CHAPTER XXII

PRINCE URUSSOFF’S SPEECH

ST. PETERSBURG, _June 22nd_.

The speech made by Prince Urussoff last Friday in reply to the Minister of the Interior is generally considered here to be the most important utterance which has as yet been made within the walls of the Duma. Prince Urussoff occupied for a short period a post in the Ministry of the Interior during the late Ministry. His speech is not only important from the fact of its being authoritative, and because it throws a startlingly interesting light on some of the causes of the Jewish massacres, but also because it reveals the evil which is practically at the root of all the trouble in Russia.

“REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE,—I rise to submit to your consideration a few observations regarding the question put to the Ministry by the Duma and the answer to that question which we have just heard. I presume that we are considering the information respecting a printing-press concealed in the recesses of the Police Department, by which proclamations to the people are printed inciting them to civil war, not so much in the light of a fact which belongs to the past and interests us only so far as the responsibility of certain individuals is concerned, but rather in the light of an alarming question as to a possibility of the further

## participation of Government officials in the preparation of those

sanguinary tragedies for which we have been notorious during a dismal epoch, and which, as the events of the last few days have shown, continue to occur, to the indignation of all those to whom human life and the fair fame of the Russian Empire are precious. Let me state at the outset that I do not for a moment doubt of the sincerity of the declaration made by the Minister of the Interior, and that the words which I wish to say to you are not directed against the Ministry.

“On the contrary, the whole significance, the whole interest, the whole importance of the question at issue lie precisely in the fact that massacres and civil strife, owing to the circumstances now obtaining, continue and will continue, quite independently of the action taken with regard to them by one Minister of the Interior or another, or by one Ministry or another. With regard to this point the declaration of the Minister of the Interior does not seem to me convincing, and I will now try to explain why, with this end in view, I must deal with the question of the massacres, and try to unravel and explain the part played in them by the printing-press which was the subject of our question.

“By a careful investigation of the massacres the enquirer is brought face to face with certain definite and isolated phenomena. First, the massacre is always preceded by reports of its preparation, accompanied by the issue of inflammatory proclamations, which are uniform both as regards subject-matter and style. Secondly, when the massacre occurs, the facts which are officially stated to be its cause invariably prove to be false. Thirdly, the action of those who take part in the massacre reveals a certain organisation, which deprives it of all accidental and elemental characteristics. Those who take part in the massacre act in the consciousness of some right, in the consciousness of impunity, and they only continue acting till this consciousness is shaken; when that moment arrives the massacre ceases swiftly and easily. Further, in the

## action of the police there is never any uniformity, and while certain

police districts are devastated by the massacres under the eyes of a considerable constabulary force, others remain almost untouched owing to the protection of the police, who perform their duties conscientiously and energetically. Finally, when the massacre is over, arrests are made, and the authorities who examine the culprits cannot help having the impression that those who have been brought before them are less like criminals than ignorant people who have been deceived by some definite thing. Thus we feel that some kind of uniform and widely-planned organisation exists. Those who affirm that it is simply the doing of the Government, and think that the question is thereby settled, are mistaken, but they are not wholly mistaken; and the events of the past winter, which form the subject of our question, will help us to throw some light on these dark proceedings. In January, 1905, a great quantity of well-printed proclamations, which had been widely circulated in the chief centres of Southern and Western Russia, together with alarming complaints regarding the preparation of massacres in Vilna, Bielostok, Kieff, &c., came into the hands of some one who occupied a subordinate position in the Ministry of the Interior, and who was well known as an enemy of massacres (I am not speaking of myself).

“The massacre at Homel in January confirmed the fears which had been expressed, and spurred the above-mentioned individual to spare no efforts to prevent further massacres, which he succeeded in doing owing to the steps taken by the Prime Minister (Count Witte), who gradually succeeded in discovering the working of the hidden organisation. It was then that the following facts concerning the action of the massacre-mongers came to light. A group of persons, forming the active militia of our own ‘patriotic’ societies, working together with people closely related to a certain newspaper (_The Moscow Gazette_) started an

## active anti-revolutionary movement. Being ‘patriots’ in the sense

recently defined by the member for Tver and ‘full Russians,’ they discovered the cause of the revolution to lie in the non-Russian races, in the inhabitants of the outlying districts, and among the Jews. They called on the Russian people, and especially the Russian soldiers, to grapple with the rebels, in ten thousands of proclamations of the most repulsive character. These proclamations were transmitted by members of the society to the place of action, and handed over there to their local allies, who in their turn distributed them with careful interpretations. The consequences, judged from the point of view of those who were trying to maintain central authority intact, were curious. The assistant of the Chief of Police (I take an ordinary example) distributes the proclamation without informing his chief. Or, for instance, the head of the first police station would be confided in, but not the head of the second. Special sums of money came into the possession of some of the subordinates of the Gendarmerie; certain obscure persons began to visit them; rumours circulated in the town of certain preparations; frightened people sought the Governor. The Governor reassured them, feeling, however, that the situation was far from reassuring. From the Ministry came telegrams about measures to be taken, and measures were often taken, but measures taken in this sense were far from inspiring universal confidence.

“It happened that members of the police supposed in all good faith that such measures were taken for show, for decency’s sake; but that they knew the real object of the Government, they read between the lines, and above the orders of the Governor they heard a voice from afar in which they placed greater faith. In a word the result was incredible confusion, utter disorganisation, and the complete demoralisation of authority. In the meantime in St. Petersburg, so far back as the autumn of 1905 (and it appears up to the time when the October Ministry took office), in No. 16, Fontanka, in an out-of-the-way room of the Department of Police, a printing-press was at work, bought at the expense of the Department. An officer of the gendarmerie in mufti, Komissaroff, worked the press, and with the help of a few assistants prepared the proclamation. The secret of the existence of this printing-press was so well kept, and the doings of its manager were so cleverly concealed, that not only in the Ministry but even in the Department of the Police, there were few people who knew of its existence. In the meantime the work of the organisation, of which the press was the instrument, was evidently successful; since Komissaroff, in answer to some one who stumbled on it by chance and asked him a question about the work, said: ‘We can arrange any massacre you like; a massacre of ten or a massacre of ten thousand.’ Sir, this phrase is historical (Sensation.) I can add that in Kiev a massacre of ten thousand had been arranged to take place on February 3rd, but it was successfully averted. (Great sensation.)

“The Prime Minister (Count Witte) had, it is said, a serious fit of nervous asthma when these facts were communicated to him. He sent for Komissaroff, who reported as to his actions and the authority which had been given him, and in a few hours neither printing-press nor proclamations were to be found in the Department, and that is why nobody, not even the Minister of the Interior, will be able to satisfy the wish of the Duma to learn the names of the men who created the organisation, assured its members of immunity, acted like magic on the police and other officials, and even managed to obtain promotion and reward for the most active among them. I will now proceed to my conclusions. My first is this: That the declaration of the Minister of the Interior affords us no serious guarantee with regard to the cessation of organisations which take part in the preparation of huge massacres and draw Government officials into their sphere of action. It is clear that the chief organisers and inspirers are outside the sphere of the Government, and as far as their business is concerned it is equally indifferent to them whether the Minister of the Interior will observe a benevolent neutrality towards them or take a line of opposition. Further, I affirm that no Ministry, even if it were chosen from the Duma, could restore order in the country so long as certain unknown persons who stand outside, behind an impassable barrier, continue to lay their brutal fingers on certain parts of the machine of State, disturbing its political balance with experiments on living organisations, and performing a kind of political vivisection. My second conclusion is still more melancholy—it concerns the Duma.

“Sirs, from all parts of Russia we have come hither not only with complaints and indignation, but with a keen thirst for action, for self-sacrifice and truth, with true patriotism. There are many among us here whose income depends on their property, and have we heard from them one word against compulsory expropriation of the land in the interests of the working man? And is it not this very ‘revolutionary Duma’ which from the first day of its activity up to the last few days has attempted to raise the authority of the Crown, to place it above party strife and above our errors, and to preserve it from the responsibility for those errors? What sort of a Duma is necessary now that the hour of inevitable reform has struck, if not such a one in which party interests and the class-division have given way to the triumph of the union of the welfare of the people and the welfare of the State? Nevertheless, we feel that those dark forces are arming against us, and dividing us from the Crown, and are preventing the Crown from having confidence in us. They will not allow us to accomplish that union with the Crown which, according to the law granting us a new order of things, is the indispensable condition and the only pledge of the peaceful development of the life of our country. Herein lies a great danger, and this danger will not disappear so long as in the direction of affairs and in the fortunes of our country we continue to feel the influence of men who have the education of policemen and sergeants, and are massacre-mongers on principle.”

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