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Peter Alexeivitch Kropotkin

Born in the Old Esquerries' Quarter of Moscow in 1842

LIVES OF GREAT ALTRURIANS

COMRADE KROPOTKIN
BY VICTOR ROBINSON

"To liberate one's country!" she
said. "It is terrible even to utter
those words, they are so grand."
Turgenev: "On the Eve."

PRICE, ONE DOLLAR
THE ALTRURIANS
12 Mount Morris Park West
New York City
1908

This book is not copyrighted—
How could it be?

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

TO GEORGE KENNAN

I dedicate this work. I need not say why. He will know—

Everyone will know. With tears, during the night,

I have read your book, thou earnest truth-seeker.

O compassionate traveler, what a man you must have been!

For the weary Siberian exiles called you

'Dear George Ivanovich!' With a heart

Full of thankfulness for the work you have done,

I lay my bitter and bloody pages at your feet.

Victor Robinson

FOREWORD

Bernard Shaw calls us a nation of villagers. To a large extent this appellation holds good. We are so self-sufficient unto ourselves that the most important events in the world leave us cold if they take place outside of the realm of the star-spangled banner.

A wonderful and terrible thing is happening in the largest empire on earth; a downtrodden people is engaged in a death-grapple with its merciless rulers; and never were masters so inhuman, and never were people so heroic. In comparison with this titanic struggle the French Revolution itself sinks into insignificance. But what do we know about it? And what do we care? Russia is far away.... Once in a while the report of a particularly atrocious massacre, or a particularly cruel torture inflicted upon a young girl revolutionist will shock our sensibilities, will cause a pang in our hearts, will perhaps make our hair stand on end,—but in a day or two we forget all about it. We are so busy!

No wonder that this battle-drama appeals with special force, and exerts a special charm on the young of all lands,—the young who worship Freedom, and whose breasts beat warmly for Ideals. No wonder therefore that it appeals to Victor Robinson.

This essay was written at the age of twenty, and the youth of the author will serve as an apology, if apology be needed, for the sharpness of some of the expressions found in these pages. But is excuse really necessary? I hardly think so. No language can be too strong when condemning the Russian Bureaucracy, no judgment can be too severe when pronounced on czardom and its cruel minions. In fact the English language sometimes seems inadequate....

A remarkable commentary on the conditions in Russia is the fact that he who studies them carefully and thoroly, be he the gentlest and sweetest youth who would not harm a fly or tread on a worm, becomes saturated with the conviction that in Russia, the rebel's bomb and pistol and dagger are not only legitimate and necessary, but even noble weapons of defense and offense.

I refrain from any remarks as to the intrinsic value of this book, as it is perhaps not quite proper for a father to criticize, favorably or otherwise, the literary productions of his son. One comment however I would like to make: For one who is utterly unfamiliar with the Russian language, and who has worked alone and unaided, (in the leisure moments left over by strenuous college studies), the author has accomplished a rather noteworthy feat. He has succeeded in imbuing the book with such an atmosphere, in presenting such vivid and faithful glimpses of Russian life and literature, and exhibiting such wide and varied knowledge of the subject, that even a Russian writer would not be ashamed to have his name appear on the title-page of this volume.

Love understandeth all things.

Dr. William J. Robinson.

New York City, November 11, 1908.

UNDER NICHOLAS I.

I understand that doom awaits him who first rises against the oppressors of the people. When has Liberty been redeemed without victims? Fate has already condemned me. I shall perish for my native land. I feel it, I know it, and gladly bless my destiny.—Ryleev.

fabled king of Thrace fed his horses on human flesh, but a real czar of Russia washed his streets with blood. On his accession to the red throne, the Iron Despot immediately expelled progress from his empire by butchering the Decembrists—those pioneers of freedom who fought for a constitution and the abolition of serfdom. Exiles began to tramp the lonely Siberian highway, and from the time of that Nicholas I. to this Nicholas II.—a period of 75 years—over a million political prisoners have taken the 'long journey.'

The mighty country was turned into a military camp. The term of service was twenty-five years. The life was so hard that when a man was recruited, his relatives followed him as if to his grave. His mother ran after him, and sometimes fell dead on the spot. The emperor spent his time reviewing troops and altering uniforms.[1] If an officer appeared in the streets with the hooks of his uncomfortable collar unfastened, he was liable to be degraded to the rank of a common soldier and deported to some distant province. If a soldier complained of his diet, or was guilty of the slightest infraction of the most insignificant rule, he was condemned to run the gauntlet. He was stripped naked, his hands were tied behind him, and he was brought between two long rows of pawing privates and eager 'non-coms,' equipped and armed with sticks, whips and gun-stocks. Behind the soldiers stood officers commanding, "Harder! Harder!" Thru these lines the victim was compelled to run—because in yesterday's paltry parade conducted by a petty sergeant, he scratched his itching neck. At first it was his shoulders which they struck, but before he had gone very far he had no longer a back, but only a bleeding mass of quivering flesh thru which parts of the bones protruded. A doctor was always present to see that the culprit did not die before receiving his full punishment. That is, if he were booked for 500 blows and was on the point of succumbing after receiving 300, it was the physician's duty to send him to a hospital to regain sufficient strength to allow the additional 200 to be administered. However, in spite of the medicus, the mangled men often perished before their time, and then there was nothing to do but beat the corpse.[2]

During this reign originated the widespread system of stealing Jewish children from their homes, separating them from their families, severing them from their faith, and bringing them up to serve in the army. These were the Cantonists.[3] Thus it came about that when a mother of Israel gave birth to a boy, she did not rejoice as for one born and living, but lamented as for one dead and departed. (Sometimes Jewish mothers saved their children from the army by cutting off their fingers, or taking out one of their eyes).

Liberty was so shackeled she did not even dare weep aloud.[4] Since that unlucky day when Ryleev, Pestel, Bestuzhev, Kakovsky and Muraviov-Apostol dangled from a tall straight post and a strong crossbar, no revolutionist arose to oppose tyranny. During all the many years of the reign of Nicholas-with-the-Stick, no ray of light brightened a darkened nation, no torch glimmered in the bloody gloom. Hope was dead. Freedom was buried. Literature was in exile. Knowledge lay in a closed coffin. But censorship was alive, and autocracy had more eyes than Argus.

An anonymous pamphlet, toward the end of his reign, cried out that the czar had rolled a great stone before the door of the sepulchure of Truth, that he had placed a strong guard round her tomb, and in the exultation of his heart had exclaimed, "For thee, no resurrection!"

So thoroly was liberalism crushed, so completely was absolutism supreme, that 'Nikolaus Palkin' walked the streets of bleeding Russia unattended and unafraid.

Alas, when a nation has only knees to bend, but no hands to strike!

After his shadow had obscured the sun for a quarter of a century, a brilliant festival was given in his honor at Moscow—called the Holy City because it contains a Miracle Monastery for glorifying God and a Kremlin Fortress for crucifying Man. It was a fancy-dress ball, and a thousand gorgeous uniforms were there, from the leather coat of the Tungus to the embroidered flummery of the chamberlain. In this affair the children of the nobility played an important part. They were lavishly attired, and each carried an ensign representing the arms of the provinces of the Russian empire. At a given signal the little emblem-bearers began to march, and on reaching the purple platform upon which the royal family sat, all standards were lowered. The inflexible autocrat viewed the scene with satisfaction—all the provinces bowed before him. When the children retired to the rear of the immense hall, someone pulled the smallest of the boys from the ranks and placed him on the imperial elevation. The lad was arrayed as a Persian prince, and wore a jewel-covered belt and a high bonnet. Nicholas I. looked at his chubby face all surrounded with pretty curls and taking him to the czarevna Marie Alexandrovna, said in his military voice, "This is the sort of boy you must bring me." The woman was gravid at the time, and the soldier-like joke made her blush.

"Will you have some sweets?" asked the emperor.

"I want some of those tiny biscuits which were served at tea," eagerly responded the child. A waiter was called and he emptied a full tray into the tall bonnet.

"I will take them home to Sasha," said the curly little cherub.

Mikhael—the czar's brother—now paid attention to the little visitor. "When you are a good boy," he said, "they treat you so," and he passed his rough hand downwards over the rotund features of the diminutive would-be Persian; "but when you are naughty, they treat you so," and he rubbed the child's nose upward.

The poor innocent did his best to restrain himself, but unhappily the gushing tears could not be repressed. The ladies at once took his part, and Marie Alexandrovna set him by her side on a velvet chair with a gilded back—William Morris being then unknown. Soon the big eyes began to close, and drowsily putting his beautiful head in the lap of the future empress, the boy fell soundly asleep.

And the frolic went on. Under the glittering chandeliers the dancers glided. Over the waxen floors the merry feet waltzed. Wine disappeared by barrels, and revelry ran riot. Swords, spurs, buckles, medals, diamonds—how they all sparkled! The smooth-cheeked courtiers and the slick-tongued cavaliers gaily jested, and the silk-swathed ladies flirted their proverbial fans and smiled flatteringly at their wit, but not the wisest of them knew that someday this babe would awake and make his name terrible to the ears of tyrants!

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See "Russia," by Alfred Rambaud.

[2] Among those who witnessed this spectacle was Germain de Lagny, who describes it in his book, "The Knout and the Russians" ... "After fourteen hundred strokes, his face which had long before begun to turn blue, assumed suddenly a greenish hue; his eyes became haggard and almost started out of their sockets, from which large blood-colored tears trickeled down and stained his cheeks. He was gasping and gradually sinking. The officer who accompanied me ordered the ranks to open, and I approached the body. The skin was literally ploughed up, and had, so to say, disappeared. The flesh was hacked to pieces and almost reduced to a state of jelly; long stripes hung down the prisoner's sides like so many thongs, while other pieces remained fastened and glued to the sticks of the executioners. The muscles, too, were torn to shreds. No mortal tongue can ever convey a just idea of the sight.... It was seven months before he was cured and his health re-established; and, at the expiration of this period, he was solemnly taken back to the place of execution, and forced once more to run the gauntlet, in order to receive his full amount of six thousand strokes. He died at the commencement of this second punishment.... After all, Russia is only an immense barrack, in which every one is in a state of arrest." Yet the author of these words was a worshipper of Nicholas!

[3] They were called Cantonists because they were kept and trained in military settlements or cantons under Arakcheev. It is a most remarkable fact—considering the circumstance that they were taken away in early childhood—that several Cantonists who were able to live thru the horrors of the service, returned to their homes as orthodox and as fanatically devoted to their religion as if they had spent the preceding twenty-five years not in the military barracks of the gentiles, but in cheder and shool reciting the Torah.

[4] He slaughtered Poland like a hound tears a hare. "But below all (in the Museum of the Kremlin), far beneath the feet of the Emperor, in dust and ignominy and on the floor, is flung the very Constitution of Poland—parchment for parchment, ink for ink, good promise for good promise—which Alexander I. gave with so many smiles, and which Nicholas I. took away with so much bloodshed."—Andrew D. White, "The Development and Overthrow of Serfdom in Russia," Atlantic Monthly November 1862. This sentence which I have quoted is correct, but the reader who is unfamiliar with Russian history had better avoid the article, as the last paragraph alone contains as many lies as there are kalachi in Moscow.

SCENES FROM SERFDOM

To be sold, three coachmen, well-trained and handsome; and two girls, the one eighteen and the other fifteen years of age, both of them good-looking and well acquainted with various kinds of handiwork. In the same house there are for sale two hairdressers; the one twenty-one years of age can read, write, play on a musical instrument, and act as huntsman; the other can dress ladies' and gentlemen's hair. In the same house are sold pianos and organs.

Advertisement in the Moscow Gazette, 1801.

eter Kropotkin's father was a general and a prince. His family originated with a grandson of Rostislav Mstislavich the Bold. His ancestors had been Grand Princes of Smolensk. He was a descendant of the house of Rurik, and judged from the standpoint of heredity, had more right to the throne than the Romanoffs. Incidentally he was like most military men—barbarous, pitiless, merciless. He owned twelve hundred male serfs. We do not know how many maids. Neither do we know how many were scarred by the knout, how many were flogged till the breath of life left them, nor how many hanged themselves under his window.

If this brave warrior—who received the cross of Saint Anne for gallantry, because his servant Froll rushed into the flames to save a child—became imbued with the notion that there was not sufficient hay in the barn, he would call one of his serfs, strike him in the face, and accuse him of overfeeding the horses. In order to prove he was right he would make another calculation, and come to the conclusion there was too much hay. So he would bang his slave again for not giving the equidae enuf. Suddenly he would sit down and write a note: Take So and So to the police station, and let 100 lashes with the birch rod be administered to him.

On such occasions Peter would run out—his rosy cheeks wet with weeping—catch the unhappy soul in a dark passage, and try to kiss his hand. The serf would tear it away, and say bitterly, "Let me alone; you too, when you grow up, will you not be just the same?"

"No, no, never!" cried the child, while the hot tears choked him and made him cough for breath.

The females of all animals, having dislikes and preferences, exercise the right of selection; rejecting one and receiving another; sending away a male who is repulsive to them, and accepting a wooer they find attractive.[5]

Such absurd liberty was never allowed the serfs. They married when, where and whom the master wished. The Kropotkins owned a woman named Polya—intelligent and artistic—an exceptional serf. Her body was bound; her hands were doomed to labor; her talents brought benefits not to herself; her skill was at the service of others; her industry profited her owners; she was a chattel, chained and confined—but her heart could not be controlled. She deeply loved a neighboring servant, and was with child from him. The lover, forgetting the Russian proverb, "One cannot break a stone wall with his forehead," implored permission to marry her.... The Kropotkins owned also a dwarf called 'bandy-legged Filka.' Because of a terrible kick which he received in his boyhood, he ceased to grow. His legs were crooked, his feet were turned inward, his nose was broken, his jaw was deformed. It was the General's will that the refined Polya should wed this unsightly imp. She was forced to obey. The 'happy couple' were sent to the estate of Ryazan.[6]

During the sixth year of the reign of Alexander II., a servant dashed wildly into Peter Kropotkin's room. It was early in the morning, and Kropotkin was still in bed. But the servant brandished the tea tray and babbled excitedly, "Prince, freedom! The manifesto is posted on the Gostinoi Dvor." In a moment Kropotkin was dressed and began to run out. Just then a friend came running in. "Kropotkin, freedom!" he shouted, "Here is the manifesto!"

Kropotkin read it. His eyes beamed. He stamped his feet. O happy day! No more slavery—serfdom was abolished—the muzhiks were free. Not the dark ghosts of reaction, but the luminous sons of light had triumphed. Not Shuvaloff, Muravioff, and Trepoff, but Herzen, Turgenev and Chernishevsky.[7]

That afternoon Kropotkin attended the last performance of the Italian Opera. Baveri, the conductor of the band, raised his baton; the musicians began to play, but human voices drowned the notes, for the people were shouting for their czar—Redeemer!—Deliverer! Then Baveri stopped, but the hurrahs did not. Again Baveri waved his stick wildly in the air, the fiddlers grasped tightly their bows, the drummers beat with all their strength, the players inflated their lungs and blew the brazen instruments with might and main, but from that powerful band not a bar of music could be heard, for the people were shouting for their czar—Immanuel!—Illustrious! Strangers met in the streets, embraced, kissed each other thrice on the cheek, and shouted for their czar—Father!—Messiah! In front of the royal palace, peasants and professors mingled, and shouted for their czar—Emancipator!—Liberator! When he really appeared, crowds eager and immense, ran after the carriage and shouted for their czar—Tsar Osvoboditel!

As a dream disappears at dawn, so died this enthusiasm. The brief moment of promise was followed by an eternal hour of despair; the short day was succeeded by the endless night. Hell may not be Hell, but a Romanoff is a Romanoff. Only one year later, the despot in Alexander awoke—mature and monstrous. If the dead could touch the living, Nicholas would have hugged his son. The steps of the scaffold became slippery with the blood of the best. The rope of the hangman was jerked day and night, and the key of the jailer creaked in a thousand locks. Reaction had won, and liberalism lay covered with a crimson shroud.

The Valuev volcano vomited its smothering lava as far as Siberia, and General Kukel who with Kropotkin's help was preparing a long list of necessary reforms, was dismissed from his post because another place had been found for him—in prison.

On the other hand there was a district chief who robbed the peasants and whipped their wives, and whose brutality and dishonesty were so unanswerably exposed by the energetic Kropotkin that this officer was also transfered—to a higher position in Kamchatka where he found more roubles for his purse and more women for his knout.

When Kropotkin returned to St. Petersburg on an official commission, a high functionary said to him, "Do you know that Chernishevsky has been arrested? He is now in the fortress."

"Chernishevsky? What has he done?"

"Nothing in particular, nothing! But mon cher, you know—state considerations!... Such a clever man, awfully clever! And such an influence he has upon the youth. You understand that a government cannot tolerate that: that's impossible! intolerable mon cher, dans un Etat bien ordonné!"[8]

For these mad acts of a drunken despotism, there was neither shadow of excuse nor shade of reason, except that a Romanoff was hungry and thirsty for victims, satisfying the blood-craving spirit that cried within him, demanding that the brightest youths and the noblest girls be changed to lifeless corpses.

Is it any wonder that men who on the great day of emancipation quoted with tears in their eyes the beautiful article by Herzen,[9] "Thou hast conquered, Galilean," now recited these other words by the same exile: "Alexander Nikolaevich, why did you not die on that day? Your name would have been transmitted in history as that of a hero."

FOOTNOTES:

[5] See Darwin's "Descent of Man."

[6] Yet Kropotkin was not among the cruelest proprietors. To read what occurred on the estate of General Arakcheev is enuf to drive the stoutest mind insane. In the "Russki Archiv" is an account of a woman who by the most horrible tortures killed hundreds of her serfs, chiefly of the female sex, several of them young girls of eleven and twelve. Another woman murdered a serf boy by pricking him with a pen-knife, because he had neglected to take proper care of a rabbit. See Sir D. M. Wallace's "Russia." Also the "Memoirs of a Sportsman" and "Mumu" by Turgenev.

[7] Leonora B. Lang, who translated Rambaud's "Histoire de la Russie" from French to English, says there are about thirteen ways of spelling Patzinak. Ditto for Chernishevsky. The form which I have chosen is perhaps as proper as any, and simpler than most. An English reader is not supposed to be able to pronounce Tschernyschewskiy.

[8] See P. Kropotkin's "Memoirs of a Revolutionist."

[9] For an account of Herzen's influence, see the "Russian Revolutionary Movement," by Konni Zilliacus. This excellent volume which all should read is of especial interest to Finns.

EXPLORATIONS

And at the same time falls upon his ear the plaintive song of the Russian peasant; all wailing and lamentation, in which so many ages of suffering seem concentrated. His squalid misery, his whole life stands forth full of sorrow and outrage. Look at him; exhausted by hunger, broken down by toil, the eternal slave of the privileged classes, working without pause, without hope of redemption. For the government purposely keeps him ignorant, and every one robs him, every one tramples on him, and no one stretches out a hand to assist him. No one? Not so. The young man knows now "what to do." He will stretch forth his hand. He will tell the peasant how to free himself and how to become happy. His heart throbs for this poor sufferer who can only weep. The flush of enthusiasm mounts to his brow, and with burning glances he takes in his heart a solemn oath to concentrate all his life, all his strength, all his thoughts, to the liberation of this population which drains its life blood in order that he, the favored son of privilege, may live at his ease, study, and instruct himself. He will take off the fine clothes that burn into his very flesh; he will put on the rough coat and the wooden shoes of the peasant, and abandoning the splendid paternal palace which oppresses him like the reproach of a crime, he will go forth "among the people" in some remote district, and there, the slender and delicate descendant of a noble race, he will do the hard work of the peasant, enduring every privation in order to carry to him the words of redemption, the Gospel of our age,—Socialism. What matters to him if the cut-throats of the Government lay hands upon him? What to him are exile, Siberia, death? Full of his sublime idea, clear, splendid, vivifying as the mid-day sun, he defies suffering, and would meet death with a glance of enthusiasm and a smile of happiness.—Stepniak: Underground Russia.

eter Kropotkin came into life sailing on its topmost wave. The fat of the land, and its milk and honey were his. Personally, nothing was denied him. All the gifts had been lavished upon him. Position was his, health he had in abundance, he was as handsome as the characters in Tolstoy's War and Peace, and his talents were many and varied. To use the Russian vernacular, he was born in his shirt.

But not praise from princes or bows from beauties could induce him to fritter away his splendid energies in senseless dinky-dinks at Moscow or foppish balls at Petersburg. He wished to exercise head, hand and heart, for he agreed with John Ruskin that whatever else you are, you must not be useless and you must not be cruel—two adjectives which best portray the average official.

As has already been said, while still a youth Kropotkin went to Siberia to aid Kukel improve the prisons, the exile system, etc. But when the Herzen-reading Kukel was recalled, and it was no longer permitted to mention the word "reform," Kropotkin became an explorer.

Being clever, he soon made several important discoveries—the border-ridge of the Khingan, the tertiary volcanoes of the Uyun Kholdonsti, a direct route to the Amur.

Also it is interesting to remember that he was among the first Europeans who entered Manchuria,[10] and he went at the risk of being put in a cage and conveyed across the Gobi on a camel's back. It was impossible to go as an officer, so Kropotkin disguised himself as a trader, put on a long blue cotton dress, and acted like a Muscovite merchant—sitting on the edge of the chair, pouring his tea in the saucer, blowing on it with puffed-out cheeks and staring eyes, and nibbling tiny particles from his lump of sugar.

One night as he wandered thru a Chinese town, the inhabitants by signs asked him why such a young man wore a beard. Answering by the same means, Kropotkin told them that if he had nothing else to eat he could eat the beard. This caused the Celestials to roar with laughter, and they petted him tenderly, showed him their houses, and offered him more pipes than Skitaletz's Gavril Petrovitch could have smoked.

In 1866, Kropotkin found what previous explorers had vainly sought—a communication between the gold mines of Yakutsk and Transbaikalia.

Then came what he considers his chief contribution to science: the important discovery that the maps of Northern Asia were incorrect, because the main lines of structure run neither north and south, nor east and west, but from the southwest to the northeast.[11]

Later Kropotkin was to lead an expedition to the Arctic seas, but as the government was spending enormous sums in erecting scaffolds, it could not spare a poltinik for explorations in unknown regions. However the Geographical Society sent him to Finland to study the glacial deposits. Here he made valuable researches relative to the glaciation of the country. He conceived the idea of writing a monumental physical geography of Northern Europe. His chief ambition was to become the Secretary of the Society, for then he would be in a condition to considerably advance the cause of science.

But because he now had more leisure than formerly, he began seriously to think of another subject—The People. When he crossed a plain which had no interest for a geologist, he thought of their sufferings. When he walked from one gravel pit to another, he mused on their downtrodden hopes. Sometimes the hammer would pause in mid-air before it struck the chisel, because the naturalist was dreaming of these plundered beings. After collecting an immense amount of evidence, he anticipated what keen joy he would have in analysing and arranging it for publication; but then another feeling would assert itself—what right had he to this happiness when all around him were men and women and children struggling and slaving for a bit of mouldy bread? Yes, yes, Kropotkin was thinking about the hungry people.

It was in the autumn of 1871, as he looked over the hillocks of Finland, and saw with his scientific eye the ice accumulating in the archipelagos at the dawn of mankind, that he received this telegram from the Geographical Society: "The council begs you to accept the position of secretary to the society."

At last Kropotkin was in a position to realise his old dream, but he pondered much before answering, for he now dreamed a new dream—how to lighten the burdens of the overworked people.

A voice in the wind said, "To work for Science is great."

Then another voice spoke saying, "To toil for Humanity is greater."

So Kropotkin wired, "Most cordial thanks, but cannot accept." The chisel of the geologist slipped from his fingers, and from that day on Peter Kropotkin carried in his upraised hand a burning torch for the weary people.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] By P. Kropotkin: "A Journey from the Trans-Baikal to the Amur by Way of Manchuria," in the "Russian Messenger," June 1865.

[11] Not even Kropotkin's enemies have denied his scientific ability. Zenker, in his unfair and unsympathetic book on "Anarchism" says, "The dreaded Anarchist Kropotkin is and always has been active as a writer of geographical and geological works, and enjoys a considerable reputation in these sciences, apart from his activity as a Socialist teacher and agitator." The conservative Hon. Andrew D. White in his "Autobiography" calls him "one of the most gifted scientific thinkers of our time." The unbelievably cruel Pobedonostzeff—who would gladly have used the thumb-screws on him—refers to him as "a learned geographer and sociologist."

THE NIHILISTS

"He is a nihilist."

"What!" cried his father. As to Paul Petrovitch, he raised his knife, on the end of which was a small bit of butter, and remained motionless.

"He is a nihilist," repeated Arcadi.

"A nihilist," said Nicholas Petrovitch. "This word must come from the Latin Nihil, nothing, as far as I can judge; and consequently it signifies a man who ... who recognizes nothing?"

"Or rather who respects nothing," said Paul Petrovitch; and he began again to butter his bread.

"A man who looks at everything from a critical point of view," said Arcadi.

"Does that not come to the same thing?" asked his uncle.

"No, not at all; a nihilist is a man who bows before no authority, who accepts no principle without examination, no matter what credit the principle has."—Turgenev: Fathers and Sons.

t was a cheerless Saint Petersburg to which Kropotkin returned—a city in the grip of the powers of darkness. The officials despoiled the muzhiks of their last copecks, and if the poor peasants sought redress in institutions ironically known as "courts of justice,"[12] they were either imprisoned for life or murdered outright—at the order of the very men who were fleshed with pillage.

The best writers had escaped abroad, or languished in faraway Siberia, or had departed upon a still longer journey.

Where was Lavrov? Who heard of Mikhailov? What fortress held Pisarev? Why sat no ardent youths at Chernishevsky's feet?

The reformers who had worked for the abolition of serfdom were still. An uncanny fear possessed them. They trembled at the thought of Trepoff. They shuddered at the sight of Shuvaloff. They wished nothing but obscurity; they prayed only for oblivion to cover them. They denied with pale faces that they had ever held advanced opinions. They were a pitiful lot, but it is hard to blame them. Like a blood-crazed beast Alexander roamed his empire, slaughtering human beings with a ferocity that would have made a pack of wolves protest. In the dead of the night they were shot—and sometimes at dawn. No reasons were assigned, no questions answered. Russia prostrated herself at the feet of power—poisoned with the fangs of force. Little wonder the old generation was frightened.

The lime had grown in their bones, and to have these bones crushed by Katkoff in the casemates of the Fortress of Peter and Paul was not pleasant. The fathers withdrew from the society of their sons. Even the older brothers held aloof. At every step the young people heard, "Prudence, young man." Never before was youth so deserted, and never before was youth so splendid, so supreme, so sublime. Was it for them to follow the craven footsteps of a cowardly generation? Let the overcrowded prisons answer! Let the youngster-jammed dungeons reply!

From the army came the young officer and cast aside his uniform. From the palace stepped forth the young prince and threw off his costly mantle. From the general's family hastened the young heiress and put away her silken dresses.

It is not for a halting tongue to celebrate this youthful band of pioneers. It is not for a faltering pen to chant praises to those whose glory is unrivalled. History has not seen their equals. They deserve the worship of a better world than this. We who have no faith in God or reverence for Government, may well bow our heads at the recollection of men who left comfortable firesides to expose themselves to maddening tortures. We may well fall right down on our knees at the thought of women who bade farewell to wealthy parents to bare their breasts to the sabre of the gendarme and the embrace of the cossack.

Authorities they rejected. The chains of custom they rent asunder. Even the axiomatic they re-examined. With the luke-warm, half-hearted agnosticism of Huxley, they were dissatisfied. Out-and-out apostles of Atheism were they, and one of the first books they printed was Ludwig Buchner's. The theory of transformism they eagerly accepted, and more than any English evolutionist they would gladly have died to prove Darwin right and Cuvier wrong.[13]

Only one mistake they made—they spat upon Art. They found no joy in beauty. An arched rainbow, a Grecian urn, a vine-covered cottage, were nothing to them. They scorned the laurels of the golden-haired Apollo. They claimed a shoemaker was superior to Raphael because he makes useful things while the other does not.

The Scaffold's Bride

It is for such girls that the czar buys rope.

Their sacred watchword was: To The People. This great movement—which Turgenev[14] named Nihilism—spread rapidly. Many schools were established and enormous numbers of peasants flocked to them. The old sat on the benches with their grandchildren and did their best to learn. Teachers and the taught were enthused with the great idea. Leaders and the led were comrades. The youths did not spend a couple of hours with the peasants and then run off to indulge in an abnormal orgy prepared by a pathic Grand Duke. Altho several were heirs to fortunes, they refused to accept any money from their parents. They lived exactly like the peasants, several in a room, ate black bread and dressed in boots and sheepskin. Many of the girls formerly owned a trunkful of jewels and a houseful of servants, but now they dispensed with chignon and crinoline. They cropped their hair close and put on blue spectacles so they might not be fair in the eyes of men. They wanted no love affairs. They wanted to educate the ignorant. Children of the rich, offsprings of aristocrats, scions of nobility, brought up in luxury, encouraged in idleness, unused to manual work, unaccustomed to physical labor, they now toiled fifteen hours a day in the factories. To look peasant-like, the prettiest maidens rubbed their cheeks with grease and steeped their hands in brine. All the woes of the commoners they accepted for themselves. Were there ever before such luminous sons, such divine daughters? Ask history for a parallel, and Clio's scroll is blank!

Let this statement stand—indeed not even the twisted intellect of the perverted W. T. Stead[15] could demolish it—had the autocracy permitted these young teachers to continue their educative work among the peasants, Russia to-day would not be a nation of illiterate muzhiks, and millions who are now hopelessly blind would have eyes that see.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] "This court is worse than a house of ill-fame; there they sell only bodies, but here you prostitute honor and justice and law."—Ippolit Mishkin.

[13] If the reader has not read Stepniak's "Underground Russia" he should do so without delay.

[14] See his "Fathers and Sons," but avoid the abominable translation by Eugene Schuyler. To the eternal honor of the nihilists it must be said that they instantly and emphatically repudiated the hero of this novel, the brutal Bazarov. I myself have no hesitancy in saying that I prefer even the perfumed dandy Paul Petrovitch, to this harsh, coarse, repulsive, insulting individual who treats his loving parents like dogs, and who refers to a beautiful woman by exclaiming, "What a magnificent body! How fine it would look on a dissecting table!" Here is one of the curiosities of literature: a great artist conceives a great admiration for a great type, and yet he produces—a caricature! But Kropotkin seems to have a somewhat higher opinion of Bazarov, for in a letter which I received from him, he says, "Those Nihilists who understood Bazarov as Pisarev did, were right. Those who reproached Turgenev for Bazarov's scorn to work for mankind were right again. Turgenev has not succeeded in representing the man of action whom he admired well enough to excite the uninitiated admiration of the reader." For a correct representation of a nihilist in a novel—which the nihilists themselves heartily accepted—see the character of Rakmetov in Chernishevsky's wonderful "What is to be done?" Among those who enthusiastically praised this work was Sophia Perovskaya.

[15] The English eulogist of Russian officialism, the hypocrite who is intimate with Nicholas II., the scoundrel who praises Trepoff, and yet speaks of uplifting humanity!! He has written a lying book, "The Truth About Russia."

THE TERRORISTS

In July 1906, I was in Bialystok. A pogrom had just been started. I saw women who were repeatedly raped before the eyes of their husbands and their fathers. I saw a child, four years old, deliberately shot in the arm by a soldier. I saw a girl of twelve shot in the stomach. I saw a hospital that was purposely fired upon by soldiers merely to create a panic among the patients. The local schoolmaster was killed by three gendarmes driving nails into his skull. The whole reason for the massacre was to terrify the population into submitting meekly to various governmental impositions. The massacre is a recognized weapon of the Russian Government, often used to shape political ends. By what standards of the eternal verities is it wrong to combat this kind of slaughter by removing the official or officials responsible? To assassinate an Alikhanov, a Pavlov, a Min, a Dubossov, a Sergius, a Plehve, is, to my mind, precisely like killing a rattlesnake that has crawled into a nursery, or stamping out a pest, or blowing up a building to stop the further spread of the flames.

Kellogg Durland: The Necessity for Terrorism in Russia.

t is not often remembered—tho it should be—that at this time these Nihilists were not politicals, and did not fight czarism. Their object was to teach the alphabet, not to overthrow the dynasty. It was only when the government condemned to a slow death in Siberia every one who printed a leaflet, or distributed a pamphlet, or attended a meeting, or listened to a speaker, or joined a co-operative association, or started an experimental farm, or went to a technical school, or taught a peasant—that they commenced to oppose the Romanoff regime. It was only when the ultimatum, "No schools allowed!"[16] was for several years rammed down their throats at the point of the bayonet that the Nihilists became Terrorists. It was only when the prisons overflowed with their young warm blood that Sophia Perovskaya waved her handkerchief.

The shaft of truth is naked, and so armored with bias is the mind of man, that the missle cannot pierce the mail. In spite of the unanswerable array of historical data, many will still exclaim, "We do not believe in using force in Russia. We believe in education."

O huge Sviatogor, giant-hero of the primitive Russians, endow us with your mighty nerves, lest we burst!

There was a girl—Miss Gukovskaya. A young girl—fourteen years old.[17] She addressed a crowd—about Kovalsky. She was transported to a remote part of Siberia for life. The child could not endure the wilderness and drowned herself in the Yenisei.

There was another girl who gave a single pamphlet to a worker. Her punishment was nine years of hard labor and then life-long exile among Siberian snows.

A young man was found reading a book not admired by the censor. He was put in prison and kept there until he committed suicide.

When the gay and gentle Starinyevitch was a student, a manifesto was found in his possession. Unwilling to incriminate another, he refused to say from whom he received it. For this omission he spent twenty years in filthy prisons.

While searching the room of Rosovsky who was not yet twenty, the police discovered a proclamation of the Executive Committee.

"Who gave it to you?"

"That I cannot say. I am not a spy."

He was sentenced to death and died on the scaffold.[18]

Kropotkin mentions another youth of nineteen who posted a circular in a railway station. He was caught and killed—hanged I think. "He was a boy," says Kropotkin, "He was a boy but he died like a man."

Ask a Revolutionist if he knows Sophia Bardina and his glowing eyes will answer yes. Because she read a couple of articles in public, she was condemned to several years' penal servitude, which by special favor of the czar was commuted to life-long exile.

Leo Deutsch in his mild and modest Sixteen Tears in Siberia, tells of a few girls of Romny who hit upon the plan of loaning one another books and making notes on them. Soon a few young men joined, and thus was formed a small reading society, such as might help to pass away the long winter evenings in the dull provincial town. For this—and for absolutely nothing but this—"the conspirators of Romny" were deported across the Urals.

Only a couple of years ago, several schoolteachers met at Tiflis to discuss the best method of improving their educational curricula. A commander entered and cried, "Disperse!" Turning to his cossacks he said, "These women are yours"—and all were raped with impunity.

As long as the Romanoffs rule Russia, only idiots opaque and impervious to reason, can speak of education without action.

If education were permitted, revolutionary violence would not be, because terrorism is the last straw to which the drowning nation clutches. They cling to this because under existing circumstances nothing else is possible, nothing, nothing, nothing.

Russia has produced no greater Terrorist than Gregory Gershuni, and when this glorious Jew stood before his "judges" he told them: "History will forgive you everything; the centuries of oppression, the millions you have starved to death, the other millions you have sent to be butchered on the battlefield; everything but this—that you have driven us who mean well with our fatherland to seek recourse in murder."[19]

Men cannot meet for purposes of discussion, because if they do, they will be beaten and bayoneted. Children cannot, for they will be hacked to pieces. Women cannot, for their bodies will be utilized to warm the beds of cossacks.

Such liberticide must be answered by tyrannicide! And the hand that holds a dagger, red with the blood of a despot, is the noblest hand of all!

FOOTNOTES:

[16] This fact is so notorious that even an obscurantist like W. R. Morfill must admit it. See the passage in his mediocre book, "Russia." But illiberal as this work is, it at least is not outrageous. What however are we to do with Augustus Hare ("Studies in Russia") who writes that exile to Siberia is pleasant; with Rev. Henry Landsell ("Through Siberia") who informs us that punishment with the knout was not painful; with Miss Annette Meakin ("A Ribbon of Iron") who describes the cruel Gribsky as a kindly man; with John A. Logan ("Joyful Russia") who is religiously convinced that the czar is an angel; with Francis H. Skrine ("Expansion of Russia") who approves the worst crimes of the house of Romanoff. Of course lackeys are always plentiful, but how sad that Russian Despotism should have Anglo-American defenders.

[17] Russian heroines begin early. The renowned Vera Zasulitch was just sweet sixteen when she startled the world by shooting and wounding the murderous General Trepoff.

[18] See "Russia Under the Czars," by Stepniak.

[19] This is the sentiment of all Russian Rebels. When the beautiful revolutionary nurse, Anna Korba, was on trial, 1882, she said, "If the party of the Will of the People adopts the policy of terror, it is not because it prefers terrorism, but because terrorism is the only possible method of attaining the objects set before it by the historical conditions of Russian life. These are sad and fateful words, and they bear a prophecy of terrible calamity. Gentlemen—Senators, you are well acquainted with the fundamental laws of the Russian Empire. You are aware that no one has a right to advocate any change in the existing imperial form of Government, or even to think of such a thing. Merely to present to the Crown a collective petition is forbidden—and yet the country is growing and developing, the conditions of social life are becoming day by day more and more complicated, and the moment approaches when the Russian people will burst thru the barriers from which there is no exit." Here she was interrupted by the presiding judge, but continued, "The historical task set before the party of the Will of the People is to widen these barriers and to obtain for Russia independence and freedom. The means for the attainment of these objects depend directly upon the Government. We do not adher obstinately to terrorism. The hand that is raised to strike will instantly fall if the Government will change the political conditions of life. Our party has patriotic self-control enuf not to take revenge for its bleeding wounds; but, unless it prove false to the Russian people, it cannot lay down its arms until it has conquered for that people freedom and well-being." One of the last things that Stepniak tells us in "King Stork and King Log" is: "Terrorism is the worst of all methods of revolutionary warfare, and there is only one thing that is worse still—slavish submissiveness, and the absence of any protest."——An unusually good editorial, "The Meaning of Terrorism," appeared recently in the New York Evening Post, in which it was correctly said, "In exchange for freedom of self-expression, the Revolutionists stand ready instantly to abandon terror, and they point for proof of their sincerity to the cessation of warfare during the period when the Duma was being elected and sat, to their readiness even now to suspend hostilities for the coming elections; small reason tho they have for confidence in the future plans of the government."——The Boston Herald (March 16, 1905), in a column editorial called "How Assassins Are Made," says, "The dark cloud of Russian oppression is riven only by thunderbolts. There is no wind of free speech to drive it away."——The editor of Altruria (November 1907) in answering a gentleman who objected to terrorism in Russia, writes, "When he says 'there are other ways,' he is mistaken. That's all. That is just the trouble. In Russia there are no other ways; not at present. There was hope of peaceful reformation; the Government destroyed that hope. The bomb and the bullet, therefore remain the only weapon."

SOPHIA PEROVSKAYA

All the condemned died like heroes. Kibalkitch and Geliabov appeared very calm and resigned. Timothy Mikhailov pale but firm; Rysakov calm and under control, but his face was as white as a sheet. Sophia Perovskaya's courage struck us all with astonishment. Not a sign of fear of death in her lovely countenance. Her cheeks wore the fresh roses of youth and health, and a heroine's soul gleamed from her gentle, but firm and serious face.

—From the reactionary Kolnische Zeitung.

ussia has long been famous for its circles, which far surpass in interest and excellence, those of any other country. According to the calculation of the police, each member contributes to the society either a pint or a quart of blood, but this computation is too conservative. Those who join Russian Circles do not measure the amount, but are ready to give unto the last drop. At these meetings, chairmen and ceremony are unknown. Those present sit on chairs, lean against the window-sill, or squat on a broken sofa. They sing melancholy songs, smoke cigarettes and overwork the samovar. They dress carelessly in loose blouses of colored calico. Their hair is disheveled, their faces are flushed, their eyes are blazing. All argue at once, and in order to make themselves heard, interrupt each other, shout animatedly, bang the table, and rattle the spoon in the glass. The noise is deafening, but from the din of the debate fly forth sparks which may eventually inflame even this outraged empire of officials and icons.

In 1872, Kropotkin joined the most important of these groups—the Circle of Chaykovsky. Kropotkin was now a thoro-going revolutionist, and it is foolish to ask as Grand Duke Nicholas did, "When did you begin to entertain such ideas?"

In a country like Russia, where the present government incites the troops to massacre the people, hoping in this way to prolong its existence;[20] where the wardens do a thriving business by turning over the female prisoners to the soldiers at so much a piece; where the Dnieper-Demons beat women to the ground and ride their horses over their bosoms; where they toss children in the air and catch them on their

Nicholas Chaykovsky

"The Father of the Russian Revolution."

bayonets;[21] where they hack babes in twain and hurl the bleeding pieces at their agonized mothers; where they hammer spikes thru the heads of old men;[22] where youths are exiled for life for reading a forbidden author; where vulgar officers command refined women to become their mistresses[23] or pay the penalty of having their families shipped to that side of the tear-drenched monument which says, "Asia;" where officials who plan pogroms are promoted, and those who protest are imprisoned[24] where tortures like pricking out the eyes[25] and striking the stomach are perpetrated; where virgin and matron are used to glut the lust of the cossack;[26] where such crimes are openly committed from dawn to dusk and thru the darkness of the black night, that at mere thought of them the suffering brain reels, and the horrified senses faint—in a land like this could a Peter Kropotkin remain Chamberlain to the Czarina?

Such rare-souled characters formed this Circle, that Kropotkin spent here the two happiest years of his life. To pass whole days with Nicholas Chaykovsky, to speak with the Kornilov sisters, to work with the young Kuprianov, to grasp the honest hand of Stepniak, to enter the room at night in top-boots after lecturing to peasants, and see sweet Sophia Perovskaya say severely, "How dare you bring so much mud in this house!"—what life could be intenser?

The Circle of Chaykovsky held its meetings in a little dwelling in the suburbs of Saint Petersburg. There was nothing about it to excite suspicion. The neighbors often saw the mistress attending to her business. They knew her to be an artisan's wife, an ordinary workingwoman. She wore a cotton dress and men's shoes, her head was covered with a fancy kerchief, and she trudged slowly along, carrying on her shoulders full pails of water from the Neva River.

But they did not know that she belonged to the highest aristocracy; that one of her ancestors was the morganatic husband of Empress Elizabeth, daughter of Peter the Great; that her grandfather was Minister of Public Instruction; that her uncle was a renowned conqueror in Asia Minor; that her father was Governor General of St. Petersburg; that she herself had shone in the most fashionable drawing rooms of the capital, and that her name was Sophia Perovskaya,—a name which thrills the soul of every rebel to its center.

Physically she was like a novelist's heroine. She had golden hair and her eyes were blue. A lissom figure, a musical voice, a charming laugh.[27] Pure with a maiden's modesty, chaste with a virginal shyness. So graceful and girlish that she never looked more than eighteen—even when she was twenty-six. Of such a sympathetic nature that when she became a nurse, sufferers whose nerves quivered in distress, claimed their agony abated as soon as she entered. Her mother she loved to adoration, and often at the risk of her life, she left her hiding-place to give Varvara Sergyevna the joy of folding her hunted child in her aching arms. Her father had human form, but was in reality a fiend, yet rejoice that he lived, for from his ultra-reactionary loins was born the white queen of the red revolution.

From her sixteenth year, Sonya was ready to die for the Cause—with a smile on her beautiful lips and a wave of her graceful hand, with the crimson banner above her head, and upon her bosom a red carnation. I speak figuratively. She would not have worn these things. She was altogether too simple.

Hers was a life full of pain, and in 1881 came the supreme sorrow. Her heart twitched with the torture, for Andrew Geliabov, the man she loved so fondly, was in the casemate of the fortress, and all knew, and Sonya knew too, that soon around his beloved neck would be a bluish streak. Yet her brilliant intellect was not dimmed or darkened. That will of iron and those nerves of steel, neither broke nor faltered. It was then that she arranged every detail for the assassination of Alexander II. She may have wept in private, but to her comrades she said with dry eyes, "When I give the signal, throw the bomb."

The appointed day came. In a metal-clad carriage, the czar drove to the parade. Behind him in a sledge rode Colonel Dvorjitsky. Burning eyes looked at a girl. A handkerchief fluttered in the air—Sonya's signal! Rysakov threw his bomb. The Emperor alighted—unhurt. Then Grinevetsky too, flung a blessed ball of Kibalkitch's make, and within a few hours the old despot and the young martyr passed out of the world.

Sophia Perovskaya inspired the greatest stanzas of the Poet of the Sierras, for usually the verse of the slangy Joaquin Miller is mediocre. But how grand are these!:

"A storm burst forth! From out the storm

The clean, red lightning leapt,

And lo, a prostrate royal form ...

And Alexander slept!

Down thru the snow, all smoking, warm

Like any blood, his crept.

Yea, one lay dead, for millions dead!

One red spot in the snow

For one long damning line of red,

Where exiles endless go—

The babe at breast, the mother's head

Bowed down and dying so.

And did a woman do this deed?

Then build her scaffold high,

That all may on her forehead read

The martyr's right to die!

Ring Cossack round on royal steed!

Now lift her to the sky!

But see! From out the black hood shines

A light few look upon!

Lorn exiles, see, from dark, deep mines,

A star at burst of dawn!...

A thud! A creak of hangman's lines!—

A frail shape jerked and drawn!..."

Before stepping upon the scaffold, Sophia Perovskaya wrote a note. (I know it has often been printed, but how can I help publishing it again?) Think you she laments that one so gifted should perish so young? Read:

"Mother, mother! Beloved, beloved one! If you only knew how cruelly I suffer at the thought of the sorrow and torture I have caused you, dearest—! I beg and beseech you not to rack your tender heart for my sake. Spare yourself, and think of all those who are round you at home, and who love you no less than I do—and need you constantly; and who, more than I, are entitled to your love and affection. Spare yourself too, for the sake of me, who would be so happy if only the agonizing thought of the sorrow I have caused you did not torture me so unspeakably. Sorrow not over my fate which I created for myself, as you know, at the strict behest of my conscience. You know that I could not have acted differently, that I was obliged to do what my heart ordered, that I had to go and leave you, beloved mother, when my country called me. Do not think that the death that inevitably awaits me has any terror for my soul. That which has happened is only, you know, what I have been expecting every day, every hour, during all those years, and what sooner or later, must overtake me and my friends. Soon, in the course of a few days, I must die for the cause, for the idea, for which I devoted my life and all the powers of my soul and body. How happy I should be then, dearest, beloved! Once more I beseech you not to mourn for me. You are well aware how ineffably I love you, I have always, always, loved you. By this love I conjure you to forgive your Sonya! Again and again I kiss your beloved hands, and on my knees, thank you for all you have given me during every moment of my life. On my knees I beseech you to bear to all the dear ones at home my last loving greetings! To-morrow I shall stand once more in the presence of my judges; probably for the last time. But my clothes are so shabby, and I wanted to tidy myself up a bit. Buy and send me, dearest mama, a little white collar and a pair of simple loose sleeves with links. Perhaps it will be vouchsafed us once again to

Sophia Perovskaya

She was hanged in her twenties, but her name is as immortal as the eternal sun.

meet. Till then, farewell! Do not forget my last fervent prayer, my last thought: forgive me and do not bewail me."

Yes, this is her letter. "Buy and send me, dearest mama, a little white collar and a pair of simple loose sleeves with links."

A woman still—but glorified, radiant, resplendent—a woman all inspired, upraised, exalted, uplifted, aureoled.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] See the book on massacres by the ex-bureaucrat Prince Urusoff, in which the high official shows that the government itself is the chief pogrom-preparer. Translated by Herman Rosenthal.

[21] See "Within the Pale," by Michael Davitt. Also Bialik's "'Al Shechitah," either in the Jewish Quarterly Review or The Maccabean, January 1907. Translation by Helena Frank.

[22] See the "Report of the Duma Commission on the Pogrom at Bialystok," published in the London Jewish Chronicle, July 1906. Reprinted in its entirety in the American Jewish Year Book, 1906-1907. At Kishineff, the wife of Fanorissi Siss had nails driven thru her eyes. See also Book II of "Gillette's Social Redemption," and Kropotkin's letter in the London Times, July 25, 1908.

[23] See "Russia from Within," by Alexander Ular. This truthful volume contains many horrible revelations concerning the fearfully cruel and corrupt Grand Dukes.

[24] For a well-edited "Table of Pogroms" see American Jewish Year Book, 1906-1907. Out of hundreds of examples, here is one: On the last day of October 1905, a frightful carnage overtook the Jews in Odessa. Their financial loss amounted to at least one million rubles, and six thousand of them were killed and injured. The Self-Defense was well organized, but when they fought too valiantly, the police surrounded them and shot them down. The janitors were ordered to point out Jewish flats to the mob. An imperial Ukase was published, thanking the troops for their excellent work. Nineteen officers who tried to prevent the wholesale butchery were transfered to obscure posts, while Neidhardt who was Prefect of Police at this time was promoted to the position of Governor of Nishni-Novgorod. I purposely quote very modern instances, so English readers will see that the crimes of the Romanoffs are not things of the past.

[25] See "The Revolution in the Baltic Provinces." The author's name is withheld for obvious reasons, but the terrible little book is edited by J. Ramsay MacDonald, a well-known member of Parliament. The reader of nervous temperament will not find the chapter on the "Torture Chambers of Riga," at all enjoyable.

[26] For numerous instances see the "Red Reign," by Kellogg Durland. From every standpoint this is one of the most admirable works that has appeared on Russia.

[27] "She had the ready laugh of a girl, and laughed with so much heartiness, and so unaffectedly, that she really seemed a young lass of sixteen.... At dinner time, when all met, there was chatting and joking as tho nothing was at stake, and it was then that Sophia Perovskaya—at the very moment when she had in her pocket a loaded revolver intended to blow up everything and everybody into the air—most frequently delighted the company with her silver laugh."—Stepniak.

THE FORTRESS OF PETER AND PAUL

A strange feeling came over me when I saw that I was being conveyed to this prison, used by the Government of the Czars for political offenders only; a place never spoken of in Russia without a shudder.—Leo Deutsch: Sixteen Years in Siberia.

he Circle of Chaykovsky exerted an immense influence all over the empire, forming branches in every province, and producing the greatest of the Russian Revolutionists. Yet the particular group to which Kropotkin belonged was daily decreasing, on account of the imprisonment of its members.

In January 1874, the police became so vigilant that the remaining comrades thought it wise for Stepniak to leave St. Petersburg. But this noble and lovable giant, whose simplicity earned him the epithet of "Baby," refused to obey. He protested warmly, and remained at his risky post until the Nihilists actually forced him to depart to a safer city.

It was also time for Kropotkin—who had become famous by his speeches to the 'prostoi narod'—to conceal himself, but in his case a strange circumstance prevented. He had just completed his essay on the glacial formations, and it was necessary to read it at a meeting of the Geographical Society. When he finished, an animated discussion began, but laurels were on Kropotkin's head; it was admitted that all old theories concerning the diluvial period in Russia were erroneous. This paper produced such an excellent impression that it was proposed to nominate the author president of the Physical Geography section. So Kropotkin sat among the fine gentlemen, and shook hands with the dignified professors, and smilingly thanked the learned savants for the honors they conferred upon him, but inwardly he asked himself if he would not spend that very night in the prison of the Third Section.

His guess was not a bad one. He was soon arrested. After certain tedious formalities, he was put in a cab. A colossal Circassian sat at his side. The genial Kropotkin spoke to him, but the mass of meat only snored. Many of Kropotkin's comrades were already entombed in Litovsky prison, but his question if he too were going there was unanswered. Then the cab crossed Palace Bridge, and it was no longer necessary to interrogate the guardian. Peter Kropotkin knew he was bound for that silent coffin of stone which darkly rises like a Hell-on-Earth—the Fortress of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

He leaned over and looked at the flowing Neva, knowing he would not soon see the graceful river again. Over the gulf of Finland, clouds were hanging, but the prisoner searched for patches of blue sky. The sun was going down, wearily perhaps, but proudly, for as it slowly sank below the horizon it left behind it gossamer colors of sapphire and scarlet, with glint and glow of gold. (And the officer snored.)

The carriage turned to the left and entered a dark passage. Kropotkin was now within the gate of the Cemetery for the Living, the mouldy, murderous Tomb of Torture. Thru his mind flashed all the horrors of this famous prison whose dreaded name is uttered only in a voice hushed and awed.[28] Within these walls the Decembrists became martyrs. Here Nechaev—in the gloomy Alexis ravelin[29]—was kept a prisoner for life. Here Perovskaya had been confined. Here was incarcerated the poet-prince Odoevsky, about whose early death the banished Lermontov wrote so tender an elegy.

The carriage stopped before another gate which was opened by soldiers. Here Catherine II.[30] buried alive all who opposed her abominations. Here the terrible Minich tortured his enemies until they expired from the agony. Here Princess Tarakanova was locked in a cell which filled with water, causing the rats to climb upon her body to save themselves from drowning. Here in the awful loneliness of the silent dungeons, an army of unfortunates had gone insane.

The carriage rested again and Kropotkin was taken to a third iron gate which opened into a dark room where he could vaguely see several soldiers in soft felt boots gliding noiselessly about as if they were phantoms from another world. He recalled that here was caged much of the winged glory of Russian Literature—Ryleev, the poet of freedom whose forbidden ballads Kropotkin's mother copied in her note-books; Griboyedov who wrote one immortal masterpiece[31] and then put pen no more to paper because the censor mutilated his work beyond recognition; Shevchenko who dipped his quill in a soul of tears and wrote heart-breaking poetry about his fellow-serfs; Dostoyevsky, the sensitive novelist who described so well the injured and insulted; Pisarev, a truly marvellous critic whose voice was a trumpet-call arousing the youth to a higher life; Chernishevsky, the profoundest thinker of his time, as great a genius as the race of man has produced.[32] These—and how many more!—had spent weary years in the fortress where he was now walking.

He remembered that in one of these cells the dauntless Karakozov was frightfully maltreated by being deprived of sleep. The gendarmes, who were changed every two hours, were ordered to keep him awake. Karakozov was inventive, and as he sat on his small stool he would cross his legs, and swing one of them to make his tormentors believe he was up; meanwhile he would steal a nap, continuing to swing his leg. When the gendarmes—depraved, imbruted blood-spillers—discovered the deception, they shook him every few moments whether he swung his limb or not. It is also quite certain that all his joints were crushed, for when he was taken out from the fortress to be hanged, he looked like a lump of rubber or heap of jelly. His head, arms, legs, trunk, were altogether loose as if they contained no bones or only broken ones. It was terrible to see the strenuous efforts he made to ascend the scaffold.

Kropotkin was taken to another black hall where armed sentries were moving. He thought of the mighty Bakunin, who was kept in an Austrian prison chained to the wall for two years, and then spent six more in this Fortress of Peter and Paul, and yet came out as fresh and pink as a boy.

He was put into a cell—a casemate originally intended for a cannon. A heavy oak door was shut behind him, a huge key turned in the lock, and the prince who had slept in the lap of an empress, who had been petted by Nicholas I., and who as sergeant of the corps of pages became the closest personal attendant of Alexander II., was left alone in a darksome reduit.

The prisoner examined his cell. High up in the granite wall a hole was cut. Kropotkin dragged his stool there, looked out and listened. Emptiness—no sound. He tapped the walls—no response. He struck the floor with his foot—no reply. He spoke to the sentry—no answer. The coldness, the dampness, the darkness were bad enuf, but this utter silence, this intense stillness, this grave-like deadness were maddening.

No human being addressed him; no living thing held intercourse with him—except the pigeons which came morning and afternoon to his window to receive food thru the grating. Only the bells of the fortress cathedral were heard. Every quarter of an hour they chimed to the glory of Jesus, and every midnight they pealed forth, "God save the Czar."

Then all was mute ... and nothing more....

Not only did no one speak to him, he was not even permitted to speak to himself. When the killing silence first began to oppress him, he hummed a tune. Then the spirit of song took hold of him, and he raised his voice. He sang from his favorite opera, Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmila—"Have I then to say farewell to love forever?"

"Sir," said a bass voice thru the food-window, "do not sing!"

A few days later, Peter Kropotkin could not sing.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] See the "Memoirs of a Revolutionist."

[29] See the "Russian Bastille" by Simon O. Pollock in the International Socialist Review, March 1907.

[30] If anyone cares to know to what sexual depravities royal ladies can descend, let him read what Dr. W. W. Sanger says about Empress Elizabeth and the two Catherines in his valuable "History of Prostitution." The number of lovers they caressed was surpassed only by the number of thinkers they tortured. The first-named had a reputation for humaneness. Does this mean that during her reign no one was exiled? No, it means that during her reign only 80,000 of her subjects were knouted and deported to Siberia.

[31] Prophetically named "The Misfortune of Having Brains." (Gore ot Uma).

[32] For a brief but sympathetic sketch of Chernishevsky by one who knew him personally, see the "Russian Revolt" by Edmund Noble. It contains this sentence: "Such was the cost of trying to be a Cobden or a Bright in Russia!"

BROTHERS

The worst is, that the gendarmes cannot live without political plots; if they have none to deal with in reality, they must invent some; otherwise they run the risk of seeing their budget diminished for the next year. This is the reason why alarming reports as to future political attempts circulate as a rule a few weeks and even months before the renewal of the special budget serving to pay this sort of people.—Maxim Kovalevsky: Russian Political Institutions.

o time crept on with crippled feet, halting and limping on its broken crutches, held back by heavy ball and clanking chain. Thru the five feet of granite the sun could not penetrate, but grief came in thru the mortar. No oxygen passed the Judas, but with noisy wings sorrow flew in the embrasure. The oaken doors held freedom out, but sadness passed the bars of iron.

A great blow came to Kropotkin. He heard news which sickened him. Life lost its meaning. His stool remained unused in the corner.[33] All the day long, and during the endless hours of night, he wandered up and down his cell like a dazed animal. Friendly faces could not see him, but distress was his warder, and despair became his familiar visitor. He had learnt of the arrest of his brother Alexander[34]—the Sasha for whom he had saved the tiny tea-cakes.

The history of Peter Kropotkin can never be written and the name of Alexander left out. Tho only a year older, Sasha was in advance of him intellectually. This alone shows what a remarkable child he was, for Peter also was precocious: at twelve he dropped his title of prince, signing himself merely P. Kropotkin; at fourteen he wrote articles in favor of a constitution; and while still at school, he became the author of a text-book on physics which was printed for the use of his class-mates.

But more than anyone else, it was Sasha who opened unknown vistas to him, who stimulated his mind, who guided his studies, and directed his reading.

"What happiness," wrote Kropotkin many years later, "it was for me to have such a brother! To him I owe the best part of my development."