Comrade Kropotkin Part 3

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 circ.u.mstances 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 n.o.blest hand of all!

FOOTNOTES:

[16] This fact is so notorious that even an obscurantist like W. R.

Morfill must admit it. See the pa.s.sage 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 pet.i.tion 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 a.s.sa.s.sins 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_.

Russia has long been famous for its circles, which far surpa.s.s 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 gla.s.s. 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 ma.s.sacre 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 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 p.r.i.c.king out the eyes[25] and striking the stomach are perpetrated; where virgin and matron are used to glut the l.u.s.t 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?

[Ill.u.s.tration: NICHOLAS CHAYKOVSKY

"The Father of the Russian Revolution."]

Such rare-souled characters formed this Circle, that Kropotkin spent here the two happiest years of his life. To pa.s.s 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 pa.s.sed 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 d.a.m.ning 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 ent.i.tled 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 meet. Till then, farewell! Do not forget my last fervent prayer, my last thought: forgive me and do not bewail me."

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOPHIA PEROVSKAYA

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

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 ma.s.sacres 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,"