The Red Reign: The True Story of an Adventurous Year in Russia

At Home with Cossacks 48

A Cossack village--An exhibition of horsemanship--An accident--How Cossacks are trained for service--Cossack local government--Basis of Cossack loyalty--Their attitude toward massacres--Cossacks of the Caucasus, like other tribes of the mountains, still unconquered--Back to Vladikavkaz.

Under Martial Law 75

The journey to the “Oil City”--First view of the Caspian--Armenians and Tartars--Russia’s monstrous misrule--Tiflis blood-stained and battered--How to wield a Caucasian dagger--Daily perils--Chiaroscuro of officers’ life--A stirring departure.

CHAPTER V. WITH THE ARMY OF “PACIFICATION” 95

Arrival in Kutais--A siege city--“The very walls have ears”--Cossack barracks--Loot--“Bloody” Alikhanoff--A dramatic interview--Justification for burning homes--Military outrages--Why the inhabitants of the Caucasus are revolutionists and terrorists.

Courting Arrest 121

A journey in the interior--Warned back--The start--A typical Volga province--Causes of the famine--Arrival at Tsaritzin--Two medical students--“Open! Open to the Police!”--The search--Condition of the peasants--Pesky--A group of remarkable personalities--Village customs--A dramatic meeting--A night ride--A sudden interruption in our plan.

In Prison 138

Questioned by the Police--Taken--Five charges to account for--Accused of being an agitator--Eighteen versts to the gendarmerie--A tedious night--Back to Saratoff--“Take the dogs away”--Prison--Clamoring for freedom--Discouragement--Parole--Release.

CHAPTER VIII. A VISIT TO MARIE SPIRADONOVA 155

A tyrannical régime--A young girl’s daring--Tortures and outrages--Entertained by the governor--A kindly police-master--Grim prison walls--Difficulties--Appeal to the governor--Shackled prisoners--Marie Spiradonova--A terrible tale--Interruptions--“Greetings to France, to England, and to America”--A Spartan mother--Letters from the fair prisoner.

CHAPTER IX. WATCHING THE DUMA AT WORK 177

The famous October manifesto--Skepticism of Russian people toward promise of Constitution--Difficulties placed in way of honest voting--Czar’s insincerity and duplicity--Fundamental and exceptional laws--Ministerial change on eve of Duma--St. Petersburg possessed by troops--The Winter Palace spectacle--The throne speech--Disappointment of deputies--“Amnesty! Amnesty!”--“The first shot”--Make-up of first Duma--First session--Zeal of representatives--Hostile attitude of government--Work of Duma--Governmental policy of obstruction--Dissolution--The Viborg manifesto--The present peril--The promise of the future in the light of the attitude of the Czar.

A Conspirative Meeting 207

A member of the military organization--Kronstadt--Revolutionary headquarters among the soldiers and sailors--A conspirative gathering--Smuggling forbidden literature--A surprise--Disguised as a Russian sailor--A thrilling experience--An inspiring episode--Shadowed!--Flight--Plan of escape--Capture deferred.

The Kronstadt Uprising 223

Kronstadt on the eve of mutiny--Influences encouraging uprising--Make-up of the garrison--Wild rumors--A grand plan for general army and navy uprising--A successful beginning--Silence--A momentous telegram--A sudden signal--Mutiny--Trapped!--Slaughter--Illuminating lessons of the Kronstadt fiasco--The terrible cost in life and liberty.

Governmental Terrorism 237

Arrival in Bielostok--First impressions--Stories of the injured--The crucifix as a weapon of death--The hospital fired upon--Children victims--Failure of government to place responsibility--Mass of evidence proving governmental complicity in massacres--Other massacres officially instigated--Prince Urusoff’s speech--The assassination of Professor Hertzenstein--A celebrated Moscow physician murdered--Warsaw horrors--Upon whom rests the responsibility?--Arrest of Pasha--Shooting a girl in prison--Bureaucracy guilty of murder and assassination--Placing the responsibility on the Czar--The arch-terrorist and assassin of Russia.

Amid Warsaw Contrasts 265

Seething Poland--Governmental lawlessness--Overwhelming little Poland by sheer force of numbers--Twice over the Polish frontier--A panic of Warsaw Jews--Russian oppression--A nervous populace--Campaign to exterminate Warsaw police--Hopeless plight of latter--A pathetic incident--Where poverty stalks--Effect of era of misery and chaos upon Warsovians--Traffic in white slaves--Daily occurrences--A Warsaw hospital--Chiaroscuro in the Polish capital--Parties of Poland--Poles traditional revolutionists--Hope and optimism temperamental characteristics of the Polish people.

Among the Muzhiks 287

Importance of the muzhik in the future--Ancient republican traditions--Greek church and bureaucracy non-Russian institutions--Weight of the peasant vote in the Duma--How the peasant’s belief in “God and Czar” is waning--Strokes of disillusionment--Indifference to time--Muzhik nonchalance--Strange sects--Muzhik religion--A characteristic legend--Practical ethics--The muzhik not necessarily lazy--Muzhik shrewdness--The dawning of self-consciousness.

The Peasant Awakening 311

The period of repression following the Duma dissolution--Under arrest in Moscow--The cradle of the Romanoffs--A peasant gathering--Outspoken muzhiks--A “constituent assembly”--Rational opinions of the Viborg manifesto--Nijni Novgorod--The great fair--A disturbed province--Kazan--A journey to the interior--A visit to Prince Ouktomsky--Professor Vassiliev and his family--Advanced ideas of the peasants--Simbirsk, the “Mountain of the Winds”--An illiterate government--What the peasants want--Entering the famine belt.

CHAPTER XVI. THROUGH THE HUNGRY COUNTRY 341

Heart of the famine region--Terrible pictures of starvation--Peasants feeding the thatch from the roofs of their houses to cattle--Auctioning cattle and horses for a song--How the workers and breadwinners suffer first--Inability of the government to cope with situation--Peasants pledge their labor for years to come to secure food for their families for the present time--Another arrest--Expulsion from the province.

CHAPTER XVII. IN THE LAND OF LOST LEADERS 360

Across the Urals--Into Siberia--The Treimen waiting-prison--First exiles--The journey to Tobolsk--Secret night meeting of politicals--Hardships of exile--Splendid personnel of prisoners--Forced into daily contact with foul disease--Starvation--Life among the Ostiaks--Lack of medical aid--Siberia, a monumental crime--The journey back.

CHAPTER XVIII. MY FRIENDS, THE TERRORISTS 387

“Terrorism” almost universally misunderstood in America--Terrorism a philosophy based on logical, intelligent, dispassionate reasoning--Exceptional incidents that merely prove the rule--Relation of terrorists to whole revolutionary movement--Differentiation of the several leading revolutionary parties--Thoughtful and humane methods of recent terrorists--Capture of “The Bear”--Two girl terrorists executed at Kronstadt--The daring Maximalists--“Flying bands”--Rigid morals of terrorists--Total abstainers--Personnel of the Maximalists--A famous “expropriation”--Plot on the Duma--Bomb in the home of Prime Minister Stolypin--The most daring plot of all.

A Close Call 410

A midnight meeting--An unusual request--Four women of “the movement”--A sharp engagement--How the plot was carried out--Plans for escape--Disappointment--An educated cab-driver--A bold scheme--A unique “bridal” party--No news--Alarm--On the trail--A gendarme companion--Suspicious incidents--A night alarm--Caught--A desperate chance--“Au revoir”--Found--Back to the fight--Watched--Final escape.

CHAPTER XX. WITH THE RUSSIAN WORKMAN 433

Yusofka for a week-end--An exciting journey--A late welcome--Guarded slumber--The story of Yusofka--The Black Country of Russia--Time of small consequence to Russian workmen--Russian holidays numerous--The working-day--Cost of living not low--Coal-mines--The Artel--Morality--The drink question--Through a Russian coal-mine--The Russian engineer an obstacle to progress--Child-labor laws good--Conditions compared with Scotland and Pennsylvania--Comparative wage scale--Standards of living--Departure from Yusofka.

CHAPTER XXI. TOLSTOI--ODESSA--CONSTANTINOPLE 456

A visit to Russia’s grand old man--An interesting _yamschik_--Tolstoi’s views on the present struggle--His world-wide interests--The varied and interesting Tolstoi household--On to the Crimea--Odessa--The Black Hundred organization--Promoting massacres--Quitting Odessa during a dock strike--A Black Hundred crew--Difficulties at sea--Back to Odessa--A fresh start--A motley cargo of passengers--Bokhara pilgrims bound for Mecca, Central Asia Jews journeying to Jerusalem, German Lutherans--Crossing the Black Sea--Arrival in Constantinople.

The Trend 481

Whither? The future of Russia--Why the revolution has not yet succeeded--Probable outcome of the struggle--Inevitableness of eventual overthrow of present régime--Attitude of foreign Powers--The Russian people during the period of rebellion--Effect upon national character--The Czar and the people--The Czar and the world--What we may expect.

Appendices 497

A--Caucasian testimony; B--The Duma’s Reply to the Throne Speech; C--M. Lopuchin’s letter to M. Stolypin; D--Report on Siedlce pogrom; E--Notes on Wages and Cost of Living.