in the winter of 1881 there took place in cracow one of those great socialistic trials with which in those days it was hoped in austria to smother the socialistic movements which were imported by unscrupulous agitators. the trial is known in the annals of social-democracy as the proceedings against warnynski and his accomplices. thirty-five men were indicted, among them twenty russians from volhynia, mostly students of the polytechnic institute in st. petersburg, who had been arrested in the work of agitation in galicia. the prisoners noticed during the proceedings that they were conducted one at a time, under one pretext or another, out through a special door of the courtroom, and they could discover no explanation of this queer course of action. finally, one of them, in passing through the door, found the reason. it was a double door provided with a deep niche. in this niche was a russian functionary acting as a voluntary menial to the austrian police, and at the same time as a spy in the russian service, who took this opportunity of taking cognizance of his own people[pg 174] among those who were led by. of course the matter was not closed without the gravest insults to those caught, who could only be protected against further abuse by the court constabulary. and this police devotee, who showed such zeal in putting down international revolution, was no one else than the present all-powerful figure in russia, his excellency the minister of the interior, m. von plehve, at that time states-attorney in warsaw. with this bit of sleuthing, which the poles very well remember to this day, this fortune-favored statesman made his début in the world outside of russia. he has remained true to his character. he is to-day, at the head of the greatest state in the world, nothing else but the greatest police spy in the world. his politics are stamped with all the characteristics of a police origin, police in the machiavellian sense—i. e., crime in the service of order. in all russia i spoke to no one who would have chosen for the description of plehve's character any other expressions than those which serve for the delineation of the lowest level of moral existence. i shall here try to make a sketch of plehve in accordance with the statements about him which were made to me with perfectly astonishing unanimity.
justice must be done even the basest. it should be mentioned at the outset that in a land of universal venality the reputation of plehve had this considerable advantage, he was said to be absolutely unbribable. that is a great deal, a very great deal, when[pg 175] one considers that in russia certain legislative acts are quite openly traceable to the payment of this or that high functionary. suspicion, which as a rule does not even spare princes, never once tainted him. but little account do the russians take of this characteristic. probably they would prefer it if his other evil traits were a bit softened by the vice of venality. for plehve passes for something far worse than a spendthrift or a wasteling. he is a rascal without scruples, a political sadist, a bloodhound, an accomplished deceiver; at the same time, a cynic entirely without heart, a "va banque,"[2] a swindler to whom a political career or the playing with human lives means nothing more than a pleasant nerve stimulant—in short, a tiger clothed in a human form. at the same time, he has the most charming manners, is delightful and entertaining, and possesses the most true-hearted face possible. his unbelievable falseness is the next thing about which all complain who have had doings with him. "every word that he speaks is a lie," is the assertion which one oftenest hears about him. the criminal element in his tactics consists not only in the fact that he persuades the czar that revolution is at hand, and keeps him in continual, nerve-killing anxiety by means of threatening letters, proclamations, and so forth, which he causes to be smuggled into the emperor's pockets, but still more in the[pg 176] fact that he actually provokes disorders, in order to be able to use them as arguments and to strengthen his position, and in the further fact that he is continually discovering conspiracies and handling the supposed members in the most fearful way in order to prove his indispensability. the whole store of police tricks which have been played on despots in order to turn autocrats into willing tools of their pr?torians has been pillaged by plehve in order to bring his system to a state of perfection. in particular the jews and the poles must suffer in order to contribute to the danger of the situation—i. e., the indispensability of plehve. not a soul in russia doubts that the kishinef massacres were the direct result of his commands; the cynicism with which he rewarded krushevan, the leading agitator from bessarabia, with which he took under his protection the agitator pronin, who had been insulted by a congress of teachers, is a shameless acknowledgment of his deed, which, to say more, he only repudiates before foreign countries, not, however, before his confidants. he seizes upon every little thing in order to make some big affair out of it. in warsaw the widows of the members of a committee which had collected money for a polish hospital corps were stoned by students. immediately was sent the telegraphic order to investigate the thing most thoroughly, and if those who were the sufferers had not refused all assistance to the police another couple of dozen would-be rioters[pg 177] would have been sent to siberia, in order that the existence of a polish revolution might be proved. a russian editor, whose paper had been suppressed because of the publication of a revolutionary poem, sought audience of the head of the censorship at the ministry of the interior, in order to obtain permission for the reappearance of the paper. the chief of the department explained to the editor, according to a russian nobleman, that if he should simply declare to the minister that the revolutionary poem had been smuggled into the paper by jews, he would immediately obtain permission to publish his paper again! from a source whence i never should have expected such a statement, from a highly conservative aristocrat, an "excellency" in the service of the state, i received in all seriousness the information that only plehve, in league with alexeyev, had conjured up the war by holding off the japanese, simply because in this way he would become so much the more indispensable. nay, more, it was even indicated to me that the nihilists, who killed alexander ii. at the very moment when the proclamation of a constitution lay upon the table awaiting his signature, could not have found their way to the imperial carriage without help from the police. and the ally of loris-melikov, the man who had drawn up the plan, and who best of all knew how near its signature, which must be avoided, the proclamation was, was none other than plehve! his instinct drove him to the ranks[pg 178] of the reactionaries, for there is little use for people of his caliber in a constitutional state. his anti-semitic tendencies, which he naturally disavows to every jewish visitor, are only assumed because people high in position and influence, like the empress dowager, prince sergius, and others of the generation of alexander iii., are fanatically anti-semitic. so even this is not genuine in him. nothing is but his theatrical ambition to assert himself as long as possible, and to have the nerve-tickling of a tight-rope walker who balances on his wire rope over fixed bayonets.
that is the picture of the minister of the interior as public opinion in russia paints it. i must confess that the picture is as little to my taste as is the man. while the great russian novelists are, above all, masters in the use of shades, political public opinion likes to work with the strongest colors, with bloody superlatives. suspicious as the circumstances may be that not a soul in the broad russian empire is inclined to say a friendly word for the ruling power of the time, yet the unprejudiced observer must reckon with the circumstance that even without a free press in russia there is a certain uniformity of political opinion which can only be explained on the hypothesis of a certain uniform centre of opinion, many of whose statements are taken on faith by every one. i imagine that this centre is situated pretty high, perhaps in the immediate neighborhood of the czar, and that the picture of each minister is[pg 179] sketched by his rivals, but, like every article for the masses, only in poster style, in striking words, very white or, oftener, very black. he, not a russian and not a rival, who has not the same burning interest in getting rid of plehve, will therefore do well to transpose this rascal from his supernatural atmosphere into an every-day one, and a somewhat different picture will result.
i think of it in this light: plehve comes from a states-attorney and a police career. some traces of this origin cleave to every one of like training. judges who have been states-attorney are the terror of lawyers, because of their inquisitorial manner, and because of their inclination to see in every defendant a person already condemned. furthermore, dealings with police agents are least of all fitted to cultivate scrupulousness. let only puttkammer's words be recalled, "gentlemen do not volunteer for such services."[3] the continual fear of assassination, which is well founded in the case of the head of the russian police—plehve allows his expenditures for the guarding of his person to amount as high as eight hundred thousand rubles a year—does not conduce to making a man human; and, finally, all bearers of honors in russia are cynics, because their existence is founded only on the mood of a single person, and their whole career is a game of hazard. in the case of plehve and others there is this[pg 180] additional evil influence, that not being russians—plehve is a pole, of lettish-jewish origin—they must distinguish themselves by special russian chauvinism in order to avoid suspicion. plehve is not a great man, his whole ministerial career being devoid of a single noteworthy act. he is a successful official, who intends by every means to make himself felt in high circles, and who considers himself justified in countering the intriguing of his rivals by any or all the means customary in the land, and "voilà tout." but, in general, love of truth is not a characteristic of so-called public life in russia. hence it would be unjust to count as a special crime plehve's special falseness.
it must be conceded that even this picture is far from being a pleasing one. if to these features the proved fact is added that plehve denounced to the governor-general, count muraviev, his own polish foster-parents, who picked him up, so to speak, in the very street and raised him (plehve was originally a catholic), so that they were sent to siberia in return for their kindness; that plehve, therefore, began his career with a deed of infamous ingratitude and treachery,[4] then the black will be black enough to allow of passing over the remaining smirches in the picture of a monster.
but the most pitiful of all that i heard about plehve's régime was the answer i received when i[pg 181] asked a man in a very responsible position whether better things might be expected when plehve should be overtaken by his inevitable fate.
"no," the answer was; "deserved as such a fate will be, for us it will bring no help. another man, that is all. plehve is only the ideal required by the régime. a police state needs police natures, and always finds them. he has all the vices save that of corruptibility, but is by no means unique in the hierarchy of russian officials. and it is far from probable that anything better would succeed him. if all russia hopes [sic] that he will soon be annihilated, it is not because an amelioration of things is hoped for, but because some satisfaction is felt when one of these beasts meets his due. but a philanthropist and a friend of justice will be just as unlikely to be minister of the interior under an absolutism as he is to desire to be an executioner. only another system can bring us other men. a reign of terror tolerates only hangmen."
footnotes:
[2] one who risks everything on one card.
[3] "gentlemen geben sich für diese dienste nicht her."
[4] see struve's oswobozhdenie.
