
the peasants assembly. Tell me. First, I would say, what
land do you hold at this moment? They would point
it out to me. Is this all the land you
(07:27):
ever held? I would then ask, surely not. They would
reply with one voice, years ago, these meadows were ours,
this wood was once in our possession, and these fields
belonged to us. I would let them go on talking
it all over, and then would ask, now, which of
you can certify under oath that this land or that
land has ever been held by you. Of course, there
(07:49):
would be nobody forthcoming, it was all too long ago.
At last, some old man would be thrust out from
the crowd the rest, saying he knows all about it,
he can swear to it. The old man would begin
a long story about what he knew in his youth
or had heard from his father. But I would cut
the story short, state on oath, what you know to
(08:10):
have been held by the gmina, the village community, and
the land is yours. And as soon as he took
the oath, one could trust that oath. Implicitly, I wrote
out the papers and declared to the Assembly, now this
land is yours. You stand no longer under any obligations
whatever to your late masters. You are simply their neighbors.
(08:32):
All you will have to do is pay the redemption
tax so much every year to the government. Your homesteads
go with the land. You can get them free. One
can imagine the effect which such a policy produced upon
the peasants. A cousin of mine, Peter Nikolayevitch, a brother
of the aide de camp whom I have mentioned, was
(08:52):
in Poland or in Lithuania with his regiment of Uhlan's
of the Guards. The revolution was so serious that even
the regiment of the Guard had been sent against it
from Saint Petersburg, and it is now known that when
Mihail Murravieov was ordered to Lithuania and came to take
leave of the Empress Marie, she said to him, saved
least Lithuania for Russia. Poland was regarded as lost. The
(09:17):
armed bands of the revolutionists held the country, my cousin
said to me, and we were powerless to defeat them
or even to find them. Small bands, over and over
again attacked our small detachment, and as they fought admirably
and knew the country and found support in the population,
they often had the best of the skirmishes. We were
(09:38):
thus compelled to march in large columns. Only we would
cross a region marching through the woods without finding any
trace of the bands. But when we marched back again,
we learned that bands had appeared in our rear, that
they had levied the patriotic tax in the country, and
if some peasants had rendered himself useful in any way
to our troops, we found him hanged on a tree
(09:59):
by the revolutionary bands. So it went on for months
with no chance of improvement, until Milutant came and freed
the peasants, giving them the land. Then all was over.
The peasants sided with us. They helped us to lay
hold of the bands, and the insurrection came to an end.
(10:20):
I often spoke with the Polish exiles in Siberia upon
this subject, and some of them understood the fault that
had been committed. A revolution from its very outset must
be an act of justice towards the downtrodden and the oppressed,
not a promise of making such reparation later on. Otherwise
it is sure to fail. Unfortunately, it often happens that
(10:43):
the leaders are so much absorbed with mere questions of
military tactics that they forget the main thing to be revolutionists,
and failed to prove to the masses that a new
era has really begun for them is to ensure the
certain ruin of the attempt. The disaster a consequences for
Poland of this revolution are known. They belonged to the
(11:04):
domain of history. How many thousand men perished in battle,
how many hundreds were hanged, and how many scores of
thousands were transported to various provinces of Russia and Siberia
is not yet fully known. But even the official figures
which were printed in Russia a few years ago, show
that in the Lithuanian provinces alone, not to speak of
(11:26):
Poland proper, that terrible man Mikhail Muraviev, to whom the
Russian government has just erected a monument at Vilno, hanged
by his own authority one hundred and twenty eight Poles
and transported to Russia and Siberia nine thousand, four hundred
and twenty three men and women. Officialists also published in
Russia give eighteen thousand, six hundred and seventy two men
(11:49):
and women exiled to Siberia from Poland, of whom ten thousand,
four hundred and seven were sent to East Siberia. I
remember that the Governor General of East Siberia mentioned to
me the same number, about eleven thousand persons sent to
hard labor or exile in his domains. I saw them
there and witness their sufferings. Altogether, something like sixty thousand
(12:14):
or seventy thousand persons, if not more, were torn out
of Poland and transported to different provinces of Russia, to
the Urals, to Caucasus, into Siberia. For Russia, the consequences
were equally disastrous. The Polish Insurrection was the definitive close
of the reform period. True, the Law of provincial self
(12:37):
government zemstvoss and the reform of the law courts were
promulgated in eighteen sixty four and eighteen sixty six, but
both were ready in eighteen sixty two and moreover, at
the last moment, Alexander the Second gave preference to the
scheme of self government, which had been prepared by the
reactionary party of VALUEV as against the scheme which had
(12:58):
been prepared by Nikola Milutin, And immediately after the promulgation
of both reforms, their importance was reduced and in some
cases destroyed, by the enactment of a number of bye laws.
Worst of all, public opinion itself took a further step backward.
The hero of the hour was katkov the leader of
(13:19):
the Serfdom Party, who appeared now as a Russian patriot
and carried with him most of the Saint Petersburg and
Moscow society. After that time, those who dared to speak
of reforms were at once classed by Katkoff as traitors
to Russia. The wave of reaction soon reached our remote province.
(13:40):
One day in March a paper was brought by a
special messenger from Irkutsk. It intimated to General Koukl that
he was at once to leave the post of governor
atrans bai Kalia and go to Irkutsk, waiting there for
further orders, but without reassuming there the post of commander
of the General staff. Why what did that mean? There
(14:01):
was not a word of explanation. Even the Governor General,
a personal friend of Kukin, had not run the risk
of adding a single word to that mysterious order. Did
it mean that Koukil was going to be taken between
two gendarmes to Saint Petersburg and immured in that huge
stone coffin the fortress of Saint Peter and Saint Paul?
(14:22):
All was possible? Later on we learned that such was
indeed the intention, and so it would have been done
but for the energetic intervention of Count Nikolas Murraviev, the
conqueror of the Ahmoud, who personally implored the CSAR that
Koukol should be spared that fate. Our parting with Koukol
and his charming family was like a funeral. My heart
(14:44):
was very heavy. I not only lost in him a
dear personal friend, but I felt also that this parting
was the burial of a whole epoch full of long
cherished hopes, full of illusions. As it became the fashion
to say so, it was a new governor came a
good natured leave me in peace man with renewed energy,
(15:07):
seeing that there was no time to lose. I completed
our plans of reform of the system of exile and
municipal self government. The governor made a few objections here
and there for formality's sake, but finally signed the schemes
and they were sent to headquarters. But at Saint Petersburg
reforms were no longer wanted. There our projects lie buried
(15:30):
still with hundreds of similar ones from all parts of Russia.
A few improved prisons, even more terrible than the old
unimproved ones have been built in the capitals to be
shown during prison congresses to distinguished foreigners. But the reminder
and the whole system of exile were found by George
Kennon in eighteen eighty six in exactly the same state
(15:53):
in which I left them in eighteen sixty two. Only now,
after thirty six years have passed away, the authorities are
introducing the reformed tribunals and a parody of self government
in Siberia, and committees had been nominated again to inquire
into the system of exile. When Kennon came back to
(16:14):
London from his journey to Siberia, he managed on the
very next day after his arrival in London to hunt
up Stepniak, Tsaikowski, myself, and another Russian refugee. In the evening,
we all met at Kennon's room in a small hotel
near Tarin Cross. We saw him for the first time, and,
having no excess of confidence in enterprising Englishmen who had
(16:37):
previously undertaken to learn all about the Siberian prisons without
even learning a word of Russian, we began to cross
examine Kennon. To our astonishment, he not only spoke excellent Russian,
but he knew everything worth knowing about Siberia. One or
another of us had been acquainted with a greater proportion
of all political exiles in Siberia, and sieged Cannon with questions,
(17:02):
where is so and so? Is he married? Is he
happy in his marriage? Does he still keep fresh in spirit?
We were soon satisfied that Kennon knew all about every
one of them. When this questioning was over and we
were preparing to leave, I asked, do you know, mister
Kennan if they had built a watch tower for the
fire brigade at Chitah. Stepniak looked at me as if
(17:25):
to reproach me for abusing Kennon's good will Cannon, however,
began to laugh, and I soon joined him, and with
much laughter, we tossed each other questions and answers, Why
do you know about that? And you too, built yes,
double estimate, and so on till at last Stepniak interfered
(17:45):
and in his most severely good natured way, objected, tell
us at least what you are laughing about. Whereupon Kennon
told the story of that watch tower, which his readers
must remember. In eighteen fifty seven, the Chietah people wanted
to build a watch tower and collected the money for it,
but their estimates had to be sent to the Ministry
(18:06):
of the Interior, so they went to Saint Petersburg. But
when they came back two years later, duly approved all
the prizes for timber, and work had gone up in
that rising young town. This was in eighteen sixty two.
While I was at Cheetah. New estimates were made and
sent to Saint Petersburg, and the story was repeated for
(18:27):
full twenty five years, till at last the Cheetah people,
loosing patience, put in their estimates prices nearly double the
real ones. These fantastic estimates were solemnly considered at Saint
Petersburg and approved. This is how Cheetah got its watch tower.
It has often been said that Alexander the Second committed
(18:48):
a great fault by raising so many hopes, which later
on he did not satisfy. It is seen from what
I have just said, and the story of Little Cheetah
was the story of all Russia. That he did worse
than that. It was not merely that he raised hopes,
yielding for a moment to the current of public opinion
around him. He induced men all over Russia to set
(19:10):
to work, to issue from the domain of mere hopes
and dreams, and to touch with the finger the reforms
that were required. He made them realize what could be
done immediately, and how easy it was to do it.
He induced them to sacrifice whatever of their ideals could
not be immediately realized, and to demand only what was
practically possible at the time. And when they had framed
(19:34):
their ideas and had shaped them into laws which merely
required his signature to become realities, then he refused that signature.
No reactionist could raise, or ever has raised his voice
to assert that what was left the unreformed tribunals, the
absence of municipal government or the system of exile was
(19:54):
good and was worth maintaining. No one has dared to
say that, and yet, owing to the fear of doing anything,
all was left as it was for thirty five years.
Those who ventured to mention the necessity of a change
were treated as suspects, and institutions unanimously recognized as bad
were permitted to continue in existence, only that nothing more
(20:18):
might be heard of that abhorred word, reform. End of Siberia,
Chapter three,
Siberia, chapter three of Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Eilin.
In January eighteen sixty three, Poland rose against Russian rule.
Insurrectionary bands were formed and of war began, which lasted
(00:22):
for full eighteen months. The London refugees had implored the
Polish revolutionary committees to postpone the movement. They foresaw that
it would be crushed and would put an end to
the reform period in Russia. But it could not be helped.
The repression of the nationalist manifestations which took place at
Warsaw in eighteen sixty one. In the cruel, quite unprovoked
(00:45):
executions which followed exasperated the Poles. The die was cast.
Never before had the Polish caused so many sympathizers in
Russia as at that time. I do not speak of
the revolutionists, but even among them more moderate elements of
Russian society. It was thought, and was openly said, that
it would be a benefit for Russia to have in
(01:07):
Poland a friendly neighbor instead of a hostile subject. Poland
will never lose her national character it is too strongly developed.
She has and will have her own literature, her own
art and industry. Russia can keep her in servitude only
by means of sheer force and oppression, a condition of
things which has hitherto favored and necessarily will favor oppression
(01:30):
in Russia herself. Even the peaceful Slavofields were of that opinion,
And while I was at school, Saint Petersburg's society greeted
with full approval the dream which the Slavo field Ivan
Ozakov had the courage to print in his paper the day.
His dream was that the Russian troops had evacuated Poland,
and he discussed the excellent results which would follow. When
(01:55):
the Revolution of eighteen sixty three broke out, several Russian
officers refus used to march against the Poles, while others
openly took their part and died either on the scaffold
or on the battlefield. Funds for the insurrection were collected
all over Russia, quite openly in Siberia and in the
Russian universities, the students equipped those of their comrades who
(02:18):
were going to join the revolutionists. Then, amidst this effervescence,
the news spread over Russia that during the night of
January tenth, bands of insurgents had fallen upon the soldiers
who were canon in the villages and had murdered them
in their beds. Although on the very eve of that
day the relations of the troops with the Poles seemed
(02:39):
to be quite friendly. There was some exaggeration in the report,
but unfortunately there was also truth in it, and the
impression it produced in Russia was most disasters. The old
antipathies between the two nations, saw akin in their origins
but so different in their national characters, woke up once more.
(03:00):
Gradually the bad feeling faded away to some extent. The
gallant fight of the always brave sons of Poland and
the indomitable energy with which they resisted a formidable army
one sympathy for that heroic nation. But it became known
that the Polish Revolutionary Committee, in its demand for the
re establishment of Poland with its old frontiers, included the
(03:23):
little Russian or Ukrainian provinces, the Greek Orthodox population of
which hated their Polish rulers and more than once in
the course of the last three centuries slaughtered them wholesale. Moreover,
Napoleon the Third began to menace Russia with a new war,
a vain menace which did more harm to the Poles
than all other things put together. And finally, the radical
(03:47):
elements of Russia saw with regret that now the purely
nationalist elements of Poland had got the upper hand. The
revolutionary government did not care in the least to grant
the land to the serfs, a blunder of which the
Russian government did not fail to take advantage in order
to appear in the position of protector of the peasants
against their Polish landlords. When the revolution broke out in Poland,
(04:11):
it was generally believed in Russia that it would take
a democratic, republican turn, and that the liberation of the
serfs on a broad democratic basis would be the first
thing which a revolutionary government fighting for the independence of
the country would accomplish. The emancipation law, as it had
been enacted at Saint Petersburg in eighteen sixty one, provided
(04:33):
ample opportunity for such a course of action. The personal
obligations of the serfs towards their owners only came to
an end on February nineteenth, eighteen sixty three. Then a
very slow process had to be gone through in order
to obtain a sort of agreement between the landlords and
the serfs as to the size and the locality of
(04:53):
the land allotments which were to be given to the
liberated serfs. The yearly payments for the u these allotments,
disproportionately high, were fixed by law at so much per acre,
But the peasants had also to pay an additional sum
for their homesteads, and of this sum the maximum only
had been fixed by the statute, it having been thought
(05:14):
that the landlords might be induced to forego that additional payment,
or to be satisfied with only a part of it.
As to the so called redemption of the land, in
which case the government undertook to pay the landlord its
full value in state bonds, and the peasants receiving the
land had to pay in return for forty nine years
(05:35):
six percent on that sum as interest and annuities. Not
only were these payments extravagant and ruinous for the peasants,
but no term was even fixed for the redemption. It
was left to the will of the landlord, and in
an immense number of cases the redemption arrangements had not
been entered upon twenty years after the emancipation. Under such conditions,
(05:58):
a revolutionary government had ample opportunity for immensely approving upon
the Russian law. It was bound to accomplish an act
of justice towards the serfs, whose condition in Poland was
as bad as and often worse than in Russia itself,
by granting them better and more definite conditions of emancipation.
But nothing of the sort was done. The purely nationalist
(06:21):
party and the aristocratic one having obtained the upper hand
in the movement, this all absorbing matter was left out
of sight. It was thus easy for the Russian government
to win the peasants to its side. Full advantage was
taken of this fault when Nicholas Milutin was sent to
Poland by Alexander the Second with the mission to liberate
(06:42):
the peasants in the way he intended doing it in Russia.
Go to Poland, apply there your red program against the
Polish landlords, said Alexander the Second to him, and Milutin,
together with Prince Tcherkasky and many others, really did their
best to take the land from the landlords and give
full sized allotments to the peasants. I once met one
(07:05):
of the Russian functionaries who went to Poland under Miluten
and Prince Teeriksky, we had full liberty. He said to
me to hold out the hand to the peasants. My
usual plan was to go to a village and convoke
the peasants assembly. Tell me. First, I would say, what
land do you hold at this moment? They would point
it out to me. Is this all the land you
(07:27):
ever held? I would then ask, surely not. They would
reply with one voice, years ago, these meadows were ours,
this wood was once in our possession, and these fields
belonged to us. I would let them go on talking
it all over, and then would ask, now, which of
you can certify under oath that this land or that
land has ever been held by you. Of course, there
(07:49):
would be nobody forthcoming, it was all too long ago.
At last, some old man would be thrust out from
the crowd the rest, saying he knows all about it,
he can swear to it. The old man would begin
a long story about what he knew in his youth
or had heard from his father. But I would cut
the story short, state on oath, what you know to
(08:10):
have been held by the gmina, the village community, and
the land is yours. And as soon as he took
the oath, one could trust that oath. Implicitly, I wrote
out the papers and declared to the Assembly, now this
land is yours. You stand no longer under any obligations
whatever to your late masters. You are simply their neighbors.
(08:32):
All you will have to do is pay the redemption
tax so much every year to the government. Your homesteads
go with the land. You can get them free. One
can imagine the effect which such a policy produced upon
the peasants. A cousin of mine, Peter Nikolayevitch, a brother
of the aide de camp whom I have mentioned, was
(08:52):
in Poland or in Lithuania with his regiment of Uhlan's
of the Guards. The revolution was so serious that even
the regiment of the Guard had been sent against it
from Saint Petersburg, and it is now known that when
Mihail Murravieov was ordered to Lithuania and came to take
leave of the Empress Marie, she said to him, saved
least Lithuania for Russia. Poland was regarded as lost. The
(09:17):
armed bands of the revolutionists held the country, my cousin
said to me, and we were powerless to defeat them
or even to find them. Small bands, over and over
again attacked our small detachment, and as they fought admirably
and knew the country and found support in the population,
they often had the best of the skirmishes. We were
(09:38):
thus compelled to march in large columns. Only we would
cross a region marching through the woods without finding any
trace of the bands. But when we marched back again,
we learned that bands had appeared in our rear, that
they had levied the patriotic tax in the country, and
if some peasants had rendered himself useful in any way
to our troops, we found him hanged on a tree
(09:59):
by the revolutionary bands. So it went on for months
with no chance of improvement, until Milutant came and freed
the peasants, giving them the land. Then all was over.
The peasants sided with us. They helped us to lay
hold of the bands, and the insurrection came to an end.
(10:20):
I often spoke with the Polish exiles in Siberia upon
this subject, and some of them understood the fault that
had been committed. A revolution from its very outset must
be an act of justice towards the downtrodden and the oppressed,
not a promise of making such reparation later on. Otherwise
it is sure to fail. Unfortunately, it often happens that
(10:43):
the leaders are so much absorbed with mere questions of
military tactics that they forget the main thing to be revolutionists,
and failed to prove to the masses that a new
era has really begun for them is to ensure the
certain ruin of the attempt. The disaster a consequences for
Poland of this revolution are known. They belonged to the
(11:04):
domain of history. How many thousand men perished in battle,
how many hundreds were hanged, and how many scores of
thousands were transported to various provinces of Russia and Siberia
is not yet fully known. But even the official figures
which were printed in Russia a few years ago, show
that in the Lithuanian provinces alone, not to speak of
(11:26):
Poland proper, that terrible man Mikhail Muraviev, to whom the
Russian government has just erected a monument at Vilno, hanged
by his own authority one hundred and twenty eight Poles
and transported to Russia and Siberia nine thousand, four hundred
and twenty three men and women. Officialists also published in
Russia give eighteen thousand, six hundred and seventy two men
(11:49):
and women exiled to Siberia from Poland, of whom ten thousand,
four hundred and seven were sent to East Siberia. I
remember that the Governor General of East Siberia mentioned to
me the same number, about eleven thousand persons sent to
hard labor or exile in his domains. I saw them
there and witness their sufferings. Altogether, something like sixty thousand
(12:14):
or seventy thousand persons, if not more, were torn out
of Poland and transported to different provinces of Russia, to
the Urals, to Caucasus, into Siberia. For Russia, the consequences
were equally disastrous. The Polish Insurrection was the definitive close
of the reform period. True, the Law of provincial self
(12:37):
government zemstvoss and the reform of the law courts were
promulgated in eighteen sixty four and eighteen sixty six, but
both were ready in eighteen sixty two and moreover, at
the last moment, Alexander the Second gave preference to the
scheme of self government, which had been prepared by the
reactionary party of VALUEV as against the scheme which had
(12:58):
been prepared by Nikola Milutin, And immediately after the promulgation
of both reforms, their importance was reduced and in some
cases destroyed, by the enactment of a number of bye laws.
Worst of all, public opinion itself took a further step backward.
The hero of the hour was katkov the leader of
(13:19):
the Serfdom Party, who appeared now as a Russian patriot
and carried with him most of the Saint Petersburg and
Moscow society. After that time, those who dared to speak
of reforms were at once classed by Katkoff as traitors
to Russia. The wave of reaction soon reached our remote province.
(13:40):
One day in March a paper was brought by a
special messenger from Irkutsk. It intimated to General Koukl that
he was at once to leave the post of governor
atrans bai Kalia and go to Irkutsk, waiting there for
further orders, but without reassuming there the post of commander
of the General staff. Why what did that mean? There
(14:01):
was not a word of explanation. Even the Governor General,
a personal friend of Kukin, had not run the risk
of adding a single word to that mysterious order. Did
it mean that Koukil was going to be taken between
two gendarmes to Saint Petersburg and immured in that huge
stone coffin the fortress of Saint Peter and Saint Paul?
(14:22):
All was possible? Later on we learned that such was
indeed the intention, and so it would have been done
but for the energetic intervention of Count Nikolas Murraviev, the
conqueror of the Ahmoud, who personally implored the CSAR that
Koukol should be spared that fate. Our parting with Koukol
and his charming family was like a funeral. My heart
(14:44):
was very heavy. I not only lost in him a
dear personal friend, but I felt also that this parting
was the burial of a whole epoch full of long
cherished hopes, full of illusions. As it became the fashion
to say so, it was a new governor came a
good natured leave me in peace man with renewed energy,
(15:07):
seeing that there was no time to lose. I completed
our plans of reform of the system of exile and
municipal self government. The governor made a few objections here
and there for formality's sake, but finally signed the schemes
and they were sent to headquarters. But at Saint Petersburg
reforms were no longer wanted. There our projects lie buried
(15:30):
still with hundreds of similar ones from all parts of Russia.
A few improved prisons, even more terrible than the old
unimproved ones have been built in the capitals to be
shown during prison congresses to distinguished foreigners. But the reminder
and the whole system of exile were found by George
Kennon in eighteen eighty six in exactly the same state
(15:53):
in which I left them in eighteen sixty two. Only now,
after thirty six years have passed away, the authorities are
introducing the reformed tribunals and a parody of self government
in Siberia, and committees had been nominated again to inquire
into the system of exile. When Kennon came back to
(16:14):
London from his journey to Siberia, he managed on the
very next day after his arrival in London to hunt
up Stepniak, Tsaikowski, myself, and another Russian refugee. In the evening,
we all met at Kennon's room in a small hotel
near Tarin Cross. We saw him for the first time, and,
having no excess of confidence in enterprising Englishmen who had
(16:37):
previously undertaken to learn all about the Siberian prisons without
even learning a word of Russian, we began to cross
examine Kennon. To our astonishment, he not only spoke excellent Russian,
but he knew everything worth knowing about Siberia. One or
another of us had been acquainted with a greater proportion
of all political exiles in Siberia, and sieged Cannon with questions,
(17:02):
where is so and so? Is he married? Is he
happy in his marriage? Does he still keep fresh in spirit?
We were soon satisfied that Kennon knew all about every
one of them. When this questioning was over and we
were preparing to leave, I asked, do you know, mister
Kennan if they had built a watch tower for the
fire brigade at Chitah. Stepniak looked at me as if
(17:25):
to reproach me for abusing Kennon's good will Cannon, however,
began to laugh, and I soon joined him, and with
much laughter, we tossed each other questions and answers, Why
do you know about that? And you too, built yes,
double estimate, and so on till at last Stepniak interfered
(17:45):
and in his most severely good natured way, objected, tell
us at least what you are laughing about. Whereupon Kennon
told the story of that watch tower, which his readers
must remember. In eighteen fifty seven, the Chietah people wanted
to build a watch tower and collected the money for it,
but their estimates had to be sent to the Ministry
(18:06):
of the Interior, so they went to Saint Petersburg. But
when they came back two years later, duly approved all
the prizes for timber, and work had gone up in
that rising young town. This was in eighteen sixty two.
While I was at Cheetah. New estimates were made and
sent to Saint Petersburg, and the story was repeated for
(18:27):
full twenty five years, till at last the Cheetah people,
loosing patience, put in their estimates prices nearly double the
real ones. These fantastic estimates were solemnly considered at Saint
Petersburg and approved. This is how Cheetah got its watch tower.
It has often been said that Alexander the Second committed
(18:48):
a great fault by raising so many hopes, which later
on he did not satisfy. It is seen from what
I have just said, and the story of Little Cheetah
was the story of all Russia. That he did worse
than that. It was not merely that he raised hopes,
yielding for a moment to the current of public opinion
around him. He induced men all over Russia to set
(19:10):
to work, to issue from the domain of mere hopes
and dreams, and to touch with the finger the reforms
that were required. He made them realize what could be
done immediately, and how easy it was to do it.
He induced them to sacrifice whatever of their ideals could
not be immediately realized, and to demand only what was
practically possible at the time. And when they had framed
(19:34):
their ideas and had shaped them into laws which merely
required his signature to become realities, then he refused that signature.
No reactionist could raise, or ever has raised his voice
to assert that what was left the unreformed tribunals, the
absence of municipal government or the system of exile was
(19:54):
good and was worth maintaining. No one has dared to
say that, and yet, owing to the fear of doing anything,
all was left as it was for thirty five years.
Those who ventured to mention the necessity of a change
were treated as suspects, and institutions unanimously recognized as bad
were permitted to continue in existence, only that nothing more
(20:18):
might be heard of that abhorred word, reform. End of Siberia,
Chapter three,
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