THE WORK OF TRAITORS

Such were the tactics the dark forces had fully adopted in the fall of 1916, only a few months before the revolution. They deliberately set about disorganizing the machinery of the nation to facilitate a Russian defeat. As has been proved, they did not stop short of actual treachery in the military field. The failure of the Rumanian defense was the result of actual betrayal by those higher even than the generals in the field. The Germans and Austrians had known every detail of the campaign plans of the Rumanians and the Russian army supporting them, and this information they had obtained directly from Petrograd.

Had it not been for the fact that the whole nation was awaiting the opening of the Duma to take place on November 14, 1916, it is more than probable that the revolution would have taken place in the fall of 1916 instead of four months later. It would then, however, have been a far bloodier event, for then the disintegration of the autocracy had not yet reached such a complete stage as it did in the following spring, and it might have offered a far more serious, perhaps a successful, resistance. But the last hope of the people was in the Duma, and they awaited its session in that spirit.

The Duma convened on the date set, and then was witnessed the remarkable spectacle of the conservative members denouncing the Government with the fiery oratory of Socialist agitators. The president himself, Michael Rodzianko, who hitherto had always been a stanch supporter of the autocracy, being a prosperous landowner and the father of two officers in a crack regiment, arraigned Sturmer as once he had arraigned the revolutionary agitators. But it was left to Professor Paul Milukov, the leader of the Constitutional Democrats, to create the sensation of the meeting. He not only denounced Sturmer as a politician, but he produced the evidence which proved beyond a doubt that Sturmer was receiving bribes from the food speculators; the specific case he brought up showed that Sturmer, through his secretary, had offered to shield certain bankers under indictment for a substantial consideration. Sturmer immediately took steps to dissolve the Duma. But the czar, whose signature he needed, was at the front. For the moment he was delayed.

During this interval another sensation occurred. General Shuvaiev, Minister of War, and Admiral Grigorovitch, Minister of Marine, appeared in the Duma, and declared themselves on the side of the Duma and the people. This settled the fate of Sturmer. On his way to the front to procure the signature of the czar to the proclamation dissolving the Duma he was handed his dismissal.

His successor was Alexander Trepov, also an old-time bureaucrat, but known not to be affiliated with the dark forces. It was hoped that he would conciliate the angry people. But Trepov never played an important part in later developments; the fight was now between the Duma and the people on the one hand and the Minister of the Interior, Protopopoff, on the other. This battle now began in earnest and was destined to be fought out to a bitter finish.

With a brazen fearlessness which must be credited to him, Protopopoff now arraigned himself openly against the whole nation and the Duma, with only the few hundreds of individuals constituting the dark forces behind him. But these sinister forces included Rasputin, the all-powerful, the czarina, and, unconscious though he himself may have been of the part he played, the czar himself.

Protopopoff now began persecuting the members and the leaders of the social forces as though they were the veriest street agitators for Socialism. Next he endeavored to have Paul Milukov assassinated, but the assassin repented at the last moment and revealed the plot. Then he gathered together former members of the Black Hundreds and recruited them into the police force and trained them in machine-gun practice. And finally he renewed the energy with which he had begun to organize revolutionary disorders among the workers.

All Russia was against him, even to the great majority of the members of the Imperial family. His own mother had warned the czar that disaster threatened him. As early as December, 1916, the Grand Duke Nicholas Michailovitch had held a long interview with the czar in which he had openly denounced the czarina and Rasputin in such strong terms that when he had finished, having realized he had gone extremely far, he remarked:

"And now you may call in your Cossacks and have them kill me and bury me in the garden." In reply the czar only smiled and offered the grand duke a light for the cigarette which he had been fingering in his nervous rage. It was by a member of the Imperial family that the first vital blow was struck at the dark forces. In the early morning hours of December 30, 1916, a dramatic climax was precipitated.

It was then that a group of men drove up in two motor cars to the residence of Prince Felix Yusupov, a member of the Imperial family through his having married a cousin of the czar. Among the men in the two cars were Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovitch, ex-Minister of the Interior, A. N. Khvostov, also an ex-Minister of the Interior, and Vladimir Purishkevitch, at one time a notorious leader of Black Hundred organizations, but since the beginning of the war an active worker in the social organizations and a deputy in the Duma, where he formed one of the Progressive Bloc.

A few minutes later the policeman on duty in the neighborhood heard shots within the house and cries of distress. On making an investigation he obtained no satisfaction, nor did he dare to continue his inquiry on account of the high rank of the owner of the house. Again the men came out of the house and carried between them a large bundle resembling a human form, which they hustled into one of the automobiles and rode off.

Next morning blood spots were found in the street where the motor cars had stood. Then a hole was discovered in the ice covering the river Neva, beside which were found two bloody goloshes. Further search revealed a human body, which proved to be the corpse of no less a person than the notorious monk Rasputin himself.[Back to Contents]