--- title: "A Prisoner of Trotsky's" url: 'https://samisdat.in/books/a-prisoner-of-trotskys-1920/read' markdown: 'https://samisdat.in/books/a-prisoner-of-trotskys-1920/read.md' lang: eng date: '1920-06-08' description: "A PRISONER OF TROTSKY'S BY ANDREW KALPASCHNIKOFF WITH FOREWORD BY DAVID R. FRANCIS GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN CONTENTS …" --- # A PRISONER OF TROTSKY'S BY ANDREW KALPASCHNIKOFF WITH FOREWORD BY DAVID R. FRANCIS ![](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/03.books/1920%20-%20A%20Prisoner%20of%20Trotskys/read/_page_0_Picture_3.jpeg?g-16018011) GARDEN CITY NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN #### CONTENTS | Forew | ORD . | | | • | • | • | • | • | | • | | vii | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | Intro | DUCTION | | | • | • | | • | | • | | | xiv | | CHAPTER | \_ | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ι. | From 3 | JASSY | TO . | Peti | ROG | RAD | • | ٠ | • | • | • | 3 | | II. | BEFOR | E THE | ТЕ | MPE | ST | | | | • | | | 18 | | III. | My Ar | REST | • | | | • | | | | | | 44 | | IV. | THREE | DAYS | BE | rwei | en : | Lifi | E A | ND | DE. | ATH | | 59 | | V. | A GLIM | IPSE A | T TE | ŒΗ | IST | ORY | OF | ' TI | E. | For | **T** - | | | | RESS | ٠. | • | | | | | | | | | 84 | | VI. | KEREN | SKY I | N TH | E F | ORI | TRES | ss | | | | • | 104 | | VII. | PAVLOV | 's In | TRIG | UES | | | | | | | | 118 | | VIII. | A GLO | ому ( | Conv | vers. | ATI | ON | AN | D A | T | RAG | IC | | | | Nigi | IT . | • | • | | • | • | | • | | • | 135 | | IX. | "THE | Germ. | ANS | Are | Co | OMIN | ۲ **G** '' | | | | | 153 | | X. | Purish | KEVIC | H A | ND F | Ras | PUT | IN | | | | | 174 | | XI. | WE AR | E DI | scov | EREI | ) | | | | | | | 199 | | XII. | ANGELS | S OF | OUR | CAP | TIV | ITY | AN | m ( | Cor | \[RA\] | DE | | | | DER | ZHINS | KY | • | • | • | | • | | • | • | 218 | | XIII. | DARIA | GETS | Bus | SY | | | | | | • | | 228 | | XIV. | LIBERA | TED I | 3ut | Nот | F | REE | | | | | | 246 | | XV. | In the | HANI | s or | тне | e G | ERM | IAN | s. | • | | | 260 | | XVI, | WHAT 1 | гне Б | ORTE | RESS | На | s T | ΛŪ | HT | M | E | | 274 | | | | | | v | | | | | | | | | #### FOREWORD I have been asked by the author and by the publishers also to write a foreword for Colonel Kalpaschnikoff's book—"A Prisoner of Trotsky's"—and as I am familiar with the occurrences resulting in his arrest and five months' imprisonment, have consented to do so. kins, connected with the American Red Cross Mission to Rumania, when he came to Petrograd enroute to America. On the morning of December 20, 1917, Kal- The next morning about ten o'clock Raymond Robins came to the American Embassy and informed me that Kalpaschnikoff was imprisoned in the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress, and that his apartment had been searched. I asked Robins why Kalpaschnikoff had been arrested. He replied he did not know. Whereupon I requested him to go to the Smolny Institute, headquarters of the Soviet Government, and demand his release. Robins, who was persona grata with the Soviet Government, promised me to do so. He returned to the embassy the same afternoon or the following morning and informed me that Trotsky I made a statement setting forth the above narrated facts. It was published in the Petrograd papers of the following day. I remained in Petrograd more than two months after this occurrence, and then went to Vologda, where I remained five or six months. Before leaving Petrograd, I requested Raymond Robins time and again to secure the release of Kalpaschnikoff, and his invariable reply was to the effect that he was doing all he could to effect his release. Robins was recalled about May 15th, a few days after the untimely death of Consul-General Madden Summers at Moscow, whose obsequies I journeyed from Vologda to Moscow to attend. The first week of the following month which was June, I visited Petrograd, and while there Kalpaschnikoff, who had been released, called upon me. He was greatly changed in appearance and told me that his five months' imprisonment, from which he had been released the week before, if I remember aright—had undermined his constitution and afflicted him with rheumatism. He, furthermore, in answer to my questions told me that he had never been arraigned for trial, that the damp cells of the St. Peter and St. Paul Fortress had not only jeopardized his life and destroyed his health but were so trying that if he had not thought it cowardly he would have made away with himself. I recalled the telegram sent in the diplomatic code in care of the American Embassy and told him that he should have destroyed his paraphrase of this telegram, because the finding of it in his apartment not only was the cause of his arrest and imprisonment, but had given me a great deal of trouble, as Trotsky had read it word for word, had endeavoured to incite his auditors against me, and had threatened me with the counter revolution commission. Whereupon Kalpaschnikoff said that when he had returned to his apartment with his copy of Colonel Anderson's message, he had placed it in a secret compartment of his desk where he had found it since his release. I was very much astounded at this statement, and had him repeat it. I conclude, therefore, that if Kalpaschnikoff was not mistaken, Robins or one of his attachés must have given to Trotsky the verbatim copy which he read in the speech charging the American Ambassador with being in a plot to overthrow the Soviet Government. I have written this foreword through a desire to do all in my power to aid a patriotic and intelligent Russian, who has served his country well, and is not despairing of his people eventually ridding Russia of Bolshevism, which is not only a disgrace to any country it dominates but is antagonistic to all organized government everywhere and an enemy to society itself. David R. Francis. #### AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION opinion. Too many people in writing on Russia have given free rein to their imagination. I shall often call the attention of the reader to small and seemingly unimportant matters which nevertheless give a clear understanding of the state of mind and the psychology, not only of the important Bolshevist and anti-Bolshevist leaders, but of the soldiers, sailors, and workmen who by their majority became the great and dangerous instrument of anarchy. It must not be forgotten that the famous "bloodless revolution" which was so popular in America was not a revolution at all. The country, after the too great strain of the war which had cost us more than seven million men, simply fell to pieces. It is not the place here to speak about the colossal rôle played by Russia in the war but I shall merely say that, in this struggle of civilization against German oppression, Russia received the first and harder blows and fell exhausted like a wounded soldier. The representatives of the Allies who were supposed to take care of this sick man did not do their duty properly, and infection set in. It was only then that the Revolution really began and Bolshevism lifted its head and took the power into its hands. The Revolution began with Bolshevism; until that time there floated only a free and unconscious mob ready to follow any strong man. The Bolsheviki carried the trade mark of disorder and were precise and definite in their desire to murder and destroy. They always did everything they said they would do and this was their strength as leaders of a mass which could not remain unmastered. These leaders, though often basing everything on immoral and criminal desires, succeeded very easily in taking into their hands the whole of Russia because they represented the autocracy of the mob. Had I not seen the development of all these horrible events in Russia, had I not known many Bolsheviki and people who played rôles in this development of anarchy, probably I, like many foreigners or even Russians who have made a paying job out of the salvation of their country, would not have been able to see things in their true light. The five months I passed in prison gave me the opportunity of getting nearer to the Russian people themselves and of understanding their strange psychology. Now that I have come through the Revolution and seen it all I am very glad to have had a chance to make a close study of the types who led in this period and I shall try in the following chapters to show that Bolshevism in Russia is not a political party but a form of extreme anarchy which will disappear in the evolution of the Revolution and Russia will become greater and stronger than ever. ANDREW KALPASCHNIKOFF. New York, March 13, 1920. ### A PRISONER OF TROTSKY'S # A PRISONER OF TROTSKY'S #### CHAPTER I #### From Jassy to Petrograp for Jassy, where I was to take up service in the American Red Cross as the assistant of Colonel Anderson, chairman of the mission to Rumania, the belief was growing in the public mind that thanks to the inactivity of the Provisional Government the Bolsheviki were at the eve of taking the power in their hands. Many even stated the day and the hour when the insurrection would begin. This was more or less based on the evidence of facts, because the indolence and indecision of the Government were so great that the future leaders of the soviets were arranging opening their mobilization and attending to the last measures which preceded the downfall of the Kerensky Government. The rôle of Kerensky in these last days was most doubtful, and—without referring to certain facts which will probably be published some day and will once and for ever discredit this profoundly dishonest and sad caricature of "a Revolutionary Statesman"—I shall simply quote the words of Mr. Ruttenberg, who was appointed military governor of Petrograd three days before the capture of the city by the Bolsheviki. This prominent and most energetic man (who was widely known in Russia for having strangled the priest, Gapon, who in 1916 had betrayed his party) and I were in the Fortress together. Early one cold winter morning when we were taking our ten minutes' exercise in the courtyard he said to me: "Two days before the general blow-up, having collected all the necessary information about everything that was being prepared against us, I went to Kerensky and offered to arrest all the Bolshevist leaders and thus prevent the uprising and bloodshed. I did not want any troops as I had a battalion of cadets ready to proceed at the first signal, but to my great astonishment Kerensky was firm in his decision not to use force and told me something I shall not forget as long as I live. He said, 'I cannot and I will not do anything which might bring about the arrest of Lenine.'" The telegram which came to Jassy like a thunder-bolt announcing the formation of a Bolshevist government in Petrograd did not at all astonish Colonel Anderson and me, but made us think very seriously about what was to be done with the motors and supplies belonging to the American Mission, some of which were still in Petrograd and others on their way from Archangel to Petrograd. The relief work which Colonel Anderson was doing so successfully all along the Rumanian front was very necessary. The one hundred cars which I had just brought back from America were being put together in Petrograd. After a conference with the Queen of Rumania it was decided that I should leave that same day to join my units and staff in Petrograd with the distinct understanding of bringing down directly to Jassy the motors and everything we had in Petrograd. which was so temptingly promised by the Bolsheviki, calling their movement "the expression of the national will." A few minutes later I had an experience which impressed me profoundly. The international sleeping car in which I had taken a place had been carefully locked on all sides; the blinds were pulled down to prevent any of the soldiers from getting into the clean car, but at the last minute they began to storm it from all sides and when the conductor refused to open the doors stones began to fly and I heard several rifle shots. Seeing that there was nothing to do but to rough it, I came out quickly, threw the doors open and calmly said to the angry crowd: "Isn't it too bad?—they must have made you wait a good long time while I was looking for that stupid old key." These few words quieted their anger and they silently flocked in, packing themselves everywhere like sardines. One man who appeared a little more educated than the others came up to me and said: "You did well not to lose any time; we were just going to blow everything to pieces and kill you and the conductor for your resistance." Then with a smile he added: "It isn't that we have anything against you, or that we are bloodthirsty, but we are now in such a state of mind that the slightest thing which might prevent us from going home makes us ferocious, and I am afraid that some of the comrades will profit by this national madness and make us shed a lot of blood needlessly." I sat nearly the whole night in the corridor talking with this man about the latest events, the news of which we received as we passed the big stations as we went toward the north. Flying sheets with the latest information were distributed by the soviets, who claimed victory all over Russia. At Vitebsk, toward five in the morning, my corridor friend brought a paper with a big heading announcing that the Bolsheviki had firmly decided to put a stop to the war as soon as they had definite control of the country. "What do you think of that?" he said. "You, who are an educated man, ought to understand that as our blood was often shed uselessly it is time for the Russian people to have a rest after the colossal strain which the country has undergone." I looked at him angrily and answered in a dissatisfied tone: "If you want to be traitors and not help the Allies to win the war, that is not any reason for me to approve of such ignoble conduct." "Now, look here," he said, "I thought you would answer like that, but you are a Russian and you ought to use the common sense of a Russian who has seen everything with his own eyes." Then with a deep sigh, he continued: "I don't like to discuss with the bourgeoisie, but you look like a man well disposed toward us peasants and I want you to understand that we cannot fight any longer. . . . It is not new kinds of governments we want but land and peace. "Even the Czars of the old régime when they abolished serfdom gave our fathers one half of your bourgeois lands; now that we are free citizens we want the whole, and the first one who gives us this land will gain our confidence. We don't know who is wrong or right in politics; we are not educated enough to realize if it is the empire alone, or all the Allies together who have abused our patience; we only know that we have been mobilized, taught at the front to kill and destroy everything without respecting any laws or regulations except the orders of our officers; and now that we have our liberty after all our sacrifices, losses, and sufferings, we don't care what the politicians want. "We are going to claim the land we have earned with our blood, and any one who wants to keep us in the trenches before we get it, or makes us fight, will be killed and destroyed; but the one who will give us a free hand in taking anything we want will be our friend." "This is the beginning of anarchy and murder," I said, "and it will bring the ruination of the country." "You are perhaps right," he said. "I myself feel that a lot of trouble is brewing but too much was expected from us peasants; the strain has been too great for us and we must get some satisfaction before we will again become sensible and quiet individuals." Then, taking out his tea kettle and shaking it, he added: "You perhaps think it is funny for us to drink hot water without tea or sugar, suffer and be killed without knowing if our families will be provided with land and bread." What he said was so true that I found it better to busy myself getting our tea and crackers. I asked him to go and fetch some boiling water at the station which he did very willingly and disappeared in the gray crowd standing on the platform of the station where the train had been held for a couple of hours. He soon came back and gayly explained: "The train is cut off; we shall have plenty of time to enjoy our tea." "Isn't it too bad," I said, "to be only about eighteen miles from Petrograd and not be able to get home for dinner." "Dinner," continued my man, "you shall have it after the fighting is over; three miles from here are entrenched troops of Kerensky and soon they will be having artillery shooting. I have just seen armoured cars pass." I had already heard rumours about the flight of Kerensky after the victory of the Bolsheviki in Petrograd. The news had been reported about approaching troops, which had been hurried in by the Provisional Government to try and retake the city, but I could not imagine that we were so near the fighting line. After a short conference with my travelling friend and other soldiers who were coming back from the front, we decided to get home that night and I resolved to take my chances, start with them, and filter through to Petrograd. When we left the car a thin penetrating autumn rain was falling and the bare plains surrounding Gatchina looked lonesome and dreary in the dusk of a November evening. As a measure of precaution I had put on a soldier's dirty coat and was bravely tramping with the crowd along the muddy pathway by the track. Here and there one could hear an occasional cannon shot; by looking very hard toward the palace on the other side of the Gatchina Station one could distinctly perceive the white puffs of the shell explosions. We had hardly walked ten minutes when we ran across mounted Cossacks who were busy guarding several hundred horses hidden behind bushes. A few steps farther on I saw on the destroyed track rails tied with barbed wire in the shape of crosses and a series of small entrenchments where Don Cossacks were lying and peacefully smoking as if nothing was going on. A little farther on I encountered another patrol of soldiers and asked to be taken to their head officer which they did very unwillingly and only after I had shown them all my documents. The head sergeant who walked in front with me said with a disgusted air: "We are wasting our time. We could have taken Petrograd yesterday evening but the people who brought us here don't know themselves what they want and that joke can't last long." I found the head officer standing with a map near a pair of field guns, which were ready for action, hidden under bushes entangled with barbed wire. He seemed still more annoyed. He was an elderly man who had seen a good lot of fighting and did not seem to enjoy the stupid position in which he found himself. "Imagine!" he said; "we were brought several days ago to support the Provisional Government and we were all keen to fight the Bolsheviki, but we got no definite orders; and when, after a lot of trouble, we succeeded in getting out of the train and taking up positions and beating the Reds, who attacked in disorder, we were ordered to stop and to await further directions—which we have not yet received. The Bolsheviki are gaining time and are bringing up troops and . . . after all it is a kind of bloody comedy, based on disorder, where nobody knows anything; where there is no front, no lines, no positions; and into this mess only an energetic man might put order." Then looking at me he came up and said in my ear: "Half an hour ago at the crossing where I was standing, there tore by a big touring car with three soldiers and a strange-looking figure dressed like a woman nurse, with yellow goggles. You know who it was—Kerensky; he has fooled us, he sent us here only to protect the different points of his escape." Then shaking his head with despair, he added: "You can go yourself and see the curious picture called 'the defence of Petrograd' by the Reds and, besides, you will be better off walking toward home than standing here and waiting until my men find out the truth about what is going on." With a feeling of profound disgust and depression I continued on my way toward Gatchina and the increasing cannonading. Long rows of carts with food were peacefully going along in both directions and on many of them soldiers had climbed. My friend and I did the same thing and soon we were seated on the top of kerosene tanks enjoying the most extraordinary sights I have ever seen—they reminded me of scenes on a busy day at a dangerous point of the front during the great Russian retreat in the war. Motor cars with armed soldiers and officers in them kept tearing up and down. It was evident enough that in the confusion the leaders of neither side knew which were their troops and I heard them often run up and ask to whose army the artillery belonged and on whom they were firing. that, for three days, under the nose of all the Bolshevist chiefs, he had supported the attacks of the Cossacks with his fire, pounding the Reds he was himself commanding. This is, I think, a striking example of the disorder which reigned around Petrograd at this time. The whole city was so terrorized and everything so disorganized that toward the end burglars used to burst into the houses in search of money and the unfortunate inhabitants had nobody to protect them; so they wisely decided to organize a home police and forced all the inhabitants female and male to take their tour duty which was from three to four hours. After the heavy fighting, which was done by a pack of children (I mean the cadets of the different military schools) and a few nervous but bold women of the Women's Battalion, every kind of resistance had disappeared, and there was a general inertia. Many joked about the Bolsheviki. Others criticised them but nearly everybody said: "We will have nothing to do with the Bolsheviki." All the embassies declared that they would not recognize them. There was talk all around, but no action. But the Bolsheviki did not waste their time, and, when a few days after my return they began to arrest and shoot burglars, the astonishment was so great and there was such a desire to see a power of some kind arise that, to the great shame of the inhabitants of Petrograd, I heard many people say: "Since the Bolsheviki are in power we are beginning to have order. It is not like the Provisional Government which stood anything and was afraid to take severe measures." My impression, that the country had fallen to pieces and that it was the first phase of a very long and complicated state of anarchy, and that the Bolsheviki were going to build their government on the top of this national decay, was true. The Bolsheviki understood it perfectly well and were making all their calculations accordingly. This little tea was only one of many and striking examples that I saw of the easy way in which, I regret to say, many of the Petrograd inhabitants became reconciled to the new order; some thought that the Bolshevist régime was merely a joke which would last only a few days while others, pushed by a sentiment of self-preservation, remained inactive or helped them; none realized that it was the first step of the real and bloody Russian Revolution. #### CHAPTER II #### BEFORE THE TEMPEST HE Bolsheviki, with their new régime, were rapidly transforming Petrograd into a camp of armed workmen; disorder prevailed, and the last vestiges of public security were fading quickly. It was clear enough that the "Bloody Revolution" had begun; we were at the eve of the reign of terror. "The Red City," as Lenine and his followers had proclaimed it, was like a big furnace in which everything was boiling in anarchy. My first visit to my own headquarters after my arrival tore off the veil of illusion and hope I had had when I left Jassy. In a big repair shop put at my disposal by the Russian Red Cross, I had, under the supervision of my assistants and mechanicians, seventy-five chauffeurs busy unpacking and putting together Ford ambulances. I had brought back these cars with me from America, where they had been generously donated by the American people, after a lecture tour I had made in the States just before the Revolution, in which I described the great lack of transportation and medical assistance in the Russian army. A few weeks previously I had left all these men keen in their work and absolutely untouched by politics. I now found them ripe for Bolshevism and working only because they had not yet lost the old habits of discipline; everything in my repair shop was on the eve of collapse and I realized my mission was a most difficult and dangerous one. Things were moving so fast toward the general breakdown that I could count on very few days in my attempt to carry out the orders of Colonel Anderson and ship the cars. Only speed and energy could save the cars from falling into the hands of the Bolsheviki. I was still sure of my mechanicians, who did all their work on time and were ready to load my cars and supplies on the trains which were still leaving the city daily in spite of the general disorganization of traffic. All I needed was hasty action from the American Red Cross Mission to Russia, which handled all the transportation from Rumania. This I fully expected, as any one working for the American Red Cross had a right to expect. I had, however, unfortunately made a mistake, and did not realize that, while I was acting with the knowledge and consent of the American Ambassador, I should displease some of the men wearing the Red Cross uniform, because these individuals were more interested in getting the sympathy of the Bolsheviki and forming a political centre than in doing relief work. Derzhinsky, who was called the Robespierre of the Bolshevist Terror, cleverly named this group of men "The Unofficial American Embassy." While I was in Jassy, just after my appointment by Washington as technical assistant to the chairman of the American Red Cross Mission to Rumania, I learned, in my conversations with Colonel Anderson, that several misunderstandings had occurred between his mission and the one to Russia. The missions were separate units working in close coöperation, but it seemed as though Colonel Robins was meddling continually in the affairs of Colonel Anderson and apparently wished to control both missions. Therefore, Colonel Anderson gave me orders to work independently and apply to the American Ambassador for advice and instructions. When I called at the American Red Cross Mission to Russia, I found only easy-going people there, none of whom were at all disposed to hurry matters. They criticized Colonel Anderson for the quick action he asked for and I received the impression that the mission was not at all inclined to help me. From the Hôtel d'Europe, the Red Cross headquarters, I called on the American Ambassador, who received me with his usual courtesy and keen desire to protect and encourage any serious work concerning America. I made him a short report about the situation in Jassy and the colossal relief work Rumania expected from the Americans, but which could hardly be brought to a successful issue on account of the lack of transportation. I also told him that the use of the one hundred cars I had come to get might change everything for the better, and make it possible to carry food and clothing to the children who were dying at that time by the thousand, not only of typhus but of privation. I gave him several letters from Colonel Anderson which not only recommended me warmly but also authorized me to draw money on his account at the embassy to buy medical supplies. I gave my opinion frankly to Ambassador Francis about Colonel Robins and the ugly attitude he had taken toward the American Red Cross Mission to Rumania, and I added that my task would be a difficult one because the cars might be requisitioned by the Bolsheviki before I succeeded in getting them out of Petrograd. Ambassador Francis promised me his assistance and at once gave me a certificate testifying that all my cars were American property awaiting shipment to Rumania, where the Red Cross was to use them for relief work among the starving population. This certificate of ownership the Bolsheviki afterward advertised as proof that America had protected, with its name, material and ammunition prepared for the counter revolutionists. This was certainly just as ridiculous as were all the other accusations later invented against the Americans and me. My work proceeded very rapidly and I was soon ready to apply for railroad cars to ship my first motor units to Jassy. The American Red Cross Mission to Russia, to which I had brought directions about forwarding some stuff it had bought previously, informed me it was soon forming a whole train for Colonel Anderson, and I could have the necessary quantity of railroad cars for my machines. Though Colonel Robins did not seem to approve of my mission and especially did not like the right given me to act independently, I still had no reason to suspect that he would do anything to harm me or detain me in Petrograd. Soon, however, things got worse. Colonel Robins's assistant who was preparing the train for Rumania kept putting off the day of its departure, saying it was the fault of the agents of the Rumanian Government who had control of the railroad cars and would not give them in time. When I went to the Rumanian Commission, its president, Mr. Jakimesco, told me plainly that this statement was untrue. He could give cars at any moment of the day or night, but everything depended upon Colonel Robins, who, in his opinion, did not seem disposed to send off my motors. Mr. Jakimesco advised me to try and make my shipment separately. In this he saw my only chance of success. In the meantime the days in which I could control my chauffeurs were passing rapidly. The first shipment I expected to make consisted of only one half of my units and I had to think of measures to protect and send off the rest. Before I left Jassy Colonel Anderson had promised me Rumanian chauffeurs in case of Bolshevist trouble among my men. This trouble came very quickly because they formed a committee which decided that I had no right to choose a chauffeur for my personal car without consulting them and asked for a paper guaranteeing all my men the liberties of "the Bolshevist Régime" in Rumania. Therefore, I sent my assistant, Verblunsky, to fetch the necessary men and make a report to Colonel Anderson. In my daily conversations with the assistants of Colonel Robins, I found it difficult to understand the reason for some of their questions concerning the number of men I expected to take and even about their equipment and arms. This would have been most natural had I not been working under Colonel Anderson with the full knowledge and approval of Ambassador Francis, but it made me, under the circumstances, very keen to find the reason for such lack of respect for my chief and the Ambassador of the American people. A couple of days later I was sent for by Major Allen Wardwell, the chief assistant of Colonel Robins, who told me he had some very serious matters to discuss with me. When I arrived he took me in to a corner and began in a rather uneasy way to make the following statement: "You see, Colonel Robins is in a very difficult position. The Bolsheviki, with whom the Colonel has to be in contact for his relief work, have imposed the condition that he should not participate in anything that might harm them and therefore, as they now have confidence in him, he must be very careful in anything he does in connection with the shipment of your cars to Rumania. Unhappily it will be quite impossible for him to send off with the cars such a large quantity of chauffeurs because he would be responsible for them to the Bolsheviki and after all they are armed soldiers and might create trouble on the way by trying to take the train with the outfit, not to Jassy, but in another direction with the desire of helping the counter revolutionists." The major knew perfectly well that I was going on the train myself and what he said seemed directed more against me than against any of my subordinates, and I could not help telling him so. He continued that he had nothing against me, but it was known to Colonel Robins that Colonel Anderson had decided to direct all my cars to Rostov. This was, in his opinion, quite impossible because the Don had just become the centre of the counter revolutionists and of the struggle against Bolshevism. When I found out that Colonel Anderson, not knowing how things were turning in Petrograd, had telegraphed and ordered the cars to Rostov, I told Major Wardwell I was sure only complete ignorance of the situation could have caused him to send such a telegram and as I did not want Colonel Robins to run any unnecessary risk of creating trouble with the Bolsheviki I consented to have only eight mechanics go with me. Major Wardwell assured me that Colonel Robins would, in that case, take upon himself the responsibility of guarding the cars all the way and seeing that they were safely brought to Jassy. Major Wardwell, before I left, repeated again that Colonel Robins would go to the Bolshevist headquarters and fix everything. We had several other meetings to make final plans. At last everything seemed to be arranged to the satisfaction of both sides and we fixed a day for the departure of the train. A telephone message, however, which I received a few days later, changed everything. My assistant had just come back from Jassy with Major Perkins, of the Rumanian Mission, bringing me new orders. I found out from him that things were getting very bad in Rumania, and, as the Rumanians were on the eve of signing peace with the Germans, it would be dangerous to take down there such a large quantity of cars. Therefore, we decided to postpone the departure of my units. Major Perkins wanted me to send only a few cars for the personal use of Colonel Anderson and his military staff, and we both agreed to submit this new plan to Colonel Robins. The first interview which Major Perkins and I had with Colonel Robins was a most unpleasant one because he seemed to be very dissatisfied by the change and said that if we did not send all the cars off as he wished he would not send in his train the few which were so necessary to the American Mission to Rumania. As Major Perkins came out he asked me to go home and wait for him because he had decided to have another talk with some of the members of the Petrograd Mission and have it out plainly with Colonel Robins, whose attitude toward him and the mission he represented did not please him. In the evening when Major Perkins came back to me for dinner, he told me that he had had a long argument with Colonel Robins, and that the Colonel, after a few sharp words, became more friendly and confided to him the reason for his not wanting to assist us in the matter of sending the above mentioned cars to Jassy. Major Perkins said: "Of course, what he said about you and Verblunsky is so ridiculous and outrageous that I consider it loyal to my chief and only fair to you to tell you what he said. He suspects Verblunsky and you of being counter revolutionary agents who are trying to get these cars to General Kaledin. It appears the Bolsheviki told him so and have even informed him that an order of arrest has been already signed. Therefore, he refused to do anything more in connection with the cars." I was amazed at such an extraordinary statement and the first thing which flashed through my mind was, how could Colonel Robins compromise the American Embassy like this? If he had found out that the Bolsheviki wanted to arrest me and my assistant, why did he not report it immediately to the American Ambassador, whose confidence he knew I had? Just at that time the position of Ambassador Francis was a very delicate and difficult one. The Bolsheviki were trying in every way they could to force him to take up relations with their administration, which he firmly ignored. They openly said that if he did not give in and take the first step toward their recognition they would discredit him. In such conditions the slightest incident might have had most grave consequences because Trotsky was making strong propaganda against Ambassador Francis. And I may add that it was only Mr. Francis's dignity, wisdom, and courage which created around him an atmosphere which held the mob at bay and prevented them from doing him personal harm. Therefore, if Colonel Robins had heard that I was an agent of the counter revolutionists hiding behind the American Flag and he wanted to be loyal to the American Embassy, his duty was to warn the Ambassador, because if I were arrested at a time when I was working in such close contact with the embassy, it would compromise it most seriously in the eyes of the Russian people and make them believe that America was meddling in their internal politics. It also seemed strange that when the American Ambassador refused to deal with the Bolsheviki and considered them a gang of murderers, a man wearing the American Red Cross uniform could be sufficiently close to their leaders to share their secrets. All this puzzled me very much. While I was thinking it over, the words of my chauffeur, Kuznetzov, whom I had loaned to Colonel Robins, came back to me: "Be careful with this American. He has been motoring too often to the headquarters of the Bolshevist party both before and after it came into power." I decided to see this matter through and as Major Perkins was leaving this same night for America, through Siberia, I asked him to make me a signed statement of his conversation with Colonel Robins, which he did. When I took Major Perkins to the station, he left me with the words: "I am sorry to leave you at such a moment because I am afraid that Robins is trying to get you into trouble." All my assistants decided to share my fate except Verblunsky, who left town that night and proved to be not so courageous as he professed. I wrote a couple of letters to Colonel Anderson and returned to my apartment. The next morning I called upon Captain Crosley, the American Naval Attaché, to whom I related everything which had happened the day before. The conduct of Colonel Robins astonished him and he decided to take me at once to Ambassador Francis in order that I might show the statement of Major Perkins and make a report to the Ambassador about everything I had found out. We found Ambassador Francis smoking a cigar in the company of General Judson, the American Military Attaché. The Ambassador read carefully the statement of Major Perkins and said: "What does Robins want?"\* "To create a scandal," I answered, "and discredit you so that if the Bolsheviki get strong enough to be recognized he could take your place." I told him this was not only my private opinion, but that of many other Russians in political and military circles in Petrograd. "Whatever his sympathies for the Bolsheviki are," continued Ambassador Francis, "I shall never recognize them nor have anything to do with these murderers. If ever the United States recognizes this anti-democratic party, as Robins seems to think, probably it will only be after I have resigned." Ambassador Francis, in speaking about the general situation, said that the Bolsheviki were violently against him on account of his firm decision to ignore them entirely and he seemed to think that if they found \*See letter, on pages 30 and 31, to author from V. Bourtzeff, the best known of the Revolutionary Socialists of Russia. In 1894 he was sent to Siberia sentenced to twenty years' hard labour and perpetual residence. He escaped five years later and for more than twenty years has lived as a political refugee in Europe, taking part in all the big socialistic movements. He is famous for his revelations regarding the activities of the secret police of the old régime. ## La Cause Commune Directour Politique : V. BOURTZEPP AD, Boulevard Saint-Michel PARIS Til.: Gobelius 11-19 Adresse Télégraphique : BOURTZEFF-PARIS - PARIS. le 5 Décembre 1919. A Noneieur andré KALPASCHNIKOFF Monejeur, Je suis content d'apprendre que Vous avez l'intention de Vous rendre prochainement en Amérique pour y faire une éfrie de conférences et dîre la vérité sur la situation actuelle en Ruscie à nos amis des Etats-Unis. Jé souhaite que Votre campanne dirigée contre le bolchevisme obtienne le succès qu'elle mérite. Les journées de captivité passées avec Vous à la forteresse Pierre-et-Paul ont été certainement pénibles pour nous deux; l'ai lu avec plaisir votre récit de ces heures tragiques car le tableau que Vous en donnez dans "YOS HEMOIRES DE PORTRESSES" est aussi véridique qu'impartial. Je partage entièrement votre opinion en ce qui concerne l'action néfaste du Colonel R. Robbins; Vous avez raison de dire que ce représentant de la Croix-Rouge Américaine à Pétrograd a cherché à jouer\\nun rôle politique pro-bolchevik au lieu de faire son dévoir de cher d'une mission envoyée par les Etats-Unis pour venir en aide à la population russe. Ses sympathies pour les Lénine et Trotzky ont produit une impression déplorable en Russie. Je m'empresse d'ajouter que la conduite du colonel Robbine constitue une mare exception pour la Croix-Rouge Américaine qui a fait preuve dans notre malheureuse patrie. Comme partout ailleure, d'une énergie extraordinaire et d'un dévouement admirable. Grovez. Monsieur. A mes sentiments les meillaure Ve. Your Teff Paris, December 5th. 1919. #### Moneieur: I am glad to hear that you have the intention of going soon to America to deliver a series of lectures and tell the truth about the actual Russian situation to our friends of the United States. I hope that your campaign against Bolshivism will meet with the success it deserves. The days of captivity we have passed together in the Fortress have certainly been most painful to bear for both of us. I have read with great pleasure your account of those tragic hours and the picture that you give in your "Fortress Remiinisences", is as truthful as impartial. I am absolutely of your opinion about the evil activity of Colonel R. Robins: you are right to say that this representative of the American Red Cross in Petrograd, has tried to play a pro-Bolshivik role in politics instead of doing the duty of a man sent by America to help the population of Russia. His sympathies for Lenin and Trotsky have produced a deplorable impression in Russia. I hasten to add that the conduct of Colonel Robins has been an exception in the American Red Cross, which has in my unfortunate country, as well as elsewhere, displayed as Believe me, Monsieur, with warm regards, #### V. BOURTZEFF out that Colonel Anderson, not knowing the situation, had telegraphed to direct the cars to Rostov, there would be some trouble with Trotsky. The calm Ambassador said that he was not afraid of these outlaws. As for me, I declared I was ready to rough anything for a just cause. General Judson was more of a pessimist and so full of apprehensions that he already saw the possibility of the arrest of everyone and he finished by saying: "What will we do if they arrest us all? There is nothing funny in sitting in a cold fortress while the Bolsheviki are dancing a jig with the Germans over our heads." When I arose to go away the Ambassador promised to look into the matter and expressed again his disapproval of Colonel Robins's conduct toward me, and finished by saying that Red Cross men had not been sent over to Russia for that kind of work. The last words of the Ambassador, in which he expressed his dissatisfaction about some members of the American Red Cross Mission to Russia mixing into politics of the country instead of devoting themselves to relief work only, were painfully true. This was the real reason for the failure of the relief work undertaken by the Americans in Russia and why a better understanding was not brought about between the Russian and the American people by the presence of the Red Cross Mission. I should say more: suspicion was created, and everyone who knows how the American people were ready during the Revolution to help my country with heart and soul ought to know that errors have been committed, and that if something is not done to wipe out the bad impression created among the real Russians during the Bolshevist movement, the money spent by America so generously will only contribute later to develop hatred and distrust. It seems to me that the Russian Revolution has been misunderstood. The sudden collapse of the country was the result of too great a strain. Russia early in the war mobilized seventeen million men and furnished sixty per cent. of the fighting men of the whole war on the side of the Allies. My country was unprepared for the economic, financial, and moral strain of such a long and hard war, and after seven million men had been killed and wounded, the mass of the troops, not fully realizing the tremendous issues at stake in this struggle, began, as soon as the Empire fell, to get restless and to want to go home and see for themselves the truth about the rumours stating that the land would be given to them. No one who has not lived in Russia can realize what that land meant to them. It had been their dream for generations and they cherished it more than freedom. This land fever was the beginning of the "Russian sickness." In her distress someone had to help her because everything was disorganized, not only in the cities but also in the villages; assistance for children and grownup people, and food and clothing were so necessary that there was no time to lose. The heads of the new Russian Government turned their eyes toward America as being at this time the one country not only capable of furnishing assistance on a large scale, but also of having the most sympathy for the new era which was beginning in Russia. The message of President Wilson, when he addressed the Senate after the declaration of war with Germany, made this clear enough, and all the hopes of the serious political leaders of Russia were based on the Russian-American friendship. And right they were. All through Russia the Americans were the most popular; and even among the uneducated and dark masses, who did not know anything about America beyond the name, it became the symbol of hope and help, and many of them looked upon America as the model toward which they were striving. The arrival of the Hon. Elihu Root and his mission was received with enthusiasm. The presence of a railroad commission and a financial section made it clear enough that America meant to take up matters most seriously and on a very large scale. The reorganization of our system of transportation and administration was wonderfully planned out, but this was for the future. Something else was more urgent. All over the front and the country itself, epidemics were developing rapidly and children were dying by thousands. When Mr. Root was informed of this sad situation, he answered that it was known in America and that a Red Cross Mission was already on its way to Russia and relief work was to be organized as soon as possible. The practical Americans seemed to have foreseen everything and all of us who had the privilege of talking the situation over with Mr. Root were perfectly sure that American help was going to bring Russia through this great crisis and that a lasting bond of friendship was going to be created between the two countries. A few weeks later the Red Cross Mission arrived. It was headed by Colonel Charles Billings of Chicago, who had a staff of more than forty men, in which were specialists of all branches of medicine and relief work. I was delighted to find a friend of mine, Major Malcolm Grow, on Colonel Billings's staff, because he thoroughly knew the Russian situation, as he had served under me with the Siberian troops for more than two years. This young Philadelphia surgeon was the only American authorized to serve in the firing line from early in the war. He worked in my Flying Columns which were a special organization to take care of the wounded in the trenches, and try to remove them during the fighting. Doctor Grow was not only a hard worker and a brilliant surgeon, but also a most brave man and made himself very popular among the soldiers who called him "the good and fearless American." Decorated for his gallant conduct in the battles in Poland, he distinguished himself in the big southern drive of Brusilov in 1916, and was personally rewarded by the Emperor. Doctor Grow seemed to think that my long experience at the front could be useful to the mission and so the day he arrived he introduced me to Doctor Billings, the chairman of the American Red Cross Mission to Russia, who asked me to take up work with him. I was then very busy at the front reorganizing hospitals and had very little spare time, but after an hour's talk with Doctor Billings I decided to give up everything and devote all my time to him. He had fascinated me by his keen desire to help Russia and by his profound understanding of the intricate and delicate questions he had to face in his great task. He was an officer of the American Red Cross, but he had not come to meddle in the work of the Russian Red Cross. He had come to help the Russian people in their sufferings and lack of everything. "We have not come to this country," he said, "to take anybody's place or teach any one, but merely to assist all those who are working for the welfare of the Russian people. Neither do we want to control hospitals, etc., ourselves. We want the coöperation of the country itself." Then he continued: "The supplies I have brought with me must be distributed between all the relief organizations; I want my mission to be the practical expression of the bond between the two nations." After I had explained to him what was going on in relief work at the front, he decided to call together a joint meeting of all the relief organizations in order to work out a general plan of coöperation and afterward to send some of his officers with me to the front to investigate sanitary conditions. I accompanied Colonel Billings to several meetings he had with government officials and prominent men of the city, and what always struck me was his sincere desire to find the way to be useful as soon as possible. He always considered first the Russian point of view and tried to adapt himself to it, never wanting to play a personal rôle or in any way to mix in Russian politics. Big schemes were already drawn up and some of the supplies had been distributed when I heard that General Kornilov, Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army, was coming to Petrograd for a few hours to attend an important meeting of the Council of the Ministers about some reorganization of the troops. I met him at the station and asked for the privilege of an interview for business concerning the American Red Cross. A few minutes before his train left for the front again General Kornilov received me. He listened with interest to my brief report about the wonderful work the American Red Cross was planning to organize in Russia and told me that he thought it most desirable for the soldiers to see some of the Americans at the front. "Tell the Americans," he said, "that I count very much on their energy and skill to help me in the reorganization work of our army." Afterward he sat down and wrote an invitation to the Americans to visit his headquarters after their inspection of the front. With the letter he handed me also a visiting card with a few words written on it and added, laughing: "This is the *laissez-passer* which will give you anything on the way that you want." A week later, accompanied by officers of the American Red Cross Mission to Russia, I was off to the front and proceeded directly to the headquarters of the First Siberian Corps. I shall not abuse the patience of the reader with long descriptions of our journey and what we saw, neither shall I detain him by giving a picture of the ovations the Americans received everywhere as we passed. The reports made by the members of the mission are there to prove it and to show that notwithstanding the disorganization of the army after the Revolution, colossal and wonderful sanitary work had been accomplished by the Russians in the first three years of struggle against the Huns. I shall call attention to only one interesting fact. When we visited the trenches all the soldiers flocked around us with keen interest and had the same question on their lips: "When are the American soldiers coming?" They all thought these American Red Cross officers were the forerunners of approaching American troops and seemed much discouraged when they found out to the contrary. This insistent desire to see American forces so quickly astonished me at first, but as they all repeated the same thing I decided to find out what they meant by it and who had given them such ideas. The day we went into the trenches of the First Siberian Regiment, in which I had served for more than three years, I gathered together some of the older soldiers I knew personally and whom I considered the most educated and intelligent among them and had a long talk, in which I found out the following: The majority of the soldiers who had received their "liberty" did not understand what it meant. Many thought they were free to go home and for them such an interpretation of liberty meant the end of the war. Others suspected that they had to stay in the trenches but thought they could do whatever they wanted, for, in their minds, discipline was wiped out with the fall of the old régime. The minority of the soldiers, who realized that the "liberty" of a citizen did not mean the right to destroy order and discipline at the front, had a very hard time to explain to their ignorant comrades what their country and the Allies expected from the "New Russian Democracy." Many soldiers who had been fighting three years and had suffered much were not only tired, but they also suspected the French and the English of putting all the burden of the war on their shoulders. None of them suspected the Americans who had just come into the war. I tried to explain to them that it was difficult and even impossible for America to bring over any quantity of troops, on account of the great distance. "It is not the quantity we want," answered one of the older soldiers. "Russia has more men than are needed for such a war, but we want to have among us a few American soldiers in body and soul, fighting shoulder to shoulder with us so that we may be able to tell the millions who discuss and will not obey to look at them and see how these 'Free Citizens' respect discipline and order. They would soon be ashamed, and, as they are so eager to act like real citizens, it is nearly certain that a few hundred Americans would, by their example, bring back discipline and force thousands to fight." This same idea prevailed all over Russia from the highest political circles to the remotest villages, and everyone hoped and longed for the moral support of a few Marines in Petrograd and a few gunners at the front. The feeling was very bitter when they did not come. In well-informed Russian circles it was widely known that America had, in China, several hundred Marines, many of whom could be brought to Petrograd very quickly on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. It was also known, though to very few, that one of the well-informed American officials in Petrograd had urged Washington to send them, and some of us were even counting the days before they arrived. We felt so sure of America's friendship, that, when they were not sent, a strong feeling was created among the Russians that Washington was not interested in helping those who were striving to re-establish order in Russia. When we all got back to Petrograd we found much had changed in our absence. I found that Colonel Billings was expecting to leave soon for America. Things were going on in the mission which were far from being agreeable to him and I am sure that his desire to report to the American Red Cross was not the only reason for such a hurried departure. numerable telegrams which Colonel Robins used to send to Washington about the political situation were more influential than those of the accredited ambassador, and the belief became almost a conviction that the Red Cross Mission was a "dual mission." It seemed as though Colonel Robins and Colonel Thompson wanted to have a hand in the political developments in Russia. At all the political gatherings the American Red Cross uniform was to be seen in the first row. Long interviews were arranged with the leaders of all the parties including the Bolsheviki. A regular political section of the mission sprang up with Colonel Robins at the head of it, translations of political articles were carefully filed and Colonel Robins made several public speeches which proved that he was a wonderful speaker, but told us nothing of the work of the American Red Cross. After the fall of the Provisional Government he and his mission began to play a still greater rôle. Their last piece of "relief work" was not done to please the sound Russians. It was the donation of hundreds of thousands of cans of condensed milk, sent to the starving babies of Russia, to the Red Army of Trotsky. I found this out when I was in the Fortress from one of my jail-keepers who bought me some in the public market and brought it to me saying, triumphantly: "Look at this! The Americans have given it to the lazy Soviet soldiers for nothing and we fathers have got to pay forty rubles a can to the Bolsheviki for it." I would not at first believe this but was forced to. later, when I read about this wonderful gift of the American Red Cross in the Bolshevist papers just at the time they began their newspaper campaign for the nomination of Colonel Robins for American Ambassador to the Lenine Government. #### CHAPTER III #### My Arrest "If you don't surrender you are dead." The other two men insisted on my lifting my hands in the air. This was, in my opinion, a dirty joke, and when I did it and appeared in all the beauty of only a night shirt, the whole crowd surged into my flat. They came from all sides and spread all over the place, for the house had been surrounded and many had entered by the back door. The Bolshevist chief came up to me and said: "Are you Colonel Andrew Kalpaschnikoff of the General Staff?" "I am Kalpaschnikoff of the American Red Cross," M NO. 881 } tional officers WOODROW WILSON, PPRINCES ROBLAT W. BE FOREST, Voc. persurest WILLIAM MOWARD TAFF, Voc. persurest JOHN SARLTOR WILLIAMS, THEATURES ALEXANDER C.LMID., COURSELOG ![](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/03.books/1920%20-%20A%20Prisoner%20of%20Trotskys/read/_page_58_Picture_8.jpeg?g-16018011) THE AMERICAN RED CROSS NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS WASHINGTON D. C. June 27, 1919. EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE FRANKLIN R. LAKE FRANKLIN R. LAKE WILLIAM C. SHAITED HICARY P. DAVISOR SLOT P. DAVISOR SLOT P. DAVISOR SLOT P. DAVISOR SLOT P. DAVISOR SLOT P. DAVISOR SLOT P. DAVISOR LEDONICH ODDINELIUS N. SLOTE J. STANDAM LLOUGHEY P. ANALIMO, SEATMAN LLOUGHEY P. WALLIMO, TOSCORASHAN LLOUGHEY P. WALLIMO, TOSCORASHAN LLOUGHEY P. WALLIMO, TOSCORASHAN Col. Andrew Zalpaschnikoff Camao, C/O Russian Asia Bank, Shangkai, China My dear Col. Kalmaschnikoff: After careful consideration of your letter addressed to the American Red Cross, in regard to losses sustained by you while incorcerated in the Peter and Paul fortress, the Executive Committee has approved the payment to you of \\$5,000 as payment in full of such claim; this amount covering your salary from March 31st until the date of your release from the Peter and Paul fortress plus what they consider a fair proportion of your other losses, which could be borne by the American Red Cross. I am therefore enclosing a check, drawn to your order, in the amount of \\$3,000. I wish to extend to you our appreciation of the manner in which you presented your losses and also of the work you did for the American Red Cross, and to express my sincere wishes, that your present journey may be most successful. Very truly yours. Assistant to the Vice Chairman. I answered, "and never belonged to the General Staff." "You are of the General Staff," he again shouted. "I am not," I answered, coolly, but again he insisted on the same thing. Tired at last of this useless dialogue I stepped up to him and exclaimed angrily: "If it can give you any pleasure I am a general of any general staff you like. . . . But what do you want of me?" He put his hands in his pockets and looked at me proudly, like an oracle about to speak, and slowly and solemnly said: "In the name of the Council of the Commissioners; in the name of the Soviets which represent the Russian people, I declare you under arrest. I will give you several minutes in which to dress and you will be taken to the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, where you will be immediately isolated in solitary confinement." When I asked him the reason for this and told him that, as I was in the service of the American Red Cross, I considered he had no right to arrest me without producing a warrant or paper of some kind, he answered: "I do not know anything; all I can say is that I received strict orders from the heads of the Government to arrest you at any cost or price. This order I know was given after an important meeting of Trotsky and the other ministers who discussed the matter several hours." Then with a smile he added: "You, who are the chief and soul of the 'American Plot' must know the reasons better than I." While I was hastily dressing there began what the Bolsheviki call "perquisition in the flat of a counter revolutionist." A strange sight it was: sailors and workmen broke open all the drawers and steadily tucked into their pockets anything that looked like silver or gold. When they had stolen everything that was valuable they began to take boots, motor gloves, and different knick-knacks. Blagonravov (this was the name of the Bolshevist leader), sat at my desk with his legs crossed and his beautiful fur coat lined with sealskin thrown open, and looked through my papers, but as they were nearly all written in English he seemed to do it more for the pleasure of giving himself a very important air. I had nearly finished dressing when there occurred an incident which might have ended badly. My cook, Daria, was one of those devoted servants that you meet only in Russia. She had come from our country place where she had been many years in the family and considered that we all belonged to her and that she had as much to say in our affairs as the "master" himself. While I was dressing she had been busy running around the flat trying to collect some of the gold and silver things lying about and doing everything human to prevent the Reds from ransacking the flat. Suddenly I saw her burst into the dining-room, where the chief of police was sitting smoking a cigarette, and shake her fist at him and cry: "You are a pack of robbers who are only here under the pretext of requisition to steal anything you can lay your hands upon!" Blagonravov, who was little used to such frank speech, for he usually had everyone terrorized and speechless, angrily seized her by the shoulder and said: "Now look here, woman, if you don't shut up I shall have you also arrested." Far from being intimidated by his threat, she screamed: "You can cut my head off if you want to, but I, Daria, the faithful servant of the Kalpaschnikoff family, tell you that you Bolsheviki are murderers and thieves who disgrace the Russian people!" Then turning toward me, she added: "Imagine what they have done. They have taken the beautiful American shoes you brought me from New York." And bursting into tears she continued: "Isn't it awful? I shall never get another pair like that." These famous shoes, which I bought on Fourteenth Street for six dollars and fifty cents before coming home, were worshipped by her as her most precious possession. She had always dreamed of having real American shoes from "the real America" as she said. The reader will find out at the end of the book the important rôle which these shoes played in saving my life. The daring act of Daria had its effect. The chief of police got up, walked through the rooms, and appointed several workmen to follow the details of the perquisition and ordered out a lot of soldiers and sailors who were supposed to be standing at the doors of the flat. Then coming back to my cook, he said: "I can't help it if my men take a few things while they are doing their work—everything has to be carefully verified in this flat. I know that a lot of weapons and documents are hidden here." I found out later that they examined everything in my rooms very carefully. This task lasted from two in the morning until six o'clock the next afternoon. Not only was everything taken out, but the faithful servants of the Bolshevist régime unsewed every curtain, cover, and lining, stripped the chairs, opened the frames of looking glasses and photographs, lifted every plank in the floor that looked to them suspicious, and made a marvellous mess. When I was ready to start, my cook asked the chief of police if I needed or could take any clothes with me. "Not now," he answered, "we will see later, although I think that he will never want anything again." When I came down my staircase and walked out into the dark street I only then realized what important measures had been taken to arrest "the great criminal" that I was. The whole staircase was blocked with armed sailors. Downstairs in the hall, where the house porter was also held under arrest, two rapid-fire guns were set with their muzzles toward us with several dirty workmen lying behind them looking fiercely at us as if they were eager to open fire at any moment. As soon as I appeared in the street with the Bolshevist chief of police a closed limousine rolled smoothly up. It was certainly a beautiful car, all lined with yellow silk and I was solemnly placed in it with Blagonravov and four armed soldiers, Letts, who spoke hardly any Russian. Four other Letts were on the running board. Thus we started, running along the beautiful quay of the Neva, and only when we arrived opposite the English Embassy and the car turned to cross the bridge did I realize what was happening to me. Until then I had been in a strange dream, but now I suddenly said to myself: "That will be a bad joke, if they stick me in that Fortress," and I began to inquire what was going to happen next. "I do not know," answered Blagonravov, and then he began to talk. He looked proudly at me and said: "Do you know who I am?" and before I had time to answer he continued, with a satisfied smile: "I am the famous Blagonravov. You certainly have heard about me." My short "no" simply scandalized him. "I am the one who has given victory to the Bolsheviki in the streets of Petrograd. I am the one who arrested the Provisional Government. I am the one who found Purishkevich and his gang of Monarchists. . . . Though I have never had even the time to finish my schooling, the whole world must know about the great deeds of Blagonravov." When I told him that I was quite sure that history would certainly appreciate his value he seemed to cool down and began to relate some of his latest exploits. The car suddenly stopped and in front of us appeared the dark and mysterious entry of the famous Fortress which was guarded by several Red Guards sitting around a fire warming their hands on this chilly December night. At the door Blagonravov said: "Comrades, open! We are your own people." Slowly the barred gate swung open and the motor entered the gloomy prison of the murderers of the former emperors. Accompanied by the eight Lettish soldiers I was hurried through a long dirty corridor where I walked in the dark endlessly. Finally we came to a door opening into a kind of vaulted hall, in one corner of which was a big table covered with ink spots. A man, with a big red beard, who seemed most good tempered and very sleepy, was sitting at the table lazily writing down something on sheets of paper while soldiers who had also brought prisoners were busily engaged discussing among themselves in Lettish. One of the soldiers turned toward the redbearded jail-keeper and said: "No, that's impossible. We can't do that. We have been in the military prison of Kresty and we are sick of dragging these fellows around on foot. Give us a receipt and do whatever you like with them." They argued for quite a long time, but the man was firm in his intention not to accept any more prisoners, and the Lettish soldiers were quite disappointed, but had to go away and continue their search in the dark for another home for their arrested citizens. The commander of the eight soldiers who accompanied me went up to the red-bearded jail-keeper, whose name was Kuznetzov, and handed him a piece of paper which he read with great attention, spelling all the words by syllables. When he got to the sentence: "Have him isolated in a separate cell in solitary confinement," he stared at me like a frightened rabbit and said in an imploring tone: "For goodness sake, don't you understand that I am full up? What can I do for you—to give you space do you want me to throw out of the window the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tereshenko, or the Monarchist, Puriskevich? Every cell has a minister—I can't make a cell for you." Then shaking his head sadly, he added: "This is awful. I can't send you off to an ordinary prison because you are filed as a dangerous and first-class criminal. You must wait here until Smolny decides." When I remarked that I found it rather hard to be bundled out of bed like this without knowing what they were going to do with me, he assumed a very fatherly tone and said: "Now look here, Comrade, you must not be angry with me. It is not my fault. It is the general disorder and has been going on like this for the last week." He took a chair, put it in the corner of the hall, brought from the next room a small table and asked me to make myself as comfortable as I could. Then he took out some cigarettes and sat on the edge of my table and began to chat with me. "You know," he continued, "I and many of my comrades have no ill feeling against you and the greater part of the bourgeoisie. On the contrary, I have a lot of sympathy for our prisoners; I pity them. I realize that many of them have been needlessly arrested and I try to be as nice to them as I can. One never knows—to-day is like this, but to-morrow may be different. You are the leaders of yesterday. To-day we have new leaders who have promised to us, the uneducated crowd, more land, welfare, and happiness. Who knows? Perhaps they are right, perhaps they are wrong, but I feel that they promise too much. I am afraid we shall not get more than before." We talked a long time about different political questions, about the privileges which were expected from the Bolshevist Government and the opinion of this simple-minded and good-hearted reserve soldier impressed me as being the average state of mind of the Russian peasant, who, led into error by adventurers and dishonest leaders, thought he was working not only for his good, but for the good of his country. As they were bringing in more and more prisoners, my red-beard had to leave me and go back to his table, where he continued his endless discussion with the different soldiers who wanted him, at any cost or price, to accept the people they had arrested, and for whom there was no place in this Fortress, in which there was only room for a most select and limited number of counter revolutionists. I sat on my chair, surrounded by eight soldiers, very sleepy but rather amused by the sights that I saw that night. People of every rank and class were brought in and all had their word of protest and indignation to say. There were officers of high rank, political men, and simple soldiers. The greater part had been arrested without cause, but the most amusing ones were the men who called themselves Bolsheviki had worked for them and were now protesting violently that they had been insulted by being arrested and a shadow thrown on their devotion to Bolshevism. A small man in an officer's cap, who called himself the aide-de-camp of Antonov, the Bolshevist commander of the Southern Army, was talking hard trying to prove to the jail-keeper that he had been arrested on a false denunciation just at the moment when he was working out a most serious scheme for military operations which were to be undertaken in a few days against Kiev. "If Antonov knew they had arrested me, he would be very angry because the success of his army depends upon the plan I am working out." This seemed to impress the Bolshevist administration of the Fortress, and one of the comrades offered to telephone to Smolny and talk the matter over with Commissioner Petrov. "Petrov!" he exclaimed, angrily, "but he is a black-guard. He came to see me several times and wanted me to give him several blank orders of arrest signed by my chief. I refused to do so because he told me himself that he wanted to arrest and skin several rich bourgeois. I remember now. He was at that time very angry because I prevented him from doing a good business and probably now he has stolen some of these blank orders to play me this bad trick." When I asked how orders of arrest could be issued without stating beforehand who was to be arrested, he said with a smile: "We usually get them by the bunch and the rest is left to our discretion. Sometimes we are the first ones to suffer." The officer's case had probably been transmitted by telephone to headquarters, because about half an hour later soldiers arrived with orders to bring him to Smolny, where he was released a few hours later. I found out by mere chance that Petrov was put into the Fortress the next day, where he stayed several weeks. Toward six o'clock in the morning soldiers and sailors began to appear, all armed to the teeth and carrying rapid-fire guns. They all passed through our hall and disappeared into a long corridor leading to the apartment of the former commander of the Fortress. These individuals were the famous Bolshevist Red Guards of the Supreme Chief of Police, Blagonravov, who had been raiding apartments and arresting people. A good many of the guards had bundles with all kinds of things which they had stolen while visiting suspected citizens. A few minutes later Blagonravov himself came in and looked at me with astonishment and asked what I was doing there. I found the question rather curious and told him that he ought to know why they were keeping me sitting on a chair in such an uncomfortable place. He turned toward the jail-keeper and said: "But I gave you strict orders to have him I was taken out of the hall into the yard. It was a long one and very dirty. On one side were the barred windows of the mint where the Bolsheviki were busy coining the last bars of gold. On the other side was a high wooden wall with a small hole through which the guards peeped before they opened the door, which was locked with three heavy iron bars. When we got in we found ourselves inside the famous red brick wall which runs along the Neva and is known by the name, "The Bastillon of Trubetskoy," and is always described as the graveyard of the revolutionists buried there alive by the old régime. I had heard and read so many horrible tales about these famous cells where the light was supposed never to penetrate and where the rats used to visit and eat the prisoners, that though I wished I were elsewhere, I gazed curiously around as we went into the first corridor, which was only half lighted notwithstanding the broad daylight outside. What impressed me more than anything else was the smell of dampness and the chill feeling produced by the cold mist in the corridor. We were met by three armed sailors and a strapping man with a bunch of enormous keys tied to his waist. The sailors looked at us fiercely and seemed to be in an ugly mood. One of them said: "Why don't they shoot these people instead of bringing them here to occupy space uselessly?" But the soldier seemed to be more kindly disposed and said smilingly: "The new guest has a fine cell on the first floor." When I asked him if it was better than the corridor where we were walking, he answered: "This is the old part. We do not use it any more. Even the old régime gave it up twenty years ago." While talking he led us up a stone staircase into a second corridor with a vaulted ceiling which was just as dark and had a row of big iron doors leading to the cells. Going up to the middle one with one of his enormous keys, he opened the door which squeaked as it turned on its rusty hinges. I remember vaguely stepping into a small room, about ten feet long and twelve feet wide, with a small barred window in the ceiling. A few seconds later the door again made the same sounds, I heard the lock click, and there I was in the solitary confinement in which I remained five months and seventeen days. #### CHAPTER IV #### THREE DAYS BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH I must have been in this state of unconsciousness for a good long time because when I opened my eyes, the same friendly soldier who had first met us in the corridor, was shaking me by the shoulder and a bowl of hot water was standing on the floor. He smiled and said: "What's the matter? Are you ill? They brought your tea an hour ago and you have not touched it yet." I was all right and after stretching a couple of times, walked up and down my small cage which was only five steps long. Then, to say something, I asked my jail-keeper how long he thought the Bolsheviki expected to keep me there, and what they intended doing with me. He answered: "I really do not know. Everything is so uncertain that one can count only on the mercy of God. Lately we have had a very bad time here with the Bolshevist sailors who burst into the corridors of our prison and wanted to shoot all the people we are taking care of." Then looking kindly at me, he continued: "You see, I am not in politics. I am one of the thirty-six soldiers chosen after the Revolution from the different regiments in Petrograd to act, not only as jail-keepers, but as inspectors. I have sworn to my comrades not only to guard the ones who are arrested, but also to see that they are properly treated and fed. Since the Bolsheviki have taken things into their own hands, we are absolutely powerless and I want to go home as soon as possible. I have seen, since the Bolsheviki came into power on the twenty-fifth, so many people shot and stabbed that I cannot stand it any longer. I am a Ukrainian. I shall get leave with the distinct understanding of never coming back. To-night two prisoners (one they say was a banker and the other an officer) were shot down while being brought across the yard. You are darned lucky to have been motored in. The sailors are again getting very ugly and before the day is over you will probably see for yourself how they behave. It is greatly the fault of the assistant chief of the Fortress, a drunkard called Pavlov. He has never been in the trenches. He was only the orderly of an official in town and now acts like a prince. He will probably visit you soon to make an official inquiry." When I told him everything that had happened to me he tried to console me by telling me that I was in the best of company. "You must be an important prisoner. Next to you is Tereshenko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Provisional Government. The whole corridor is occupied by his cabinet. The next corridor is full of the ministers and prominent men of the old régime. Here we have no second-class stuff and I must say you are all nice people. I get along very well with you." Then looking at me blandly, he added: "Can I do anything for you? It is not allowed, but I will take a letter. To-night is my night off. Don't write it before evening because you will probably be searched. I will come in this afternoon and we can talk the matter over." Then, turning around, he opened the door and walked out. I found out later that this was not a mere threat and in some of the following chapters I shall speak about the numerous attempts made by some sailors and Red Guards to murder the prisoners kept in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. The Ukrainian jail-keeper, whose name by the way was Ivan Dikiy ("Dikiy" means "wild"—though he proved to be not at all so), was right in saying that it was a very difficult and nervous time in the history of this political prison. Soldiers and sailors kept rushing up and down the corridors, new prisoners were brought and taken away. I heard again the long discussions with threats against the bourgeoisie and the desperate protestations of the jail-keepers trying to prove that there was no more room in the Fortress and that the lower corridor, which looked so unfriendly when we passed through it, could not be repaired so quickly and therefore was not fit to receive "new visitors." The clock on the cathedral tower had just struck twelve when I heard an awful noise followed by an intense shooting of rapid-fire guns which sounded quite near. It lasted several minutes, stopped, and went on again. I was very curious to know what could have caused such a noise but it was quite impossible for me to do anything to satisfy my curiosity until my luncheon was brought, about one o'clock. It was a strange luncheon, or better one might say, the shade of one. The door opened and two men came in. One had, in a basket, pieces of badly cooked bread which were black and most unappetizing. He handed me a piece which was about a quarter of a pound and said, "This is your daily portion." The other man, in the meantime, had been mixing something in the bucket which he was holding on his arm, and now poured something that looked more like dish water than soup into a big iron cup and deposited it on the floor. It looked so revolting and there was so little of it that I gazed at it with disgust and promptly asked the cooks what was the cause of the noise outside. "Oh, it is nothing especial. Just the Red Guards practising in the yard against a heap of wood prepared for the prisoners to saw. There is a whole bunch of them who have been raiding in the town to-night and we don't know what to do to keep them out of the Fortress. They are up to some mischief but luckily they are leaving for the front to-morrow night. Since they have made the Fortress the head-quarters of the Red Guard battalions, life has become impossible." Then looking at me he said: "You will have trouble in getting used to this food, but one does not die of hunger as easily as one might think, and if you have money you can buy sardines and potted meat from the guards. They charge very dear, but when one is very hungry, there is nothing else to do." Though I had looked with disgust at my first prison luncheon, I was so hungry that I decided to eat it. As I chewed the bread I felt sand and pieces of straw between my teeth, and the soup left under one's tongue lumps of grease which had not dissolved and had rather a bitter taste. Late in the afternoon I saw for the first time the famous Assistant Chief of the Fortress, Comrade Pavlov. He came in escorted by four Red Guards, each heavily armed with a rifle and a pair of revolvers, and around their waists and shoulders they had big leather bands full of cartridges. Comrade Pavlov was a strange-looking character and was the bad He looked at me quickly and said: "So, this is the hostage of the American Embassy. What is your name?" When I had satisfied his curiosity by identifying myself, he added with a nasty smile: "It is disgusting to see Russians meddle in dirty intrigues organized by the foreigners." Then turning to the soldiers he continued: "I suppose he is one of these mean officers belonging to the slums of the actual society. Has he been searched properly?" I told him that his chief, the Supreme Commander of all the Bolshevist Police, did not find it necessary to do so and that I did not consider it correct as I was not an ordinary political prisoner but the hostage of an embassy. "Here I am the only master," he answered angrily, and ordered the soldiers to search me "in detail." I was stripped and so carefully examined that decency does not permit me to go into particulars. When everything was finished I addressed myself to Comrade Pavlov, and said: "As long as you are the almighty of this Fortress, where I have been imprisoned without any reason, I consider myself entitled to the right to protest officially. You must either hand me a written act giving the reason I have been arrested or else release me at once." "Release you, the American dragon of counter revolution? You are mad. The Bolshevist Government had trouble enough in finding the key of the great plot against them." Then I said: "This is the second time that I have heard about my being arrested by special order of Trotsky and the Bolshevist Government. Therefore, you had better ask them by telephone what they are going to do with me and when I can be heard by some representative of the Bolshevist justice, if there is one." He answered: "To-night I shall go to Smolny and find out what you want, but I advise you not to be too haughty and proud because your case is a very serious one and you risk much more than you imagine." "Now, you can't complain and play any more the rôle of an innocent dove arrested by mistake." There was written on the paper which he handed me the following most astounding statements: #### ACCUSED OF— - I. Having handed to over the Cossack General, Kaledin, three million American dollars in gold, received from the American Embassy, and helped the counter revolutionists of the Don by sending them motor cars. - II. Having organized in his flat the headquarters of a big insurrection, planned by the officers and others from the slums of the actual society to destroy the Government and shed the blood of the honest Bolsheviki and friends of the people. - III. Having been intimate with the Queen of Rumania and forced her by his influence to oblige the King of Rumania to declare war on the Bolsheviki. - IV. Having in his flat a portrait of the Ex-Emperor of Russia (a beautiful piece of work by Shipov, it must have cost a lot of money), signed photographs of, not only the Grand Duke Nicholas, Brusilov, Plechkov and many other generals, but also of foreign imperialists and capitalists. - V. This mysterious individual—being the same black hand which powerfully pressed on the English Police and had all the honest Bolsheviki who were returning home arrested—is, therefore, declared an outlaw who is to be judged with all the severity of the National Conscience. When I had finished reading this curious document I began to laugh and asked him where he could have found this piece of strange literature which could have been only copied out of some cheap fairy tale. "You are greatly mistaken," he answered, in a most offended tone. "This is the Act of Accusation which has just been drawn up by a special commission which has been busy the whole day inspecting and translating documents, most compromising for you and for the American Embassy, found in your flat. There is absolutely no doubt that we have found the biggest plot which has ever been organized against the Bolshevist Government and now that Comrade Trotsky has in his hands absolute proof of the participation of the Americans and their money in this low attempt against the freedom of the Russian people, he is going to publish to-morrow the whole truth for the wide public to know and then without any hesitation he will arrest all the gang that is sitting and plotting in the building of the American Embassy. I heard him say to-night that if it is necessary he will wipe out all the foreigners. It is time for you to abandon any kind of jokes. In the name of the Soviet Government, I order you to make a full confession of everything you know about the anti-revolutionary activity of the Americans in Russia and to name all the people who have been coöperating and receiving large sums of money for the purpose of organizing insurrections." My astonishment had by this time vanished and I was angry, because as these charges were preposterous, there must be something else behind it all and I only the victim. Someone close to the American Embassy must be trying to discredit the American Ambassador. What followed proved my supposition to be correct. "Everything I have just read and everything you say, Comrade Pavlov, is an absolute lie. I do not know anything about the American Embassy, and if, by mere chance, I were to know anything, I certainly would refuse to tell you." Pavlov looked at me and answered: "Well, I am sorry for you if this is all you have to say, because we know perfectly well that you know everything; and if you will not speak it will cost you your life." Then changing his tone, he added: "Now, look here, Comrade. In case of refusal I have been directed to give you three days to think it over, and if you persist in your silence you will be shot in the yard of the Fortress. Let me give you some good advice. You had better not tease us unnecessarily, and in your place, if I did not know anything I would just invent something to get out of this critical situation. With what we are finding out every day about the American and other embassies you are safer outside the Fortress. I assure you it is not worth while to risk getting half a dozen bullets in your body for the sake of these people. They are not worth it." I told him blankly that my opinion was quite different and that I had firmly decided not to say anything, and if they wanted to shoot me in three days, it was much better to do it right away because the result would be the same. "Well! Well! Think it over to-night," said Pavlov, "you probably have a family and I will hear to-morrow what you will say after cool meditation in this cell." The heavy door swung shut behind him as he walked out and I remained in complete darkness. These last words he said about my family cut me deeply. I had left in New York the American girl I was going to marry. I had already been gone nearly a year, though when I left America, a few weeks after our engagement, I had expected to return in three months, but when things began to go so badly in my country I felt that I had not the right to leave at this critical time the work which I had undertaken with the American Red Cross. I knew the news of my arrest would soon reach America, and it was the thought of not being able to explain what had happened and the possibility of the news that the Bolsheviki wanted to shoot me also reaching America, which caused me great depression and anxiety. These few minutes or perhaps half an hour were the worst ones I have ever had in my life. Suddenly the electricity was turned on and the light seemed to bring back my energy. I arose with the feeling that this could not continue, that something had to be done. Then I remembered that the Ukrainian jail-keeper had promised to smuggle through a letter in the evening, so I decided immediately to get hold of him and send a letter to my fiancée. This idea made me feel much better. Soon I recovered my self-control and decided that, as long as she would know the truth, simply to wait and see what would happen and not worry beforehand. A few minutes before midnight, the time when all the guards are changed in the Fortress, the Ukrainian came in with another man and told me that he had brought some paper and a pencil for my letter. Then, turning to the other man who had a gray beard, blue eyes, and a kind expression, he said: "You are in luck to have old Mazik on duty. He is a good old sport and plays cards and chess with the ones who cannot sleep the first nights." Then he added: "We are not Bolsheviki and as for old Mazik, he is looking forward with impatience to the time when he can have the pleasure of locking up the adventurers of Smolny in these same cells. It will come but unhappily I shall be gone." Old Mazik, as a sign of approval, shook his keys violently with one hand and, with the other, tapped me on the shoulder in a very friendly manner. Half an hour later my letter was on its way out of the Fortress and I was sound asleep on my iron plank which was a very poor imitation of a bed, but for one whose nerves had been so worn in the last twenty-four hours, it was good enough; I slept very well, and during the whole time I was in the Fortress I always slept well. The next morning old Mazik came in and informed me that he had looked into my cell after his evening round because he wanted to see if I would like to have a game of chess with him, but I was so sound asleep that he would not awaken me. We got to talking about the life in the Fortress and soon he became very confidential. He informed me that he and a man named Bergel were the only ones remaining who had served under the old régime, and had been chosen again by the soldiers as the leading experts in prison matters. He said: "I have been tramping around these corridors for the last sixteen years, and as for my chum Bergel, he has been at this job for more than twenty-nine years." These two individuals, so closely connected with the history of this fateful Fortress, were both very kind-hearted and talkative, and I do not think I make a mistake in stating that I got from them the most truthful, vivid and interesting information about the whole system of treatment of political prisoners and what they really underwent in the many years passed in solitary confinement by some of the murderers of the emperors and ministers in this so-called "chamber of horrors." Mazik thought that I looked sad and tried to cheer me up by saying a lot of amusing things about the Bolshevist commissioners. "It cannot last," he said, "when they get hold of an idea they tear around the city and arrest a lot of people to give the impression that they are finding many plots. Just now when I took some of the ministers of the Provisional Government out for their morning exercise they were interested to know how you were because Bourtzov has given one of them a Bolshevist paper where there were a lot of things written about you." As one might imagine, I got frightfully excited about finding out what they had written and made old Mazik promise to send his daughter out to buy papers as soon as he went home to luncheon. Mazik had been gone more than an hour when the sailors began to walk up and down the corridor. They peeped into the different cells and I heard some of them distinctly asking where the leader of the "American Plot" was and when they found out that it was the inhabitant of Cell No. 51, they gazed curiously at me and made most disagreeable remarks. A big yellow-haired sailor, who turned out afterward to be the famous Chigov—the man who had tapped the President of the Constitutional Assembly on the shoulder and said to him: "I am tired of waiting: if you do not stop this stupid performance I shall have to kick you out,"—made ugly threats. As I did not answer and sat with my back turned toward them, one of the comrades, who seemed more lenient, said to Chigov: "Shut up. He probably does not understand what you are saying." This gathering was interrupted by the appearance of Pavlov, who asked me as he passed by: "Well, have you changed your mind? Don't forget that you have only one day more to meditate. To-morrow will be too late." Mazik kept his word and early in the afternoon came in triumphantly with half a dozen papers hidden under his coat and while he was taking them out, he informed me that his daughter had read him some of the news about me, which he was sure would interest me intensely. He also added that, judging by the papers, I must now be his most famous and renowned prisoner, that I had eclipsed all his other friends and the ministers that he was taking care of in the Fortress. The first paper I took up was the official organ of the Soviet Government called *Izvistia Soviata*. When I unfolded it there was printed at the top in big letters: AMERICAN PLOT DISCOVERED!—COLONEL KALPASCHNIKOFF ARRESTED. TROTSKY DENOUNCES IN A BIG MEETING THE TREACHERY OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY! Then followed a long description of a big meeting organized by the Bolsheviki, in the Grand Opera House, where more than five thousand people gathered to hear Trotsky make an important declaration about the "American Plot." Judging by the paper this meeting lasted from five o'clock in the afternoon until two in the morning when, after the speech of the Bolshevist Commissioner of Foreign Affairs, the Soviet and all others present approved of the measures Trotsky proposed to take against the Americans. He said: Ambassador Francis has been until now silent and has worked in the dark, giving money, rapid-fire guns and other war materials to the counter revolutionists of the south. But now that everything is discovered, that his principal agent is locked up in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, and that we hold important letters and telegrams proving that through his agents he has been in communication with General Kaledin and all the Rostov gang, the time has come for him to give explanations and tell us what he and his government mean by working against the Russian people. I shall see this thing through to the bitter end, and if I do not get satisfaction I shall not hesitate to take extreme measures and wipe out all the Americans and foreigners who dare to plot anything against the liberties so dearly bought by us for our country. Farther on were reproduced translations of telegrams which were supposed to have been found in my flat during the search. Everything was presented in a way to try to prove that my correspondence was that of a secret agent working for the counter revolutionists. The translation was very inexact and many sentences added which I had not written at all. Whenever they needed evidence they just wrote what they wanted. I can give a most striking example. In one letter addressed to Colonel Anderson, I had written: I am sending eight mechanics, who are not soldiers but professional chauffeurs, and they will accompany the train with the motor cars to be at your disposition. The Bolshevist paper translated this as follows: He ordered to have eight trains loaded with motor cars and rapid-fire guns hidden in wadding to be sent in an unknown direction. By mere chance the letter I am speaking about had been shown by me, a few hours before my arrest, to Captain Crosley, the American Naval Attaché, with whom I had dinner and who was ready to testify concerning my statement. Other letters signed by Colonel Anderson—in which he asked me to send motor cars to Rostov and plainly criticised, not only the Bolsheviki (whom he called murderers) but also some members of the American Red Cross Mission to Russia (especially Colonel Raymond Robins, who in his opinion, had too much sympathy for the Bolsheviki)—were never published. This only confirmed my opinion that, under cover of the American Red Cross uniform, Raymond Robins was more occupied with politics than with relief work and that he was the whole time in close touch with the Bolshevist leaders, who later told me this themselves and called him the only friend they ever had among the foreigners. The heading of the second page was more than curious and bore the following words: "We asked the American People for medicines and clothing and they have sent us treacherous cotton in which were hidden rapid-fire guns to kill our people. Now all these trains have been arrested." This heading was the text of a telegram which had been sent to Krylenko, the Commander-in-Chief of the Bolshevist armies, who, judging by other telegrams which I read farther on, was making wild speeches all over the front about the "American Plot." It is difficult to write all the other strange statements concerning the plot and me. I spent the whole afternoon reading these papers and the different descriptions of my anti-Bolshevist activities. Toward six o'clock the door opened and a man with a big black beard and very long hair came in, accompanied by Pavlov, who informed me that he was Schreder, the Assistant Minister of Justice, and that he had come to ask me what I had to say to justify myself. He added that new evidence had been found about my relations and activities with the Rumanian Embassy, which was also under suspicion, and that he considered it his duty to tell me that my case was so serious that he did not even know how it could be brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal because it involved too many state secrets. When I looked at Schreder, I recognized him at once as the secretary of Chernov, the famous Social Democrat who came back with me on the same train from Sweden, and I expressed my astonishment at seeing him working with the Bolsheviki. "I am not a Bolshevik," he answered, "but a was the sailor in charge of the exercise of the prisoners and that he had received orders to include me in the group of the ministers of the Provisional Government and to take me out walking with them. I walked down the lower corridor and was taken through a dark passage which opened into the inner yard of the Fortress. It was a dirty three-cornered space with a small house in the middle which I found out later was the *bania* or bath house of the Fortress. The whole yard was a mass of snow and dirt and the only place where we could walk was a kind of sidewalk made out of wood, which ran around the bath house and which was three hundred feet long. From the door opposite to the one through which I came in appeared the striking figure of Prince Dolgoruky, followed by Mr. Tereshenko, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, who came up to me and said: "I have just read everything about your misfortunes. Isn't it ridiculous, but it does not astonish me at all, and if old Francis gets into trouble it will not be my fault because I have called his attention several times to the curious behaviour of Colonel Thompson and Colonel Robins of the American Red Cross." Then, taking me by the arm, he introduced me to his former colleagues: Mr. Kishkin, Minister of the Interior; Mr. Kartashov, Minister of Religion; Mr. Bernadsky, Minister of Finance; Mr. Smirnov, Minister of Commerce; Mr. Rutenberg, Governor of Petrograd and widely known for having in 1905 killed the priest, Gapon, for betraying the party of the Revolu- tion; Mr. Palchinsky, the President of the Military Commission, and the two Cadet Deputies, Kokoshkin and Shingarev, both of whom perished a few days later, being assassinated by the Bolsheviki while they were being transferred from the Fortress to the hospital. "We are all here to-day," said Prince Dolgoruky, coming to me, "except Countess Panine, Minister of Public Health. As for myself, I am not a minister but was arrested because I was visiting the countess when the Bolsheviki came to arrest Kokoshkin and, as the countess was arrested without any reason, we all went together." I chatted a few minutes more with the Prince, whom I had known before, but what Mr. Tereshenko had just told me interested me so much that I decided to have a longer talk with him about the matter. I went up to him and told him that if I got out of this Fortress alive I would certainly do everything I could to let the American people know about the way in which some of the American Red Cross men acted in Russia, mixing in politics instead of doing the work for which they had been sent. "You are perfectly right," answered the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, "and I was one of the first to notice their peculiar behaviour." Then he continued: "The idea of sending a Red Cross mission to Russia was certainly a good one and we all appreciated the generosity of the American people when Colonel Billings told us of his plans for relief work all over Russia. He was not only a "And what do you think of Robins?" I asked. Tereshenko looked at me and said: "I consider that this man has done more harm than anybody to the American cause in Russia. I knew that he was an extreme radical, that his sympathies were on the side of the enemies of the Provisional Government, and when I saw him take such a keen interest in politics and have conversations and conferences, not only with the Socialists but also with the Bolsheviki, I came to the conclusion that he ought to be watched. A few days after I made this decision I informed the American Ambassador that Colonel Raymond Robins was not only pro-Bolshevist but seemed also to take too active a part in politics which might discredit the American Embassy and I requested the Ambassador to give his attention to the matter." I considered this statement most important and asked Mr. Tereshenko if it might be made public some day, to which he answered that I could quote him at any time and in any place I liked. By the time we had finished our conversation the fifteen minutes allowed us for exercise were up and the nice sailor who brought me out came up to us and said: "Michael Ivanovitch,\* to-day we have to hurry up because a lot of people have not had their walk." Mr. Tereshenko turned toward me and told me in English that this young sailor, called Titov, was a most decent and charming boy who had done a lot to make better feeling on the part of the other sailors toward the ministers. He introduced me to him as his good friend and we all shook hands and went back into the Fortress. As I was walking up the corridor I turned and asked Titov why, as my three days were ended, I had not yet been shot. "One never knows what to expect," he answered. "They probably still hope to find out something from you or they may forget you are here for several \*In Russia it is customary, in speaking to a person, to address him by his Christian name, followed by that of his father. Thus, in this instance, Mr. Tereshenko is addressed as "Michael Ivanovitch." months if they invent a more interesting conspiracy, though I must say Comrade Trotsky is very interested in your case. To-day they are again writing in the papers about you and the 'American Plot'." #### CHAPTER V ### A GLIMPSE AT THE HISTORY OF THE FORTRESS I began to realize that things were not going to go as quickly as I had hoped, for it became evident that, as the Bolsheviki had decided not to shoot me at the end of the three days and as they saw that they could do nothing with me with threats, they would keep me in solitary confinement for many days and even perhaps for many months. The ministers of the Provisional Government had been arrested two months before and were still awaiting their trial, which was promised from day to day. The rumour, which some of the guards heard in town, that my trial was to take place as soon as the other conspirators were discovered, only confirmed the opinion that I had. Life in solitary confinement is not an easy one and after a few days of fretting I concluded that I had to face three very important problems. The first one was to kill time and to occupy my brain; the second was: not to die of hunger because the food we got was really insufficient even for a five-year-old child; and the third one was how to communicate with the world outside and know what was really going on in connection with my case. I could not believe what was written in the papers and I was sure some action had been taken by the American Embassy to prove how absurd all these charges were. This last problem was, after all, the one which preoccupied me the most and quite by mere chance I solved it more quickly than I could have expected. When one is cut off from all the world and especially in a cell of the famous Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, it is not so easy to establish a regular secret postal service and receive letters three times a week under the noses of all the Bolsheviki and their guards. I was unhappily in a different position and had to invent something else more primitive and simple. I remembered that in some prisons they used to put into bread little rolls of paper and I decided to use this system; but even then it was necessary to have at least one man to assist me. The guard who had taken my first letter and brought the answer and also some money which I had asked for, had unhappily left, and none of the others consented to take letters because they were too much afraid or were themselves Bolsheviki. to all the houses where he had been taking letters and, under the pretext that he was going to take the things to the Fortress, collected a lot of money and good clothing and probably became a regular bourgeois in his village. I was not only kept in solitary confinement but was deprived of interviews with both my family and friends. This extreme measure of isolation was only applied to me and to the murderers of Deputy Kokoshkin and Minister Shingarev. All the other prisoners, including even the famous Monarchist, Purishkevich, who became so popular after he murdered Rasputin, had regular interviews twice a week, not only with their relations, but with any one who had the patience to go through the innumerable formalities which were required to visit the Fortress. It was three months later, when the sailor, Titov, became Chief of the Fortress, that I succeeded in getting a couple of interviews. He was very friendly toward me, even to the point of wanting to release me, if I would take him to America with me and find him a job. It was only the news that I got from the outside through my regular "post-office service" and the conversations I had with some of the ministers in my daily but short walks in the yard that kept up my nerve and courage. I had a lot of free hours between time that seemed to me very long and dreary. I tried to read the books which could be had in the Fortress but unhappily the beautiful library given by the former administration for the prisoners of the Fortress had suffered greatly during the Revolution. Nearly all good Russian volumes had been stolen and there only remained a few French books of romance and these burning love stories seemed to me very dull in the state of mind in which I was. pecially the chiefs of the Fortress and the soldiers who were the regular type of criminal burglar, capable of any kind of cold-blooded murder. The reader will be quite astonished to see in one of the following chapters, that these same sailors who uttered such ugly threats against many of us at the time of our arrest—because they sincerely believed that our activity was an obstacle to the happiness of the Russian people, for whose welfare they thought they were working—saved our lives several months later, and in the name of justice did everything they could, not only to protect us against the furious mob, but also to have us released because they had received proofs that the greater majority of us had been unjustly arrested. Among the guards and sailors with whom I had long conversations I found most sensible men, who, in their sincere and simple-hearted way, were more interested in talking about the state of mind and suffering of the Russian peasant than about politics. I must be frank and admit that it was only during my stay in the Fortress that I came to understand what is called abroad "dark Russia" and to realize plainly what these uneducated masses were striving for so hard and why they had now become so desperate. I understood only then their awful and irresistible power which had so easily fallen into the hands of the Bolsheviki and German agents, but I also understood that this blind instrument of destruction was not the only one to be blamed for the anarchy prevailing in Russia. There was, undoubtedly, in the educated classes from top to bottom, a wave of indolence, inaction, and a great lack of patriotism which contributed also to the downfall of my country. One must not forget that during the war the proportion of educated people was very small. The best men had fallen on the field of honour and egotism prevailed everywhere. This was one of the causes of the complete failure of the Provisional Government. After the downfall of Czarism every new Democrat, every new Socialist and every silvertongued adventurer wanted to fix Russia in his own way and to his own advantage, forgetting entirely the welfare of the people and his love of country without which no decent government can be organized. Kerensky was a striking example of this type. I got very friendly with Bergel, an old-fashioned type of soldier who had served nearly thirty years in the Fortress. He had grown to love every inch of this gloomy prison and he took pleasure in informing me that Cell No. 51, where I "boarded," was the same in which Marozov passed nearly twenty years. He also told me that in 1906 it was occupied by Captain L—, accused of having sold military plans to the Japanese a few days before the big battle of Mukden, and who, while awaiting his trial, committed suicide in a very strange way. He took the wire out of the top of his military cap and punctured the main artery of his neck. I told Bergel I thought that was an awful way to commit suicide but he said that was nothing; Mademoiselle S—, of Cell No. 53, had done much worse. She was arrested with several bombs in the Hotel Europe and found nothing better to do than to take off her skirt, pour the kerosene from the lamp over it, and set it afire. The ones who tried to hang themselves by fastening their belts to the bars of the window hardly ever succeeded because they were usually "unhooked," as Bergel called it, in time and taken care of. While relating all these horrors, and many others which I do not remember, he usually spoke in a slow and solemn tone and seemed proud that he had not forgotten any details. He remembered what he called "the good old days" and seemed to regret that the Bolsheviki had destroyed the traditions of the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. The Fortress has a very interesting history. I had always heard about the place as a chamber of horrors, where unfortunate political prisoners were badly treated, died of hunger, and were often tortured and thrown into the traps which led from the cells into the deep waters of the River Neva. After 1905 I read, abroad, descriptions of similar treatment of revolutionists and the details were so horrifying that they made one's hair stand on end. The same kind of literature was published in Russia after the Revolution and gave the darkest pictures of the Fortress life. I was certainly much interested to find out from a witness, who had been so many years in this renowned jail, the truth about all these descriptions. When I asked old Bergel about it he shook his gray head and protested violently and told me that in the twenty-nine long years of his service nothing of the kind had ever occurred. Certainly even the old jail-keeper considered that the old régime has been very severe; very few prisoners stayed long in the Fortress, the greater part of them being shot in the yard or taken to be hung in another place called "Lisii Noss," while others were sent off to Siberia, but he tried to impress on me several times that the ones who were "permanent guests" were properly treated. their party to find someone who would marry them in order to have a visitor. The food distributed in the Fortress in the old days was quite good. Every man got daily eight pieces of sugar, two pounds of bread, and two good meals with plenty of tea. In the Fortress canteen a meal of three courses with white bread could be had for thirty kopeks. It appears it was very good and Bergel assured me that he never remembered a single "political" who hadn't plenty of money deposited to his account at the office. There was a library and the prisoners were allowed to read and write as much as they wanted, but nothing could leave the Fortress. I saw several manuscripts beautifully written and donated to the Fortress. One man even wrote a French grammar with the following inscription at the top: "If you ever get out of this Fortress, you had better clear out abroad and there knowledge of this grammar will be very useful to you." In each corridor of the Fortress, besides the guards or jail-keepers on duty, were posted two gendarmes, whose duty was to enforce the rule of absolute silence and catch the ones who tried to talk or communicate with their neighbours. One of the gendarmes wore boots and as he walked around his steps could be heard by the prisoners, but the other wore soft slippers and could not be heard. The only way the prisoners could really communicate with each other was by knocking on the walls and organizing a kind of telegraph service which I will speak about in another chapter. Bergel seemed to realize that this knocking was the only pleasure and consolation the "politicals" had and acknowledged that often when the gendarmes went to dinner, the guards would allow them to have their "chat," and for awhile the Fortress would sound like a telegraph station. Life was most monotonous. No one ever visited the Fortress except the gendarme colonel, who was the chief of the prison, and agents of the secret police, sent to make investigations about some of the prisoners. The Revolution came like an unexpected blow and changed in a few minutes the whole life and even the appearance of St. Peter and St. Paul. The silent and tomb-like prison of yesterday became a rowdy place. The corridors were invaded by crowds of soldiers, the cells thrown open and everyone released—murderers, politicals, and all; but the prison was hardly empty before new "guests" began to arrive and soon it was full again with all the most renowned ministers and political men of the fallen régime. The release of the former prisoners and the way in which it took place impressed old Bergel very much. He had watched the whole performance with great interest and it seemed to him like a dream. The administration and the guards knew that the streets of Petrograd had fallen into the hands of the revolutionists; they heard clearly the shooting while the fighting was proceeding. They had been informed very promptly about the downfall of the government, but no one realized how great was the change which had occurred until a battalion of engineers took possession of the arsenal of the Fortress with scarcely any resistance on the part of the garrison. Then the whole scene changed suddenly. It was toward eleven o'clock on the morning of the fourth day of the Revolution, just a few minutes before Bergel expected to be released from his night duty, when he heard the unfamiliar steps of several men in the corridor. He saw a few seconds afterward the commanding colonel of the Fortress coming toward him in full uniform with a big red bow in his buttonhole and followed by several soldiers who turned out afterward to be members of the Soldiers' Committee of Petrograd especially delegated for this purpose. "Open them all," said the colonel. In his amazement old Bergel did not know what he meant, and asked what was to be opened. When he found that his chief was speaking about the cells, he rushed to the first one, No. 62, and hastily threw the door open—to the utter astonishment of its occupant, a weary-looking young man called Caraton, who wore spectacles, and had been used for the last eight years to seeing Bergel proceed very slowly and solemnly in everything he did. The colonel stepped into the cell and lifting his hand in the air, said: "You can leave this prison. You owe your freedom to the Russian people who have broken the bonds of Czarist slavery." A few minutes later the cells were all open and the prisoners standing in the corridor silently gazing at the representatives of the Soldiers' Committee who had come to give them their freedom so unexpectedly. By and by they began to walk, just as they were, in their slippers and dressing gowns, down into the yard and out into the street. The prisoners always wore special gray dressing gowns and slippers in their cells; they only got their clothing when they were taken out walking; but at this extraordinary moment no one thought about dressing—they all marched out in these strange costumes, in which for several days they could be seen going about in the streets. An hour later there was not a single man left in the cells. The too speedy release of some of the political prisoners, who were also often criminals, was a great mistake and created much trouble afterward. For instance, the blond young man who was in Cell No. 62, and was the first to recover his liberty, became one of the most energetic Bolshevist commissars. Even the Bolsheviki found him too dishonest; they arrested him and put him back in the same Fortress. The guards were the first ones after the general rejoicing to be disillusioned, for they expected to see the institution closed entirely and to have a regular rest, and when they found that they had to take care of new prisoners who began to arrive late that same afternoon they were not at all pleased. These new occupants were brought from the Duma and different parts of the city in motors and on foot, accompanied by armed soldiers. The first ones to be brought in were General Sukhomlinov, the former Minister of War, and his wife. They were at that time considered the most unpopular couple in the whole of Russia. Then came Protopopov, Minister of the Interior, and Beletsky, Chief of the famous Third Section of the Secret Police, and in less than twenty-four hours the whole cabinet of the old régime, besides several ex-Prime Ministers, were lodged in the Fortress and it became more crowded than it had ever been before. The gendarmes had fled and some of them had been arrested. The soldiers removed the regular guards because they thought that professional jail-keepers might treat the new prisoners of "Free Russia" badly; they therefore decided that each regiment should send a delegate to replace a jail-keeper, and that this man should be responsible to his regiment for the good treatment of the prisoners. Three old guards were kept to show their new comrades how to run a prison, and Bergel was among them. The idea of having such delegates as jail-keepers was certainly a very good plan and one of the rare and brilliant results of the kind-hearted impulses which guided the mass of the soldiers in the beginning of the Revolution, when they were eager to do everything they could for real liberty and justice. I have rarely seen such a lot of nice and well-meaning men as these thirty-six Fortress delegates. Only two of them turned out to be bad characters and Bolsheviki. Later on the Bolsheviki replaced some of them by sailors, but before that, if any of the prisoners were improperly treated it was certainly But to come back to the "Big Nobles," as Bergel called them. He thought that for people accustomed to so much luxury they faced their new conditions very well and never complained, though some of them had strange ways and habits which amused him very much. Minister Protopopov, who had been accused by the press, after the Revolution, of having provoked workmen's strikes on purpose in order that he might have the opportunity of wiping out the leaders of these uprisings with machine guns, was certainly a queer individual in his cell. He was very keen to know the development of events after his arrest and often spoke to Bergel, but he would suddenly stop in the middle of his conversation, strike himself on the chest, and repeat over and over again: "What a fool I was! I ought to have foreseen this." It took Bergel a long time to find out what this former ruler of Russia meant by this sentence. It appears that Protopopov had taken, as he thought, all the measures necessary to crush effectually any kind of revolution with his gendarmes; but he forgot one thing—to cut off the telephones which were occupied by sympathizers of the Revolution and which never worked as fast and as well as during those few fateful days of struggle. The Revolutionary Staff knew all about the Government's plans and were prepared for everything. Protopopov became more and more nervous, declared that he had suddenly become a frog, and crawled and jumped around his cell. The frog game was a way to simulate madness and accomplished what he wanted, for his family, under this pretext, obtained his transfer to a private hospital where he got every kind of comfort. Ex-Prime Minister Gorymikin, an old-fashioned statesman, was a senile old man of seventy-eight and was so weak and feeble that even the soldiers took pity on him and decided that a man who had been Prime Minister so often could not remain in his cell without a comfortable seat; and so a beautiful arm-chair was brought for him. There was not much to complain about in the conduct of ex-Prime Minister Stürmer except that he did not like to remain alone. He kept calling the guards every few minutes, inventing different reasons and complaints in order to get them to send for the officers of the Fortress, and so have people around him. The former Minister of War, Sukhomlinov, who also was nearly seventy, had religious fits—prayed the whole day and often cried and declared: "I am a great sinner. I have not worked properly for the welfare of the Russian people and God has given me the punishment I deserved." He was also much worried because his wife, too, was arrested and kept in the Fortress. She was a beautiful Jewess, suspected by many Russians of being a German spy; but the old man, who had been a great ladies' man in his day, had married quite recently and was blindly devoted to this "mysterious creature." She was his evil genius and involved him in many combinations about which he would never have thought had he not been infatuated so late in life. She behaved very cleverly and soon obtained from the Fortress com- mittee permission to have a maid, who took care of her and Mme. Virubova. The latter was, as one might say, the gem of the institution. Before describing Mme. Virubova's behaviour in the Fortress I must say a few words about her previous life and the important rôle she played in the secret history of the court intrigues which brought Russia to the sad state of decomposition in which she now is. brought by Anna Virubova especially to pray for his health, the boy got better, the reason for which was simple enough as the doctors had prescribed as much sea air as possible and the child had been taken out several summers to the Gulf of Finland. When Rasputin was exiled, the health of the Czarevich got suddenly worse without any apparent reason. It was the dark hand of Mme. Virubova that drugged him and kept him ill until his unfortunate mother recalled Rasputin to pray for her son. Of course as soon as he appeared she stopped her drugs and the health of the boy got better. After the murder of Rasputin she remained with the Empress to the last minute and was one of the first to be arrested when the Revolution broke out. Mme. Virubova was perhaps the only living creature who was unanimously hated in the Fortress by all the soldiers. They would not even speak to her, notwithstanding her amiable and friendly ways. Later on, under the pretext that the guards were treating her badly, she asked to see the Chief of the Prison to complain personally, as she said; but when he came he found her methods of complaining so daring and strange that he refused to see her a second time; he informed her that she could henceforth make all her complaints in writing. Nor was she more successful in her attempts to bewitch the other officers of the garrison. Instead of walking like the others, when she was taken out for her half hour's exercise every day, she took off her clothes and lay down on the grass for a sun bath, which so astonished and disgusted the other prisoners that she had to be taken out alone. She was released in the autumn and was one of the first to take up service with the Bolsheviki. She was still serving in one of the commissariats when I left Petrograd. As time went on some of the prisoners were released and some were transferred to other prisons or hospitals, so only a few ministers of the old régime remained awaiting the big trial which the Provisional Government was planning for them, but which did not occur and, instead, the ministers of the old and the new régimes found themselves, when Lenine came into power, indiscriminately lodged together in the Fortress. #### CHAPTER VI #### KERENSKY IN THE FORTRESS N INTERESTING and painful incident in the life of the Fortress and the one which impressed me most, was the account given to me by several eye witnesses of Kerensky's visit to the famous jail shortly after he came into power. At that time Mr. Beletsky was among the ministers and representatives of the old régime who were incarcerated in the Fortress. He had been the Third Assistant Minister of Justice and Chief of the Third Section of the Secret Police which handled all the political cases and was, therefore, the terror of everyone in Russia and much dreaded and hated. He had, by his cruel measures, done more than any one else to check the Revolution, and was one of the first men to be arrested. He was the centre of interest for all the soldiers and foreigners who came, or who were allowed to visit this fortress prison. One morning the two officers who were in charge of St. Peter and St. Paul passed through the corridors of the Trubetskoy Bastillon and announced to the guards that Minister Kerensky was expected in the afternoon and that he had telephoned orders to be met with all the royal honours. Sentinels were to be put at all the doors and a bodyguard of fifty soldiers, headed by the Fortress Administration, was to meet him at the principal gate. It was a hot July afternoon and the big silver clock of St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral had hardly finished striking five, when five big cars drove into the court and drew up slowly along the dark walls, finally stopping at the gloomy entrance of this notorious prison. Mr. Kerensky was in the second car with his aidede-camp and looked as though he thought he was honouring the world by being in it. The machine in which he sat so proudly was the one used only on great occasions by the former emperor. It was a wonderful Rolls-Royce with silver fittings, dark mahogany woodwork, and red suède upholstery. On the radiator could still be seen an enormous crown. Though it had been the state car of an emperor, Kerensky, the great democrat, found nothing else good enough for himself and used it on all occasions and for everyday business. In the other cars were about twenty men in military and civilian clothes. Followed by this absurd quantity of officials, Kerensky, after receiving with ceremony the report of the Chief of the Fortress, walked up the dark stairs of the main prison into the Bastillon. He shook hands with the first guard he ran across and said to him: "Comrade, Minister Kerensky is glad to shake your hand and asks you to show him the cell of Beletsky." A few seconds later the door of Cell No. 67 opened and the following and curious scene took place. Beletsky, who was just taking a rest, was ordered to walk out into the corridor where Kerensky, a few steps in front of the group of people who accompanied him, was standing. He had one hand in his unbuttoned waistcoat and was trying in all his movements to imitate Napoleon, but succeeded only in looking like an actor getting ready to recite pathetic verses on a cheap stage. He gazed silently for several minutes at Beletsky, who at first seemed astonished but soon began to smile at the sight of this silent oracle. Then, pointing at him with one hand, Kerensky slowly turned his head toward the group of people behind him and asked them to look well at this scoundrel, who had, by his arrests, terrified "oppressed Russia" for many years. He continued: "But I, Kerensky, Prime Minister of the People, want to be just and use none of the disgraceful ways and manners of the old régime toward this ignoble man who has harmed me personally very much. He will be judged soon by the courts chosen by the people themselves and according to the laws voted by the citizens." He then turned to Beletsky and raising one hand toward heaven, said: "Are you not sorry now that I am the Chief of the Russian State? Think how unjust you were to me in Moscow." Beletsky answered sharply that he was not at all sorry because it was his duty to have him under observation and arrested. He informed him that what he had done was the right thing because he was enforcing the laws and regulations of the régime under which he served. "How dare you speak so?" answered Kerensky, quite irritated. "Don't you realize to whom you are talking?" Beletsky replied, in a very quiet manner, that he knew perfectly well to whom he was speaking but what he had said was the truth, and he could not change it. Kerensky with a cruel smile, crossed his hands, à la Napoléon, and shouted: "I can do anything I like with you, but I will not punish you until the nation judges you definitely for all your crimes. I shall only give you a reprimand to teach you another time to be more careful and respectful when you answer the questions of the Prime Minister." He then turned to the chief of the Fortress, a little red-haired officer, and told him to punish Beletsky for the public insult he had given him by putting him in the dark cell. The officer saluted, clicked his heels respectfully, and asked for how many hours this punishment was to be imposed on Beletsky. "Three days," was the short answer. These words echoed through the dark corridors as Kerensky walked away toward another cell to finish his inspection of the Fortress. "Three days!" exclaimed all the guards in utter amazement. In order to understand the astonishment of the guards it is necessary to describe the dark cell and to explain the rôle it played in the history of the Fortress so that the reader will know why Beletsky, who was a strong, middle-aged man, full of life and energy, came out of it with white hair and the walk of a sick man. I had an opportunity later to inspect this "living tomb" myself and was one of the last to see Beletsky before he was taken out of the Fortress and transferred to Moscow where he was shot by the Bolsheviki at the end of March, 1918. He made the following statement concerning the dark cell: "I suffered more in those three days than in all the long months of my captivity since the beginning of the Revolution." supposed to be, were closed by big safe-like doors which were padded on the inside as an extra precaution. The only air came through a few little holes made over the door into the ante-room which was also dark and only ventilated through an air tube and by a few small holes in the ceiling. The old régime which built the dark cell realized what this instrument of torture meant and used it very carefully. Bergel, the senior jail-keeper, in all his long career only remembered a few cases of incarceration in it, and then they were for a few hours only. In the regulations of the Fortress it was clearly specified that the punishment of the "black cell" could be inflicted from two to eight hours. In the most serious cases of insubordination, ten hours was permitted, but not more. Between ten hours and three days there is a very big margin. Mr. Kerensky, who had been arrested several times before the Revolution, not only for political but for criminal offences, knew all this very well when he gave such a long sentence to Beletsky, just because his answer did not please him and he wanted to show his authority. This act of useless cruelty, which seems so revolting and incomprehensible, will probably astonish many in America where Kerensky—unfortunately, through lack of truthful information—is admired and respected; but for those who know what kind of a man he really is and what he did, it is not at all surprising. History will judge Kerensky very severely for he was neither a statesman nor a real revolutionary leader, but simply a self-seeking adventurer, profoundly dishonest, though clever and eloquent. He used Socialism as an instrument to get power. He undoubtedly knew how to sway and excite a mob with brilliant but meaningless words. He could also, by convincing phrases, master certain party leaders, but in everything he said and did there was an evident desire to produce a personal effect and his work, therefore, could not give practical results. In his political career his programme was based on personal ambition and absolute lack of patriotism. He used the Revolution for his personal aims; under the influence of unexpected success he lost his head and dreamed of becoming another Napoleon. This same Kerensky, who in the first days of the Revolution prided himself on being such a profound "democrat" that he could not enter the hall of a house without shaking hands with the door keeper or porter, soon changed to a bad imitation of a debauched and frivolous autocrat. Only for his comfort and pleasure he lived in palaces, slept in the beds of the former czars, drank lavishly of their wines in the company of all kinds of actresses while his wife and children, ignored and neglected by him, lived in poverty and need. Even the great Napoleon respected what was abandoned by the former kings of France and cherished it as historical property of the nation. Everyone who lived in Petrograd during this time knows about the orgies of Kerensky, of Mrs. Tille, and many other actresses, some of whom received a great number of diamonds of unknown origin but looking remarkably like some of those confiscated from the imperial family. Kerensky, as head of the Government, was custodian of the Crown jewels and there were ugly rumours in town shortly after he came into power that he had disposed of many of them for his personal benefit. This was practically confirmed by the Bolsheviki when they came into power and searched for them. Certainly they have not been accounted for either among the valuables sent to Kazan and later captured by Kolchak or in any foreign bank where there are Russian deposits; and Kerensky has never told the Allies that he is keeping them safely for the future Russian nation. To come back, however, to his orgies with actresses. He gave frequent parties and late at night transformed the big reception room of the Winter Palace, where the concert piano stood, into a kind of vulgar cabaret where the most extraordinary sounds were heard. He was a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, who from minister to commander, tried to accumulate all the functions of government in his hands and seemed to think, like Louis XIV; L'Etat—c'est moi. He demoralized and betrayed the army and its leaders; with his politics, hypocrisy, and compromise cost much blood to the country. I am not the only one who believes that he has by his absolute lack of resistance to Bolshevism retarded the progress of democracy in Russia for a long time. In order to keep the power in his hands he was ready to give up everything. One of my friends, who was on the Board of Directors of the St. George's Committee, wanted the Provisional Government to authorize big public festivities on the grounds of the Aerodrome. It was for military propaganda to try and keep up the fighting spirit of the army, which was falling to pieces, and to force the people themselves to participate in the appeal which the St. George's Cavaliers were making to the soldiers not to abandon the front and dishonour Russia in the eyes of the Allies. Kerensky alone could give this permit, but as he was leaving next day for the front and it was very late at night it seemed quite impossible to reach him. All the officials at the War Office informed my friend, with a smile, that it was too late and therefore no use trying anything. My man, who was an energetic colonel, answered, coolly, that if it was necessary he would follow Kerensky to his bedroom. He took a motor car and drove straight to the palace. The two cadets who were on guard at the main entrance asked for his pass, and as he could not produce any, they rang for the servant to take him to the head officer in charge of the palace. After ten or fifteen minutes of hard ringing, there at last appeared a man with a white beard. He was the regular type of picturesque court servant; he wore the old court uniform and decorations and had only taken off the gold medal with the portrait of the emperor from around his neck. He immediately recognized my friend who had been many times before on duty in the palace. Pointing to the clock which was striking one, he said: "What can I do for you at this time of night? Everyone is asleep!" When my friend insisted on seeing the officer in charge of the palace he willingly consented to go and look for him and took my friend to the waiting room. Soon the old man came back. He had been unsuccessful in his effort and could not find any one. My friend talked to him and explained how important it was for him to see Kerensky and get his signature. Soon the old servant became confidential and with a heavy sigh expressed in strong words his disgust about everything that was now going on in the palace. He seemed to think it was hardly worth while to replace a dethroned emperor by a blackguard who betrayed the faith that the nation had put in him. This faithful servant, in spite of his many years of training and love for the palace, did not so much mind Kerensky's living in it as his making it a centre of debauch. At last he confided to my friend that he could not stand it any more and was leaving in a few days for the country. He also informed Ivan Ivanovitch that, as he had known him for a good gentleman for many years, he, personally, had nothing against his trying to reach Kerensky if only the two officers who stood at the door of the bedroom would let him pass. Then in a fatherly way, he added: "Go; you know the apartments as well as I do. Don't say that I let you pass. In the olden days the emperors had soldiers to guard them, but for Kerensky they are not grand enough and he has officers. There may be some of your friends on duty." A few seconds later my friend found himself in the big imperial study where the lights were still burning. On the spacious table of Alexander II, a lot of papers were scattered about in disorder. Everything around was silent and no one was to be seen. My friend realized that, under ordinary circumstances, it would have been dishonourable to touch these papers but Kerensky was behaving in such an extraordinary manner and was acting so suspiciously toward the army that he did not hesitate. What he found gave him definite proof of the worthlessness of Alexander Kerensky. He took two receipts which, with time, will have great value when the justice of the future New Russia raises its hand to punish the dishonest people who covered themselves with a political trade mark to pillage her treasures. After looking carefully through all the papers he walked out and reached the place where the two officers were on guard. They were astonished to see a man at this time of night, but as he was in the full uniform of a colonel, they probably thought it was all right and only saluted him as he passed toward the imperial bedroom which Kerensky occupied. He found him comfortably installed in the big gilt bed reading a magazine which turned out to be *Le Rire*. Kerensky's astonishment was very great when he raised his eyes and saw my friend standing in front of him. "How did you ever get through at this time of night? Even in the day my officials have trouble in reaching me with the strict system of control I have organized in my palace." He could not get over the fact that a stranger could get in so easily; he was much distracted, and hardly listened to what the colonel said. Soon the necessary permit was signed and my bold colonel marched back through the enormous premises of the palace. Every big revolution has its famous and often ugly leaders, but Kerensky had nothing, not only of their qualities, but even of their vices. His career grew quickly because it was based on misunderstanding among people who were not ready to govern themselves and therefore believed the first one who came along. If he had been a patriot instead of a vulgar, self-seeking adventurer, he might have had a great influence on the Russian people, and the ones who listened to his eloquence, if properly directed by him, might have brought the country out of chaos; but he only talked and did not act when it was necessary. While cadets, mere children, and the Women's Battalion made a gallant stand in the palace and shed their blood honestly to defend him as the head of the Provisional Government, he crept down the back staircase, dressed as a woman, and ran away, so betraying his comrades, the other ministers and all those who fought for the salvation of Russia. #### CHAPTER VII #### PAVLOV'S INTRIGUES S THE days passed in successive dreariness, we all realized important things were happening outside the walls of the Fortress. In our everyday life we also felt the influence of the general disorder and many painful incidents and changes occurred in our presence. A nervous atmosphere, full of dread and expectation, reigned in the damp and dark corridors which led to our isolated cells; intrigues prevailed, and St. Peter and St. Paul represented a small but complicated Bolshevist self-government in close contact with the principal leaders at Smolny. The Bolsheviki used the Arsenal in the yard of the Fortress as the headquarters of their military organization. Comrade Blagonravov, a blind but energetic youngster, was made Supreme Chief of their Police and the treatment we received as prisoners depended entirely upon his humour and the gang of criminals surrounding him. At the beginning of our captivity Lenine and Trotsky replaced the regular prison guards by their own soldiers and sailors. We knew they had had orders to be very severe with us and we did not feel at all sure that orders to get rid of us at the first The thing, however, that was the worst of all for us, and we realized it only too well, was that outside of a few old jail-keepers like Bergel, all the young sailors were perfectly convinced that we were really the enemies and threatening obstacles of the peasants. Therefore, from their point of view, our destruction was most desirable for the welfare of the people. When they took us out for our short morning walks, they hardly spoke and looked at us in angry silence, doing nothing to prevent the Red Guards, standing behind the railing, from laughing at us and often making most nasty remarks. By and by, however, after they had been more with us and had seen how cheerfully we bore our privations and sufferings, they came to the conclusion that many of us were not so bad as they thought at first. Soon they became more friendly and quite talkative and took pleasure in discussing various subjects with us. They recognized their lack of education—often consulted us on political questions, and asked about the life and customs of other countries, and spoke very frankly about their own country. Nearly all of the ministers as well as Purishkevich and I soon found among these sailors kind-hearted individuals ready to help us in any way they could, but unhappily our three friends, Titov, Kuznetzov, and Kononov, and some old guards were powerless when it came to opposing the majority of the sailors who were fierce, ignorant, cruel and bloodthirsty Bolsheviki entirely under the influence of Comrade Pavlov, an ignorant drunkard, capable of any kind of crime. He was, my readers will remember, the man sent to me the day after my arrest to make me confess non-existent but necessary evidence for the Bolsheviki in their efforts to create an "American Plot." The Fortress Committee had appointed Pavlov as assistant to the chief of the Prison, who was a small red-haired man called Kudelko, to whom this job had been given because he was one of the few officers who passed into the camp of the Bolsheviki before the fall of the Provisional Government. He took little interest in the life of the Fortress and was only anxious to fill his pockets with the money, gold, and jewels which he found in the private houses he raided in his search for counter revolutionists. The real chief and all-powerful governor of the Fortress was undoubtedly Comrade Pavlov. He associated with all the dark elements among the soldiers and sailors and had many friends among the Red Guard organizers. He had the confidence of some of the Bolshevist ministers because he worked hand in hand with Blagonravov, who used him, not only as his spy, but also to persecute the bourgeoisie and to look after the other Bolshevist comrades who were suspected of not being sufficiently devoted to the cause of the Soviet Government. He was certainly a wide-awake man, and if he had not devoted so much time to drinking he could have made an excellent employee for the Secret Service of the old régime. He had many glorious pages in his short Bolshevist career and he often bragged about them. He had seen nothing of the front except the kitchen of his chief but after the Bolsheviki came into power he suddenly became a warrior and played an active rôle in the arrests of the members of the Constitutional Assembly. He charged, at the head of a squadron of Red Guards, the crowd of peaceful people who were parading the streets in a quiet demonstration against the suppression of the Assembly, and killed many of them. He took part in nearly all the big murders organized by the Bolsheviki and some smaller ones which he arranged for his own purposes. After they took the private banks, many bankers were arrested, and one of them was sent to the Fort- ress but Pavlov would not put him in the Bastillon but took him over, himself, to a small uninhabited house on the other side of the yard. Next morning the banker was found dead and Pavlov declared he had died of apoplexy, but in reality he had been murdered as his body was found all bruised. Some of the sailors told me later that Pavlov and his friends had found a lot of money on this unfortunate man and that was why they got rid of him because they knew he would be released sooner or later and then accuse them. Since Pavlov had become an important person in the Fortress he was very keen to be looked up to and honoured and was jealous of any of his comrades who became popular with the soldiers or the prisoners. He came to hate me after an incident which occurred in the courtyard of the prison. One morning he came to inspect us while we were having our walk and advanced toward me and wanted to shake hands. I refused. When he asked me why I would not shake hands with him—one of the chiefs of the Fortress—when he saw me shake hands so often with Titov and the other simple guards and sailors, I gave him plainly to understand that I did not respect him, but that I considered the men he mentioned honest and to be respected, and therefore I took pleasure in shaking hands with them. Before I can give an account of the underhand work of Pavlov, I must say a few words about the young sailor, Titov, who was such a striking contrast to him and to whose tact and ability we all owe our salvation. He was the son of a poor peasant of the Tambov Government and the first one of the family to learn to read and write. He was mobilized at the beginning of the war as a navy guard and made a very good record at the front as a brave and excellent sailor. He was one of those strong-minded men in whom nature had replaced experience and knowledge of people with keen intuition and a lot of common sense. He was sincere when he fought for the Bolsheviki because he thought they had ideals and were striving for the happiness of the nation, but when he found that they used their power badly, he was one of the first to understand that their doctrine was wrong and that Bolshevism only produced murderers in Russia. When he saw that injustice prevailed in the Fortress, principally through the influence of Pavlov, he was the first to take up the unequal and dangerous struggle against him, though he knew that Pavlov could easily accuse him of being too friendly to us and have him arrested as a counter revolutionist. This later on he tried to do, but it was too late—Titov had gained the sympathy of too many of his comrades whose eyes he had opened by giving them proofs of the misdeeds and treachery of Pavlov. Thus two camps were formed and a lively struggle began in which both the guards and prisoners took part, the latter especially doing everything that was possible to bring about the downfall of this adventurer. Several incidents based on Pavlov's absolute lack of tact helped much to hasten his prompt removal. Pavlov, among the many things he did badly, censored the letters of the prisoners though he could hardly read and write himself. One day Mr. Kartashov, Minister of Religion, wrote a letter to his wife in Moscow in which he said several disagreeable things about the Bolsheviki as oppressors of the Church. Comrade Pavlov was drinking his tea before going to bed at about eleven o'clock when he remembered a couple of letters he had in his pocket and which he had not looked through. He opened Kartashov's letter and the words in which the minister accused the Bolsheviki displeased him very much. He arose and put on his revolver and sword (he always liked to be in full uniform) and walked quickly to the cell of Minister Kartashov who was lying down suffering from liver complaint. Kartashov was very startled when the door of his cell opened and Pavlov walked in, giving him a long lecture on the crime he had committed by offending the Bolshevist Government in his letter, to which he replied that he was free to write what he pleased and asked Pavlov not to annoy him any longer. Pavlov answered that he had not come to annoy him but to punish him and ordered the minister to take a cushion and follow him, which he was obliged to do. Pavlov led the way to the famous dark cell where he locked up Kartashov saying that it was the only place fit for him to rot as a punishment for his ignoble propaganda against honest Bolsheviki among whom he was proud to be numbered. Next morning we were taken out for our walk as usual and knew nothing of what had happened to Kartashov, so when he came out a few minutes later hardly able to walk and looking very sick, we all rushed to him to find out what was the matter and were thoroughly disgusted to hear what Pavlov had done to him. We immediately decided to do something to help our unfortunate comrade and instead of walking around we held a meeting to plan what was to be done. Titov was on duty in our court, and therefore we could speak frankly without fear of being overheard by hostile ears. We declared a food strike and that we would eat nothing until Mr. Kartashov was released. The ministers who had interviews with their families that day refused the small packages brought to them, but they were able to tell them everything and to send in articles for the evening papers. Their friends and relations went away, some terrified and others curious, but all spreading the news in the town. At mid-day when our meagre dinner was brought we threw it out in the corridor. Our guards seemed quite impressed by our firm decision and some of them tried to persuade us not to continue our strike. A certain uneasiness began to be felt among them, especially after they read the evening papers which contained long descriptions of Pavlov's cruelties and of our sufferings. The article ended with these worlds in large letters: ``They are Dying of Hunger!" Soon Pavlov was summoned to the Bolshevist headquarters and before the day was over Mr. Kartashov was brought back to his cell. At eight o'clock Pavlov came back. He had been drinking heavily to console himself for the severe reprimand which he had received. He openly threatened to have revenge and though we had won, we all felt he would give us some bloody surprise if something was not done to get rid of him entirely. After this incident Pavlov put several Red Guards on watch in the corridor, especially to spy on everything the sailors were doing and began a regular campaign against Titov and his friends Kuznetzov and Kononov. When Pavlov decided to arrest Titov he forgot that his former friend Kholodukhin was now on Titov's side. This man was a kind of murderer like himself, but a sailor who could be very talkative and jolly if you knew how to treat him and give him plenty of cigarettes. He was a big strapping fellow with a pock-marked face. He was always ready for some mischief, especially if it gave him the opportunity to take or steal something, and had turned against Pavlov, not for love of justice, but because he was offended by his lack of generosity after their last expeditions to raid private flats. I took advantage of his intense dissatisfaction and made him confidential by painting Pavlov as black as I could. He told me how Pavlov got blank orders of arrest at the Bolshevist headquarters and then dispatched him to find out which of the rich people kept their money and valuables at home. With a few friends they would go to these people, arrest them, and take all the money, gold, and other valuables they could find. Pavlov would have them released in a few days but they never saw their possessions again. Formerly he had divided the loot among the raiders, but lately, under different pretexts, he had kept everything for himself and this was why Kholodukhin, angered by such unfair treatment, had turned against him. I decided to write to a man called Sukhatin, whom I had met in society before the Revolution. He was a nephew of Minister Khvostov and to our great astonishment became a Bolshevik and took up service on the staff of Trotsky a couple of days after the fall of the Provisional Government. He had offered several times to help me so I made up my mind to send him a letter with a full account of Pavlov and ask him to take the matter up with his chief who had so often declared he was ready to take measures against robbers and blackguards. Kholodukhin took my note to the Bolshevist head-quarters and brought me an answer the next day, in which Sukhatin told me it was impossible to take any direct action against Pavlov because he was considered a devoted Bolshevik and an energetic workman useful to the party. Only new elections at the request of the guards could get him out of his present job, but even then Trotsky would give him another one. I told the ministers what I had done and they were delighted. Things suddenly took an unexpected turn. The next morning old Mazik opened my door very early and, creeping up to me mysteriously, told me the revolution in the Fortress had begun. At midnight Pavlov had arrested Titov, Kuznetzov, Kononov, and Kholodukhin, accusing them of being counter revolutionists. All the guards in the Fortress were indignant and wanted to protest against the unjust arrest of their comrades. Several proposed having a big meeting in the afternoon to take the matter up. Mazik was of the opinion that it was high time to elect a new administration and put a stop to the excesses of Pavlov. As there was no time to lose I told Mazik every- thing I knew and what I had written; I explained to him that if the guards and sailors did not choose someone clse at this meeting, Pavlov would put his own people everywhere and we prisoners would be sure to perish. The old man was very much upset by what he heard and called in Radionov, the young soldier who was on duty with him. At first Radionov was rather puzzled but soon decided that everything was simple because they had promised their regiments to treat the prisoners fairly and, therefore, it would be only necessary to tell the Comrades before the meeting what Pavlov was doing and they would be sure to demand the release of Titov and elect the new chief. Such a solution of the problem seemed to us all too good to be true and we sat all day in our cells in nervous expectation because we realized that our lives depended upon the results of the proposed meeting. The meeting turned out to be a very agitated one. Pavlov at first refused to be present but was forced to come. Radionov, supported by the sailors, told him openly he had no right to arrest Titov and the others, and if he did not release them after the meeting they would do it by force. He also told Pavlov that they knew everything about his night expeditions and that he was keeping Kholodukhin in jail because he could testify against him. The meeting ended by Radionov and three delegates being chosen to go to the headquarters to explain everything and ask for the confirmation of Titov's election as chief of the Fortress. Pavlov never expected such a change in the opinion of all the guards. He had to release Titov but he made a desperate attempt to get rid of Kholodukhin. He refused to liberate him before Smolny made an inquiry about the accusation he had made against him and planned to take him, accompanied by six Red Guards, to the head-quarters. This, of course, was only to have an opportunity to murder him, but when Kholodukhin was brought down the staircase, his two comrades who were guarding the gate refused to let the Red Guards come in, and rang the alarm. Pavlov, wild with rage, pulled out his revolver and threatened to shoot them for not letting the Red Guards pass. Then, when he saw the sailors coming from all directions in answer to the alarm, he fired at Kholodukhin, but, luckily, missed him. All this happened while the delegation was at the Bolshevist headquarters, where the description of these scandals made a very bad impression on the leaders. They had to consent to Titov's election, but appointed Pavlov instructor of the Red Guards, whose concentration camp was in the yard of St. Peter and St. Paul. Though we had won our fight Pavlov was still too near the Fortress not to be dangerous. The next day we heard he had been chosen commander of a battalion of Red Guards and we began to expect new intrigues. Titov found his new post a most difficult and delicate one for, after all he was a servant of the Soviet Government and was surrounded on all sides by rabid Bolsheviki and spies of all kinds. Yet he was not a Bolshevik himself, for he had put his heart and soul into caring for us and was ready to do anything he could to save us. Many of the sailors and guards were friendly toward us so that it was not difficult for him to form among them a close corporation working in our favour, but it was very difficult for him to handle the Bolshevist headquarters and the Red Guards, who were quartered just behind the gates and were ready at any time to murder us. Titov was anxious to make our captivity as bearable as possible but had to be very careful not to arouse the suspicion of the Bolsheviki. During the day he seldom spoke to us but when he inspected the cells, late in the evening, he had chats with me and with some of the ministers. He recognized the choice we had made of Mr. Palchinsky as our representative on the Prisoners' Committee and thenceforth every prisoner who had a grievance could state his case. Instead of standing and walking around when we were taken out in the morning, Titov allowed us to get spades and hatchets with which to clear the snow in the yard and cut wood for the fires. We worked with a lot of energy, the most enthusiastic ones being Tereshenko, Palchinsky, and Kishkin. The only one who did not work and usually played around with the very numerous cats was old Bourtzev, the so-called Father of the Revolution, who was soon transferred into the hospital of the Kristy (the largest Petrograd prison) and, later, released on account of his ill-health. The winter was especially bitter, the cold and dampness in the Fortress were intense. I had gotten such frightful rheumatism since I came that I was obliged to sleep all dressed, with my overcoat on; even then I was not warm. The temperature was between 30 and 35 degrees Fahrenheit. There were four or five furnaces in the corridors which were supposed to be kept going by two lazy soldiers, but they did it very badly and half of the time they were absent and the fires out. When the Monarchist, Purishkevich, was condemned by the Bolsheviki to eleven months of public work, he asked to be allowed to serve his sentence by keeping the fires of the Fortress, but though he did his work very conscientiously, he could not, without help, take care of these fires which used a lot of wood and gave little heat. So Titov allowed four of us each day to help him take care of them. Our guards took us out twice a day for this work. Titov and his men took up the duties of sentries as well as jail-keepers and the Red Guards were not admitted any more in the corridors. This did not at all please the friends of Pavlov, who soon began to make very ugly threats. The Red Guards began again to stand behind the railing of the yard and openly said it was high time to get rid of all these counter revolutionists who might any day run away and begin a new agitation against the Bolsheviki. When the sailors asked them to go away, they swore at them, insulted them, and promised to pin them to the wall with their bayonets if they persisted in guarding us so well. All this agitation reminded us of the strenuous days after the attempt against the life of Lenine in the early part of January, 1918, when the Red Guards, inspired by Pavlov, decided to murder us if the Constitutional Assembly was not dispersed and were kind enough to inform us about their decision the day before. The motor in which Lenine drove away from a meeting had been shot at by some unknown individual and one bullet struck one of the rear tires and another scratched the body of the car. This incident was the cause of enormous meetings of Bolsheviki all of whom asked to have several thousand bourgeois killed in revenge. The Soviet announced officially that if any further attempts were made to kill any Reds, two hundred bourgeois would be shot for each Bolshevik. The Red Guards of the Fortress also had a meeting and decided to begin with us because they considered us, as they expressed it, responsible for the safety of each hair of Lenine's head and drew up a resolution which I here quote: In case of any attempt against the precious life of any Bolshevik, the Comrades are to hurry to the Bastillon and exterminate the incarcerated bourgeois: also each Comrade of the garrison must remember that if the Constitutional Assembly, which is to meet to-morrow takes the upper hand, it is his duty as a Red Guard, before he leaves the concentration camp, to go and strangle all the occupants of the cells of St. Peter and St. Paul. #### A PRISONER OF TROTSKY'S Several copies of this resolution were thrown into the yard where we had our exercise so that we might have leisure to meditate upon the fate which awaited us the next day. The suppression of the Constitutional Assembly by the Bolsheviki saved our lives. I personally believe that Pavlov was strongly encouraged in his actions by some of the Bolshevist leaders, because two days after the famous date of the Constitutional Assembly, the news spread in town that we had all been murdered and Titov was summoned to the telephone by one of the more moderate Bolshevist commissioners who asked if everything was all right, and he expressed his satisfaction when he heard that everything was quiet in the Fortress and that the expected attempt had not been made against us. #### CHAPTER VIII #### A GLOOMY CONVERSATION AND A TRAGIC NIGHT HE failure of Pavlov's intrigues, though they brought his removal from our jail, did not put an end to our misfortunes. He continued his underground work with stubbornness. Life for us in the Fortress became even more difficult; everyone thought the storm had not blown over and we all expected some big catastrophe sooner or later. We had all realized from the very first days of our captivity how dark our prospects were but then we bore our privations with more resignation and calm than now. It was perhaps because our nerves were less tired. This new and perpetual strain, in addition to our usual sufferings and to the daily increasing lack of food, seemed almost unbearable and provoked in our tired minds a horrible feeling of vague dread, which grew like a nightmare to such a degree that it affected the health of some of the prisoners. The general uneasiness was increased still more by the fact that our guards themselves were getting nervous and openly spoke of the trouble they expected. They were wonderfully devoted to us and every time the matter came up in our conversations they assured us they were ready to defend us against any attempt of the Reds to penetrate into the Fortress, and that any such attempt would be met by their fire. However, many had not forgotten the murdered banker, and when Titov, who was perhaps the only one of the administration to remain calm and serene, came one night and told us it would be quite impossible for him to let any of us go to church next day for fear the Red Guards would shoot us down on the way to the cathedral in the yard of the Fortress, we all decided our apprehensions were unfortunately well founded. It was easy enough for them to organize such crimes. Dibenko, the Bolshevist Navy Commissioner, was a former sailor of the Baltic Fleet. He was renowned for his misdeeds and was surrounded by a gang of murderers who were always ready to take upon themselves the extermination of Trotsky's enemies. The men of Dibenko soon began their deadly but systematic work all over town. Every time they murdered any one, the Smolny authorities disapproved of it officially but never did anything to find the guilty ones, who openly boasted of having strangled such-and-such a dangerous bourgeois. Many probably still remember the awful news which reached America about the murder of deputies Kokoshkin and Shingarev. They had been transferred a few days before by Titov and some of our guards to the private hospital of Gerzone in the corridors of which special Red Guards had been put by Smolny in order to prevent any kind of trouble and make it quite safe. This, however, did not prevent Dibenko and his gang from coming at night to accomplish their criminal task. They awakened the head guard, forced him to show them the rooms of their victims, and then, in the presence of everyone, shot them down, and the Reds put there to guard them made no attempt even to arrest the murderers. This created a storm of indignation even among the pro-Bolshevist elements of Petrograd and something had to be done to calm public opinion. Smolny could not arrest the murderers who were its agents and therefore announced that the two soldiers who had let the sailors in would be prosecuted. It is difficult to describe how this painful news affected us all when it reached the Fortress a few hours after the death of the two popular deputies. We had all been so glad when our friends were transferred a few days before to better conditions. We had hardly recovered from this shock when we were still more startled and horrified at finding out that their murderers, Kulikov and Baskov, had been brought to the Fortress and were incarcerated in our corridor in Cell No. 52. So they were my neighbours! I was the first one to find it out, the evening of their arrival, from Titov who came into my cell during his evening inspection and expressed his indignation at having murderers brought into his political prison. At about ten o'clock in the evening I heard knocks on the wall of my cell. At first these raps were very feeble but soon became stronger, and undoubtedly came from the cell of the new arrivals. I was little disposed to talk with these vile murderers, but, as they were insistent, I changed my mind, thinking that I might find out something interesting, and began a most curious conversation, which turned out to be a gloomy one. "Rapping" is the way prisoners talk to each other. It is easy and consists in giving little raps on the wall producing sounds which rather resemble telegraphy. For this a letter system is used and it is sufficient to know the alphabet to be able to understand the signals of the neighbour. The first raps are slow and indicate the line (you count six letters of the alphabet to each line); the second raps are slow also and indicate the place of the letter in the line. Several quick raps indicate the end of the word. Thus:— | A | В | С | D | Е | F | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | G | Н | I | J | К | L | | M | N | 0 | P | Q | R | | S | Т | U | v | W | **X** : | | Y | Z | | | | | With practise one can speak very fast but I had done little and it took me several hours to find out what Kulikov had to say. This is about what came out as the raps sounded one after the other: Kulikov: Who are you? I: What do you mean? Kulikov: Are you a comrade of the bourgeois? I: Why do you want to know? Kulikov: Are you one of the ministers so preciously guarded in the Fortress? I: I am not a minister. Kulikov: Are you then a Bolshevik, arrested by some unjust comrades as they have done with me? I: I am neither a Bolshevik nor a murderer. Kulikov: Murderer! Why do you say this word? I: Because you and your comrades have murdered treacherously Kokoshkin and Shingarev. 140 KULIKOV: Who told you this stupid thing? I: Why stupid? Kulikov: Because I would never have killed a sick bourgeois in a hospital. I: What you say sounds generous, but all the papers say openly that you let in the sailors who killed our unfortunate friends. Kulikov: This is not true. I: Some say that you gave the orders to shoot. Kulikov: This is a lie. I: Why did the Bolsheviki arrest you and have you imprisoned in the Fortress? Kulikov: This is a misunderstanding. I: Smolny made an official statement about your arrest and announced your coming trial. Kulikov: This is again a misunderstanding. I: How a misunderstanding? Kulikov: Quite so, for I am not only an honest Bolshevik but an educated man who knows what he is doing. I: I shall never believe that you and Baskov are not guilty until you give me proof to the contrary and explain to me how everything happened. Kulikov: Baskov is a simple, uneducated Red Guard who cannot read or write but I am an educated citizen who has read every book printed in this country. I: Plenty of murderers have been educated men. Kulikov: But not in a revolution. Besides I am a patriot, devoted to my country. I: I do not understand what you mean. Kulikov: It is simple to understand. I: Why don't you explain it better Kulikov: Well, I fought the whole war and desired to serve my country. I have done more: I volunteered to take service in one of the most successful raiding parties in the rear of the enemy. We crossed the Carpathians and terrorized the Hungarians and on the Riga front we raiders burst into the staff of a German division in reserve and strangled six officers and brought the general and a colonel home alive. I: I heard about the famous Leontev and his raiders. His men were gallant and brave soldiers as long as you were one of them. It astonished me still more to see you become a murderer. Kulikov: I am not a murderer, but one who believes that Bolshevism is striving for the good of the oppressed soldier and I took service in the Red Army because I felt that I could be useful in drilling the citizens and making them into good soldiers. I: All this has nothing to do with the tragic death of your victims. KULIKOV: I have a lot of friends at Smolny. I used to go there nearly every day. The military section used to consult me often on the reorganization of the Red Army. I: Why, then, instead of devoting yourself to the reconstruction of the army, did you agree to go to the Gerzone Hospital and do such a horrible thing? Kulikov: A few days ago one of my influential friends at Smolny summoned me for an important political conference. He explained to me that some of the weak-willed comrades were undermining the prestige of the party by wanting to be lenient to the big bourgeois and that such a policy would give courage to the counter revolutionists to lift their heads again. He told me that they had obtained the right to transfer some of the ministers to private hospitals and that this would mean their ultimate release. I: Your friend wanted to get rid of them simply. Kulikov: Perhaps! But in any case Comrade Dibenko and his sailors were determined not to let the bourgeois get the better of them and asked me to take a company of my Red Guards to guard the hospital and follow every movement of their enemies. I: You guarded them badly, because if you tell the truth, it would not have been possible for strange sailors to come and kill them without your knowledge. Kulikov: What you say is not fair. I: Why? Kulikov: Because we had agreed with the comrades that should there be any danger of their falling into the hands of the counter revolutionists, sailors would come to transfer the ministers to a safe place, kill them if necessary, but not let them fall into other hands. I: To shoot them was a strange way to transfer them. Kulikov: Not at all. It was not my fault. Late in the evening when I was having tea, two sailors came to me with a paper from my friend which asked me to show them deputies Kokoshkin and Shingarev because they were to reinforce the watch that night and, in the morning, if further orders were received, they were to take them away to a safer place. The paper was all right and I sent Baskov, the chief sergeant, to show them the rooms of the deputies and fully expected them to come back in a few minutes to talk the matter over. When I heard shots it was too late. I: Why did you not arrest the two murderers? Kulikov: It was too late. I was stopped on my way up the staircase by other armed sailors, who pointed their revolvers at me and, when I protested, told me frankly that I had no right to prevent them from carrying out orders received at headquarters. 1. That is curious. I. What did you do next Kulikov: I went to headquarters and reported about everything. I was indignant at having been involved in such a nasty piece of work, but they told me not to worry because everything was so well organized that no one would have to bear the responsibility for what they called "this good riddance." I: It was certainly neat work. Kulikov: But as you see I did nothing and went back to my hospital regretting the murder but with a perfectly clear and quiet conscience. I: Why are you now in the Fortress? Kulikov: The next day I was called back to the headquarters where my friend informed me that this stupid piece of work had created more trouble than they expected and something had to be done to calm the public or else the irritated crowd might turn against the Bolsheviki. I: What did they do? Kulikov: A statement, as you know, was published and I was asked to go to the Inquiry Commission—my friend told me that even if I were kept there a few days it would not last long—but that is quite different from being sent here with Baskov. I find the joke very bad and have advised my friends. I: What are you going to do next? They have imprisoned you like an ordinary murderer. Kulikov: You need not worry. I shall not remain here long. My friend will see to that and I shall have my revenge against the bourgeois who have compelled the weak-willed comrades to arrest me. I: How? Kulikov: I shall wait a day or two and then give the signal to the Red Guards of the Fortress. You will not be here long laughing at me and calling me a murderer. I: Why? KULIKOV: When they take me out they will kill every one of you ministers and counter revolutionists. They have the list of every one of you and they will not waste their time the night of my release. Our conversation ended here. It was late and I flung myself on my bunk feeling very tired. When I wakened the next morning I heard distinctly ringing in my ears the words: "You will all be killed." I felt dazed and had to make an effort to remember why this curious idea remained fixed in my brain. Radionov, the young soldier who had insisted so much upon the election of Titov as Chief, was on duty that day. He told me that the presence of these two murderers had created a big disturbance in the yard of the Fortress. Several Red Guards had come up to him and tried to find out how far their cells were from the main staircase and had tried to persuade him and some of the other comrades to take letters in to them. All this proved to me that there was truth in what I had heard the night before and I decided to tell everything to Titov. When I finished telling Titov, who listened with great attention, he told me he had suspected them from the first moment of wanting to make trouble and that their presence had created a great feeling of uneasiness among the guards themselves. He seemed very preoccupied but inclined to talk and we had a long chat during which he became very confidential and told me his feelings on many subjects. I was struck by the enormous common sense of this man who was a mere boy with little training but who spoke with more wisdom than many educated people. He said Kokoshkin and Shingarev had been so loved and respected by the guards that the presence of their murderers provoked in every one a feeling of hatred and disgust. They would not talk to them and enforced rigorously the orders to isolate them entirely. This was true of all except one of the guards, a man whom Titov had never liked and who now showed a decided interest in Kulikov and every time his comrades were not there talked to him. Titov said he had given this man night duty and then had watched him and he had seen him go into Kulikov's cell where he stayed over an hour and, as he left it, he put something in his pocket. It was evident he was an accomplice of their conspiracy and it made things still more difficult to have this traitor among his own people. Notwithstanding all these new troubles, Titov was calm and quite cheerful. He spoke about many things and our conversation finally fell upon America. He took a queer interest in the ways and the life of the people and seemed quite fascinated by my descriptions. He asked many questions. He ended by confessing that he had always dreamed of visiting this wonderful country and thought he would like to live there and forget for ever all the disorder and destruction he had seen lately. Then I told him that if I ever got out of the Fortress alive I was going to America where I had left the girl I loved, and expressed the hope of having him go with me. His face lighted with pleasure, and when he left, though nothing definite had been said, I felt that our destinies were bound together, and we had silently confided our lives to each other and that henceforth I could be quite frank with him. When he left me he promised to visit my flat and give to my cook, Daria, a message to be cabled to my flancée in New York. The families of some of the ministers who had interviews that day had heard bad rumours in town. The wife of one minister had gone to the Bolshevist Headquarters to find out the truth and had received from the Assistant Commissioner of Justice a rather clear statement in which he said that, though nothing had as yet happened in the Fortress, it would not astonish him at all if the Red Guards burst in at any time because they could no longer be controlled by their chiefs. That evening, night seemed to come more rapidly than usual, and the two or three hours we passed in the inky darkness before the electric lights were turned on were very painful and dreary. At such moments one lives through again, in one's imagination, all the slightest incidents from remotest childhood. The smallest details, forgotten many years ago, revive so clearly and vividly that it is difficult to describe the profound impression one gets from this "brain reaction." and then dash out during their momentary blindness with a log of wood in one hand and the poker in the other, ready to knock any one on the head who got in the way. Many did not sleep that night, but nothing happened. Complete silence reigned. I passed an excellent night with my piece of wood and basin of ashes beside me. Titov was not mistaken. The next morning the papers announced the departure of Lenine and Trotsky for Moscow and printed their appeal to the Red Guards to fight the Germans who were advancing on Petrograd. The foreign ambassadors had left the city and many of the inhabitants were getting out of town as best they could in carriages and on foot. for the workmen. Finally I fell asleep late in the afternoon and must have slept a long time when I was awakened by revolver shots and loud shouting quite near. It was pitch dark in my cell. My neighbours, the murderers, were shaking the doors of their cells violently and crying: "Comrades, here we are." I very carefully opened the door of my cell just a little, and by the dim light of an oil lamp saw, at the end of the corridor, the dark figure of a soldier with a revolver in one hand and sword in the other. It was the young guard, Radionov, standing sidewise against the wall near the door leading into the yard. He was calling the other guard by name, but there was no answer. He had vanished. What had happened flashed over me. Bataline, who had been so friendly with the murderers, had let the Red Guards through the lower door which he was supposed to guard and now they were only a few steps from us. I heard their voices swearing at Radionov. I saw their bayonets glitter. There were at least ten of them. Then above the noise I heard the silvery voice of the plucky little soldier ring out: "You shall only cross over my dead body, and before that happens I shall shoot down half of your comrades," and he knocked with his sword the bayonet of a Red who was creeping along the wall toward him. Then I heard the voices of the Reds who were pushing their comrades and telling them not to waste time. Radionov lifted his revolver in the the air and cried: "If you don't, I will—" The rest was lost. There were two shots and several piercing shrieks followed by a scuffling noise on the staircase; then silence, which was broken by the footsteps of several men running quickly from the other side of the corridor. Titov and his men had been awakened by the shooting and now came running down the staircase toward Radionov, who was so excited that he was looking around for someone else to shoot down. As Titov stood in the dark, leaning on a rifle, with a cigarette in his mouth, I realized what a narrow escape we had had. The treacherous murderers had planned it well and had foreseen everything, but had forgotten that in the heart of every Russian peasant there is something noble and great which rises when you expect it least and the little Radionov, by his heroism, had proved it once more. #### CHAPTER IX #### "THE GERMANS ARE COMING!" HE great tragedy through which we lived was like a thunderstorm which passes and relieves the atmosphere. We had been saved by mere chance, yet the next morning brought us all together again for our daily walk. Everyone was calm and I might even say serene. Perhaps more danger awaited us very soon but the strain created by the dread and uncertainty of this long-impending calamity had entirely disappeared. Some of us were quite gay and were absorbed looking at the sky where two Bolshevist aeroplanes were manœuvring, flying very low. Others were joking and wondering what these timid craft would do if the enemy appeared on the horizon. Suddenly we heard an awful explosion which made everything tremble around us and we saw a plane flying very fast and high. It was unmistakably a German Taube. I had seen them too often at the front to be deceived. It was flying toward the centre of the city, its underneath part glittering in the sun like silver. Soon two more distant explosions and the alarm signals of the Petrograd factories began to blow. The Taube had long disappeared in the distance when the Bolshevist artillery opened a disorganized fire in all directions and shells fell whistling around us. This frantic blowing of horns and firing of guns produced a curious impression of panic. Many Red Guards passed near our gate talking very loud and always looking at the sky. Some of our own guards crossed the yard in a hurry—none of them paid any attention to us—all had the same words on their lips: "The Germans are coming!" That day no one came to tell us it was time to go back to our prison and we stayed in the yard a couple of hours and then returned to take care of the fires in the corridors. Titov had left early in the morning for headquarters to see the Bolshevist Commissioner of Justice who was leaving for Moscow. He wanted to find out what the Soviet Government expected to do with us in case of danger. As we walked through the four corridors of the Bastillon, we noticed that the doors of none of the cells had been shut and there were few guards around. The door of the room communicating with the apartment of the Chief of the Fortress was wide open and we could see nearly all the jail-keepers sitting in the reception room, smoking and talking about the "coming Germans." Old Mazik was peacefully walking up and down the main corridor holding his little daughter, a sweet child of six years, by the hand. He seemed very pleased and called our attention to the alarm horns which were still blowing. "Listen," he said, "to the signal of danger. They are all running away like ants before a fire. At least someone will come to put out the Bolsheviki and deliver us all." Then turning toward me he continued: "There may be a nice surprise for you too, for you may recover your liberty in the general panic before the Huns arrive." I walked around the corridors and looked into every cell, talking to many people I had never seen before during my captivity. There was Colonel Khomutov of the Izmailovsky Guard Regiment. When I introduced myself to him, he said: "You are the one Raymond Robins had arrested by the Bolsheviki and you are not the only one who was arrested at his request." When I expressed my astonishment at what he said, he advised me to interview Mr. Nicholas Lanskoy, who was also among the prisoners of the Fortress and could tell me personally how he came to be arrested. Nicholas Lanskoy turned out to be a small man with fiery eyes, and a strong anti-Bolshevik. He had taken part in all the organizations which were secretly working against the Bolsheviki and had been instrumental in saving and sending many officers to the south. He had collected money from different sources in order to equip and enable these officers to get to the Don. He told me that everything had progressed very well and that the Bolshevist agents had been unable to lay hands on him until he came in contact with Colonel Raymond Robins. The matter started by a man whom he had known long before and who was then connected with Colonel Robins coming to see him and offering money to his organization In the next cell that I visited were two Bolsheviki. One was Andrew Kazantzov, who was arrested because he took too much money from clubs in which the Bolshevist leaders themselves played. The other was Captain Schneur, well known as the first and last "National Colonel." He played a most impor- were all the instructions he received. He left that same night for the army and went to a place on the northern front where he could get in touch with the German lines. He said he had to walk several miles through the swamps and the trenches abandoned by the Russians before he came to the first post where a German lieutenant held him up with his parliamentaries while he inquired at headquarters. Captain Schneur then described to me in the most fascinating way the reception and dinner given to him at the headquarters of the German division where he was the guest of the Hun general while the latter telegraphed to Berlin for instructions. His host was most courteous, the captain said, and he told me in his own picturesque way all that was done and said on that memorable evening. Two things made a deep impression on me. The first was that the Germans were tired of the war, and the second was that there were excellent cigars and cakes at the dinner. Thus were taken the first steps toward a shameful peace, which was due more to an entire noncomprehension of the Russian Revolution on the part of the Allies than to the treachery of the Russian people. History will some day prove it. After Captain Schneur finished his mission he took an active part, as Chief of Staff, in the expedition against the big Headquarters of the Russian Army which ended in the murder of General Dukhonin. For this "work" he was promoted by the Bolsheviki to the grade of "National Colonel." The Bolsheviki have always said that General Dukhonin's murder was the result of the general indignation among the sailors because they had lost so much blood in taking the Mogilev Headquarters, but this strange "colonel" assured me that it was not true. He said that General Dukhonin, who had been placed by him in his private car, was dragged out by sailors who were especially sent for the purpose by the Bolshevist Navy Commissioner, Dibenko, and his gang of murderers. After General Dukhonin was pierced with bayonets (Schneur said he tried to prevent it), all his clothes were taken off and his body was left, in the bitter cold of a November night, lying on the floor of a freight car. The next morning sailors were seen amusing themselves by shooting at his body which they had placed on the platform as a target. They had even put a burning cigarette in the mouth of their unfortunate victim. Captain Schneur seemed to have rendered so many services to the Bolsheviki that I could not help asking him how he came to be arrested. "Jealousy and vengeance of a woman," he answered, and explained to me how the mistress of Comrade Krylenko, a Jewess named Mme. Rasmirovich, asked him for some "help" before he left Petrograd. It seemed that Mme. Rasmirovich had obtained the right and exclusive privilege from Smolny to print *The Soldiers' Pravda* (the Bolshevist trench newspaper) and wanted to make her business proposition still more profitable by confiscating large quantities of printing paper in the offices of a big Petrograd newspaper. She wanted Captain Schneur to sign the order of requisition and furnish soldiers to commit the theft. He refused both. In her anger she vowed that he would pay heavily for his offence to her and she began to spread the report that he had been in correspondence with the Secret Police while he lived in Paris, and finally persuaded Comrade Krylenko to have him arrested and sent to the Fortress. After listening to many other stories I felt very hungry and returned to my cell to have my frugal luncheon. The general panic had taken possession of the city and the whole afternoon relations and friends of the ministers called, for the committee which usually gave the passes to those allowed to receive visitors was packing and getting ready to take the train for Moscow, and informed everybody that they could go directly to St. Peter and St. Paul where Titov would see what they wanted. Titov and his men were certainly very lenient. For the first time since my arrest I had a visitor. My lawyer came to tell me that I might be able to take advantage of the hurried departure of the Bolshevist Commissioners and obtain my release for money at the last moment, and inquired where he could find friends or relations of mine who would be willing to pay the hundred thousand rubles' bail under which I was held by some of the employees of the Bolshevist Ministry of Justice. Alas, I had no one! Such a big sum was asked because those who took upon themselves the responsibility of letting me out ran a great risk, as my case depended on the Council of the Bolshevist Commissioners. Trotsky and his friends would not hear of my release. He said that the Political Red Cross was arranging releases for the ministers on bail through the Revolutionary Tribunal, where there were many Bolsheviki anxious to earn big sums of money before leaving. After he left I was overcome with despair and anger and could not keep still. I walked through the corridors one after another until I finally came to the end of the last one where I found myself in front of a big iron door like that of a safe. I recognized it as the entrance to the Dark Cell and walked in. As I have already described the interior of this horrible place earlier in my book, I will not again relate what I saw. When I came out of it a few seconds later I was so choked and oppressed by the cold vapour that I hurried down the staircase into the yard because I needed fresh air to breathe. Nervous spasms were contracting my throat. I wandered around and around the yard, and walked several times through the corridors of the lower story of the Bastillon, through its abandoned and dusty cells. Suddenly the idea came to me to see if there was not another dark cell in this part, or some cell with a trap into the Neva. I remembered wild stories I had read about prisoners being precipitated into the river from their dark cells. If such a thing existed it could only be here. I looked around very carefully but could find nothing and was going to abandon my search when I perceived in the last cell, between the door and the outside wall, a crack in something which looked like wood though it was painted dark gray like the rest of the wall. I inspected it carefully and found that it was a wooden partition. By putting two fingers through the crack I succeeded in removing one plank, which was quite rotten and gave way with a loud noise. I saw distinctly something which looked like an iron door, all rusty, with a hole in the place where many years ago there must have been an enormous lock. Quite forgetting where I was, I took one of the bricks scattered all over the floor and knocked out two other planks. It really was a door and was held in place by big nails and a bolt. I soon realized I could not open it without a crowbar or a hatchet. I looked through the hole made by the old lock but it was pitch dark. To be so near the greatest secret of this famous Fortress and unable to do anything exasperated me. I forgot my personal misfortunes and hunted around for some time but finally decided I could not do anything without one of the big iron pokers we used to stir the fires in our corridor. I decided to get to the bottom of this mystery as soon as possible. I replaced the planks, walked out, and hurried back to my cell, as it was late and my absence might arouse suspicion. I found all the ministers grouped in the corridor talking about the events of the day and wondering what would really happen if the Germans came. Some of them, who had had interviews with their people, hoped to be released soon, while others were more pessimistic about it and dreaded what might occur during the next two or three days. Purish-kevich thought we ought not to sit still and wait but to try and do something. He was frightfully excited and speaking very loud in French, insisting upon having a serious talk with Titov to find out what he knew and what he intended to do. He was so sure of the devotion of the guards to him that he thought they would do anything he liked, if only Titov consented to it. When Titov came back from town that evening, we all met again in Palchinsky's cell. He told us that a general panic reigned everywhere and that no one had given him any orders or told him what to do in case of danger. Only Steinberg, the Commissioner of Justice, had asked to see him the next day and had promised vaguely to give him further instructions. We all wanted to know what would happen to us if all the Bolsheviki left the town. This did not seem to worry Titov. He calmly informed us that he had long ago decided to open the door of the Fortress before the Germans occupied the city and added that no one could prevent him from doing what his conscience dictated. Purishkevich asked him what he would do if he found a big mob waiting at the gate ready to shoot us. "I shall walk in front with all my guards," he said, but if it is too dangerous, we shall find the way to get out, unperceived, by some secret door." These last words struck me. What did he mean? Did he refer to the door I had just seen, or was it a guess? I was very much puzzled and did not know what to do. Later, when Purishkevich was talking about the different entrances and ways of escape, he declared that Peter the Great had built a subterranean passage leading out of the Fortress. Instantly I decided that this must be what I had found and I could hardly wait until the next morning to investigate what lay behind the mysterious door. I realized when I inspected the door that it would be very difficult for one man to burst it open. Therefore, I began to wonder whom I could get to help me and could think of no one more reliable and suitable than the old jail-keeper, Mazik; so I talked to him about it in the early morning before he was removed from his night duty. The idea pleased him and he agreed to come and get me in a couple of hours. I shall never forget the few seconds of anxious expectation when, after ten minutes of hard work, the big door began to give way and finally fell with a loud crash and slipped away from us into the darkness. We heard water splash. A wave of dampness met us as we tried to look into the black hole, but nothing could be seen except the top of an iron ladder festooned with cobwebs which Mazik looked at with a grimace and said it was useless to take a bath in this devil's hole without a light and disappeared to get one. He soon came back with a big lantern and we slowly started to descend. I was in front. After I had gone down twenty-three steps, I felt water and then the bottom. I took a couple of steps forward until I came to the old iron door which was sticking up above the water level. I carefully got on it and looked around. Mazik, who was behind me gave me the lantern. Holding it high in the air, I dimly saw the outlines of this secret chamber. We were in a long, vaulted room. On one side the founda- It was evident that we were not under the Neva but under the Kamenostrovsky Prospect, on the other side of the main entrance of St. Peter and St. Paul. It was very hot and difficult to breathe and we hurried on hoping to find an issue with air. We had walked about ten minutes when we came to a wall, and there right in the middle of it stood an iron ladder similar to the one by which we had descended. I feverishly climbed it, but alas, it stopped below a trap door shut with big iron bars, which looked as though hu- man hand had not touched them for many years. I looked at it and shook it violently, but nothing moved. It was evident enough that no exit could be found. As we sat there in profound silence, it seemed to us, after several minutes, that faint sounds of singing could be heard. I thought it was a dream or a hallucination, the result of the heat and nervous strain, because the magic music my ear caught was that of a church service. As it floated back in its dim sadness, Mazik seized me by the arm and exclaimed: "Do you know where we are? No where else but under the Chapel of Christ the Saviour." Suddenly the truth flashed through my brain and I understood everything. It was simple enough. Peter the Great, who built the Fortress, had made a secret passage between it and his famous Wooden House of which he was so proud. He had built it entirely himself. This historic but modest dwelling of the famous emperor-workman is composed of only three rooms in one of which is the renowned Miniature Chapel where every believing Russian, without distinction of rank or fortune, never failed to put a Holy Candle in front of Christ's Icon before undertaking a big work, or after a long illness. The chapel was usually crowded during the day with people, many of whom had come from the other end of Russia to pray. The divine service went on without interruption and was conducted by several monks instead of the usual choir of the Slavonic Church. I had visited this modest house many times and knew how it was arranged. Just behind the chapel was the large room of Peter the Great, and nearly in the middle of it was the wooden platform on which was fixed the model boat made by the energetic ruler of Russia. I now understood why it was put there—to hide the trap leading to the Fortress! Until the Bolsheviki decided to close the churches and make moving-picture houses out of them, they never visited them. Therefore, if I could only succeed in opening the trap it would be very easy to escape. But how? It was impossible—it was awful to feel oneself so near liberty and not be able to do anything. This mockery of fate was too great. I felt large streams of perspiration run down my forehead and body as we walked painfully back toward the Fortress. Unhappily many other bitter disappointments awaited me that day. When I went back to the yard I found the ministers walking around discussing the good news some of them had received. The Bolshevist Headquarters had turned over all the affairs of the political prisoners to the Revolutionary Tribunal, many officers of which knew that Petrograd was to have its own Commune, or Socialist Self-Government, and were, therefore, planning to earn large sums of money on the release of important prisoners and then disappear before the real Bolshevist rulers took matters in hand again. The release of the Provisional Government ministers was a matter of money and the bargaining was going on. Good results were expected any moment. Two prisoners who had boasted that they could pay twenty-five thousand rubles apiece had already been released in the morning. The interview took place a couple of hours later in lay hands on it, though on its side was painted in large blue letters, "Philadelphia Motor Column 13." Daria was very sure that, with the use of a lot of money, it would be quite easy to get me out of the Fortress on bail. My mother and brother were not only far away, but ruined. This was the result of my arrest. A friend of the family, Miss L. Smirnova, offered several thousand rubles, but was absolutely unable to give the large sum the "sharks" of the Revolutionary Tribunal expected and her noble efforts remained without result. Daria went away quite disappointed and not knowing what to do next. Her last words were: "We can only hope for some miracle. God never abandons those who have a clear conscience." The words of the simple-hearted peasant woman were quite true. This miracle did occur, but with her help. The next day while I was busy filling my furnaces with wood, Purishkevich came up to me and told me he had heard from a very reliable source that the ministers of the Provisional Government had succeeded in arranging their release. The gossip was that a big ransom had been taken and the rich ones had paid for the poor. Purishkevich thought only a few old veterans like ourselves would remain and, therefore, it was useless to wait any longer. Such a long period of inaction behind the cold, damp walls of the Fortress nearly drove this energetic man mad, for he was eager to begin again his work in the big political struggle. He confessed to me then and there that he could not stand it any longer and asked me to join him in a desperate attempt to escape which he was planning. I agreed that there was a possibility of escaping if things were properly and most carefully organized, and promised to think the matter over. I was still walking around with my poker under my arm looking after the fires, when I heard behind me loud voices and the footsteps of several men coming toward me. I turned around and saw a curious-looking officer approaching. He wore enormous spurs and smelt horribly of a very bad scent. It was Lieutenant Ogorodnikov, grandly called the "Aide-de-Camp of the President of the Revolutionary Tribunal." He was accompanied by Titov and three very dishevelled-looking creatures with long hair and black portfolios under their arms. I recognized one of them to be Schreder, the extreme Socialist and Assistant Commissioner of Justice. He had visited me in the beginning of my imprisonment. They had all come to transfer the ministers of the Provisional Government in a hurry to the Tribunal and gave them only a few minutes to pack and get ready. While Titov and many others helped the ministers to make hand packages of their things, I went up to Schreder and asked him what he knew about my case and when I would be summoned before the Revolutionary Tribunal. He said he did not think the Revolutionary Tribunal could do anything for me as it only handled ordinary cases, but that mine, on the contrary, was an exceptional one dependent upon the action of the Council of the Commissioners. Therefore no action could be taken concerning my case without the special authorization of the Bolshevist Government. When Palchinsky came to give me a farewell handshake he said: "Your friendship with Titov has made you very well known here. You have made a big career in St. Peter and St. Paul. Everyone is asking to have you chosen *Starosta* (delegate) in my place." Ten minutes later, as the steps of the departing ministers died away in the distance, I realized that hope is a vain word. I was overcome with depression and walked into the cell of Purishkevich, who was busy writing poetry on the wall, and said: "You are right, Vladimir Mitrofanovitch, 'Chacun pour soi et Dieu pour tous'." #### $\\mathbf{CHAPTER} \\ \\mathbf{X}$ #### Purishkevich and Rasputin HE departure of the ministers from the Fortress was a great blow to me. I was very lonely, especially in my morning walk in the yard, so I now stayed out but a short time as I preferred to wander through the corridors with Purish-kevich. We became more and more friendly. He was too nervous to work or go out for exercise and never left the Bastillon where he fussed around the fires from early morning until late at night. I also saw a great deal of Titov. Sometimes he came to see me and frequently I was summoned to his office as *Starosta*, or official delegate, to transmit different complaints which I had received in the afternoon from other prisoners. At about ten o'clock every night, when we had finished our day's work and the guards were dozing just before their release, Purishkevich and I used to have a cup of tea together in my cell. He used to pace nervously up and down with a big cigar in his mouth, while I enjoyed my rest sitting on a cushion in the corner. We talked about many things. Purishkevich told me much about his long political career; his way of speaking was fascinating and over these "late cups of tea," he not only described all sorts of interesting incidents, but revealed to me much of the secret history and intrigues of the last years of the Russian Empire. But the thing I wanted to ask him most was the truth about the famous monk Rasputin. I was in America at the time of the murder, but even there I heard that Purishkevich had participated in the plot and upon my return, though everyone was still talking about the great scandal and there were many different versions of the affair, it was always connected with the name of Purishkevich, but no one seemed to be able to assert anything definite, so I was keen to find out the truth, especially as I had heard a most interesting account of the funeral of Rasputin. The body of Rasputin was found in the river and the story of his funeral is little known in Russia or elsewhere. It was told to me by an eye-witness. The Russian Red Cross Headquarters in Petrograd had put a car at my disposal and had sent with it a chauffeur named Vasiliy. He was a very dirty, badly dressed individual who drove recklessly and talked incessantly and had not been with me more than three days before he told me his "secret" which was that he had driven the Red Cross Emergency Ambulance which took the body of Rasputin from the Islands to Tzarskoe Selo. He gave me a curious description of the funeral of this mysterious creature and bad genius of the Court for so many years. Vasiliy said he was on duty one day when an ambulance was summoned in a hurry by the Department of the Secret Police. He rushed to Small Fontanka Street where the head detective, Philipov, and several policemen got in and ordered him to drive to the Islands. When he had crossed the bridge just behind the Ielagin Palace (the summer residence of the Prime Minister) he was to turn to the left and stop. It was a cold winter's day and Vasiliy tried to warm his hands over the radiator while he waited, for the frost was biting hard. Soon a body was brought out and he recognized Rasputin. The corpse looked horrible. It was all frozen. One bare foot stuck out from under the cover, the matted black hair was all plastered over his mutilated face, and the wide-open eyes were popping out of their sockets. One of the policemen ordered "To Tzarskoe Selo," as the ambulance doors swung shut. Tzarskoe Selo is where the Emperor and most of the smart society of Petrograd lived and is a drive of nearly two hours by motor. Vasiliy tried to find out as much as possible from the policeman sitting beside him, but the man was not very anxious to give any details. Nevertheless, he learned that the body of Rasputin had been found in the canal owing to one of his boots having stuck in the railing of the bridge over which the murderers had thrown him, and that the body was now being taken to Tzarskoe Selo at the request of Anna Virubova who wanted to bury her friend. Vasiliy asked if it was true that Purishkevich was one of the murderers. The detective said it was, but it was impossible to touch him because a grand duke and another highly placed nobleman were also implicated. At last they reached Tzarskoe Selo and the ambulance stopped in front of a small gray house. Vasiliy and two of the policemen carried in the body. It hardly had been deposited on a big table when Mme. Anna Virubova appeared and a curious scene took place. She threw herself on the remains of the monk with loud sobs and began to kiss his mutilated head. (It was evident that he had received a shot full in the face at very close range for it was entirely disfigured). Mme. Virubova's despair was so great that she did not seem to notice any one and continued kissing Rasputin and calling to him in most endearing terms, repeating now and then between her sobs: "They have killed a saint." When her paroxysms of weeping were over she began to wash the body and prepare it for the funeral. Vasiliy said that as soon as it was finished, they were all sent to the kitchen for tea and two hours later he drove the body to an isolated graveyard behind the garden of the palace, where the burial took place in the presence only of Anna Virubova, the policemen, and several priests. Just before he left with the detective, Vasiliy said, a civilian brought a crown of fresh flowers and laid it upon the grave. Wicked tongues have said that it was sent by the Empress, but of that I have no knowledge for Vasiliy did not know who sent it. He only knew, and stated very clearly that the Empress was not at the funeral and that no official person of the Court was there either. All the tales saying that the whole Imperial family attended Rasputin's funeral are pure invention. Later, a wooden chapel was built over the grave, but under the supervision of Anna Virubova. One night when Purishkevich had finished a most interesting and vivid description of what took place in the Duma after he made the famous speech in which he accused the cabinet of being "the thermometer of the Court intrigues," I asked him blankly: "Did you kill Rasputin?" He answered, "Yes, I shot him down," but it took me several hours to find out what drove him to do it and the scheme of the daring plot. I am going to give only a brief account of the death of Rasputin because after Purishkevich escaped from Petrograd he went to Kiev (he travelled over seven hundred miles in a cart disguised as a little Jewish merchant) where he published, because he was penniless and wanted money for his political work, his pamphlet called "How I killed Rasputin." Therefore many know the principal facts of this great historical event, but at that time I was the first one to hear the confession of the famous member of the Duma as we sat between the cold walls of the Fortress. I was very much impressed by what Purishkevich told me but before I relate the tale and give a brief description of the ghastly night scene I think it my duty to say a few words about the character of Vladimir Mitrofanovitch Purishkevich and his life, as a man, a politician, and a patriot. The papers in Russia and abroad were always full of tales about him but little was ever said concerning his private life. Purishkevich is an extremely nervous man but he is most energetic and wonderfully active. He is strange in many things but he is one of the greatest patriots of his time. It was the love of his country which forced him to act when he killed the "Rascal Monk" and delivered Russia. He is afraid of nothing, and exposed and denounced treachery and stealing under the old régime as well as under the Provisional Government, the Bolsheviki, the Ukrainians, and the Volunteer Army. "If you want anything you must see Purishkevich." I walked over to his headquarters, which were very near, and saw for the first time the famous deputy. I found him with a big cigar in his mouth, walking nervously up and down among the wounded soldiers, distributing bread and hot coffee. I went up to him but before I had time to say a word, he asked me if I had eaten anything myself lately and upon answering that I had not, he dragged me to a table where I was forced to eat a most excellent dinner. "You need not say anything," he continued, "you have probably come to tell me that you are short of medicines, bandages, and iodine in your regiment. I have already given orders to prepare as much as possible—but how do you like the veal? It is notorious veal." I was eating a veal cutlet and was much astonished by this question. Then he told me he had been in Petrograd a few days before and had forced the Minister of War, Sukhomlinov, to give him two railroad cars full of veal prepared for some unknown purpose and standing at the station. Sukhomlinov did not want to give it but Purishkevich made such a scandal, threatening to complain in the Duma, that the minister had to give in and Purishkevich got his veal. He finished by saying: "I always get what I want for the soldiers but never without rows with the sleeping administration and the blackguards who are in the government forgetting the needs of the army." Purishkevich and I became very friendly immediately and he helped me out more than once. He was so renowned for his honesty that donations were sent to him from all over Russia by rich and poor alike. He received hundreds of letters a day. He organized, all over the front, canteens, dressing stations, baths, and library trains. Whole regiments could be fed at his canteens as they passed from one position to another. There was nothing his organization could not supply. If a piece of paper was wanted or some extra medicine, it was always there ready to give it. It was the first in the most dangerous places where help was needed in a hurry among the soldiers. Purishkevich displayed such courage and energy that he became the best-known and most popular man in the army. He left his work very seldom and then only for a few days to denounce in the Duma some disorder or lack of efficiency at the front or to get supplies where they had been accumulated by culpable administrators and were lying idle. All of us who were at the front remember the small white books he had printed and distributed by the million in the trenches. They contained national songs which he had written for the soldiers and in all of them you felt patriotism and the praise of the national valour of the strong warrior fighting against the Hun—the oppressor of civilization. Later when Purishkevich was arrested by the Bolsheviki he received the most wonderful tribute of gratitude and respect from the simple soldiers he had saved; and it saved his life, for Trotsky, after what the people said about him, did not dare harm this great patriot because he was so loved. After the downfall of the Provisional Government, Purishkevich remained in Petrograd to prepare insurrection against the Bolsheviki and was arrested in November when the Soviet discovered he was a representative of General Kaledin, the Cossack leader who was moving from the Don toward Moscow, by finding a letter to the General in which he asked Kaledin to come and restore order in Petrograd. Of course that was enough evidence against this "dangerous man" and he was arrested. Smolny had just organized the Revolutionary Tribunal and Purishkevich was the first one to be judged by it. It was decided beforehand that he was to be condemned to death and the Bolshevist Headquarters thought it had taken all the measures necessary to have such a verdict pronounced by "the justice of the people." Hardly any bourgeoise were admitted into the hall and all the tickets of entrance were distributed to simple soldiers and peasants. Six of the best Bolshevist speakers were delegated by Smolny to make inflammatory speeches and support the Act of Accusation. Purishkevich said he found the opening of the trial an imposing one and admitted how much pleasure he found in addressing this proletarian crowd. He asked to speak first so that he might have plenty of time to say anything he wanted. His speech was a brilliant one but was not at all a defence of himself but was rather a strong and eloquent condemnation of Bolshevism. He did not deny writing the letter in question, called the Bolsheviki a gang of murderers and outlaws who had deceived the Russian people whom he loved and in whom he had faith. His eloquent words produced a favourable impression but the Bolsheviki were not disturbed as their silver-tongued orators spoke after him calling him an "enemy of the people" and urging the jury to condemn him to death. After the Bolshevist witnesses, Purishkevich got up and said: "I do not want to boast about my work but perhaps there is someone in this hall who saw me at the front and who might tell the truth about my devotion to the people in whose eyes you are now trying to blacken me." Then a curious and unexpected thing happened. More than fifty soldiers asked to testify. As they spoke about Purishkevich, one after the other in their simple and sincere way, and told how he had been like a father to them and had had real pity on the suffering peasants in the trenches and had done more to help them than any one else, the audience became restless and soon they began to look at Purishkevich and applaud him after each orator had finished speaking. On all sides could be heard the words, "It is a shame to try such a man." In the deliberation room the majority of the jury declared that it was only fair to acquit him. There was quite a panic among the Bolshevist leaders who began to telephone to Smolny for instructions. After six hours of discussion and even threats the Bolsheviki could only make the judges condemn Purishkevich to eleven months of public work with reduction to nine months, if in that time he did not do anything against the existing régime. This was far from a death sentence and Purishkevich's case discredited at once the Revolutionary Tribunal. Purishkevich is not a blind Monarchist, who only "Unhappily there happened with this weak-willed Nicholas what had occurred often before—he changed his mind under the influence of others who were afraid of losing their power. Then I understood that Nicholas II was an evil and powerless ruler; and I, the leader of the Monarchists, turned and came to hate my emperor; and I decided to act and deliver Russia from Rasputin." Purishkevich at once began an underground campaign in political circles against the intrigues of the monk and got the sympathy of many prominent men. The idea of killing Rasputin as soon as possible haunted Purishkevich. The first man to whom he spoke, as soon as everything was organized, was Khrastov, Minister of the Interior, who had quarrelled with Rasputin. The answer of the old régimist was simple and original enough. He said: "I cannot help you, unhappily, but I promise to shut my eyes to everything you do—you just go ahead." It was easy enough for a minister of the Russian Empire to say "Go ahead," but for any one who did not control the army of detectives of the famous Third Section it was not so simple, and Purishkevich realized it only too well. He remembered clearly the disturbance created among Rasputin's followers and the profiteers who lived and sponged through his influence when a woman tried to kill him. He never went out alone and it was impossible to lay hands on him without a trap of some kind into which he could be persuaded to walk voluntarily. One must not forget that this ignoble individual was closely guarded at the request of the former Empress by the best detectives of the Court, by the detectives of the Ministry of the Interior, and by the detectives (the very best that could be had) of the banks. What banks could have to do with Rasputin will sound incomprehensible but unfortunately it was true. They were keenly interested in seeing Rasputin's influence strengthened. A gang of profiteers—headed by the banker, Michel Rubinstein, who was an intimate friend of Rasputin and a companion in all his orgies and known under the nickname of "Mitka"—used the rascal monk to cover their criminal speculations. The filthy monk, heavily subsidized by them, had, through his influence, caused to be removed the ministers who were honest enough to struggle against this gang of men without faith or love of country, and when the criminal police arrested "Mitka," Rasputin intervened and he was released. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand how precious to these speculators was the life of their *Ange gardien*. Long before the downfall of Czarism the only man besides Purishkevich who openly struggled against "the dark influences" of Rasputin and his followers, was the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievich, against whom, when he was Commander-in-Chief of the Russian armies, there were many Court intrigues and plots in consequence. One of the many things which made the Grand Duke so popular among the soldiers was his answer to Rasputin's telegram when that treacherous creature telegraphed for an interview thinking that he had gained sufficient influence among the German party of the Court—the bad advisers of the Empress—to be able to impose a compromise between his "gang" and the energetic Grand Duke who was renowned for his hatred of the Germans. The Grand Duke's answer was short and certainly clear: "Come; I shall hang you." Purishkevich knew all this and realized how difficult it was for him to reach Rasputin when the best and most honest men in Russia like Nicholas Nicholaievich, Samarine, and General Djounkovsky had fallen through his influence, so Purishkevich suffered in silence for some time but he finally lost patience and denounced in the Duma, on the nineteenth of November, 1916, all the anti-Russian plots of the scheming monk. A thrill of horror and disgust passed from one end of Russia to the other. His speech was a very bold and courageous act and many Russians openly expressed their admiration. Among those who telephoned to him the next morning to congratulate him was Prince Yusoupov-Sumarokov, husband of the beautiful Grand Duchess Irene, who asked Purishkevich if he might come and see him on some business concerning Rasputin. He came; Purishkevich found him a very clever and sensible young man who said that little could be done with words; it was necessary to act to rid Russia of Rasputin. "Act!" repeated Purishkevich, "I have been dreaming for a long time of killing Rasputin. Several years ago I urged General Didulin to find a pretext to put a stop to the existence of this dangerous monk. I am ready to do it, but how?" At these words the young prince rose and shook his hand warmly telling him he could count on his assistance and that of another friend of his—it turned out to be the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich. "Rasputin," continued the Prince, "has confidence in me. He thinks I am a reliable young man. He offered to 'assist' me in my career but I detest him and I have an excellent way of getting him into a trap." It was known in many "gossip" circles in Petrograd that the dark monk had expressed several times his admiration for the beautiful wife of the Prince, and Yusoupov now disclosed to Purishkevich the fact that Rasputin had also made known his desire to meet the Princess Irene who was now in Crimea. Therefore, it was the best time for them to act. After several meetings, Yusoupov, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, and Purishkevich decided to make use of this "wish" of Rasputin to bring him to the Yusoupov Palace to meet the "absent wife" and then murder him. Rasputin, who was usually very cautious and refused many invitations, got fooled by this "private little party" arranged for him to meet the Princess. It was all most carefully planned. Two other men were to take part in the affair: Doctor Lazavert and an officer named Sukhotin. When Purishkevich came to this part of his story, he got so excited that he began to pace restlessly up and down the cell, never stopping except to take a puff of his cigar or give a nervous twitch. It was very difficult to follow his description. The plot itself, as I understood it, was simple enough: Purishkevich, the Grand Duke, and Prince Yusoupov were to get Rasputin into the parlour where he was to wait for the Princess, who was to leave her other guests and come in to see him for a few minutes. The Grand Duke and the Prince were to entertain Rasputin while he waited and were to offer him a drink of wine with poisoned cakes. On the fatal night all the palace servants were sent away and only a phonograph and a piano were to be used to produce the effect of a party really going on in the neighbouring room. They hoped that Rasputin would eat some of the cakes at once and that the poison would take effect very quickly and then it would be possible to throw his body into the water of some deserted part of the islands. For this purpose they had arranged to have Purishkevich's motor, driven by his private doctor, Lazavert, backed in through the yard of the palace at a place where it would be easy to bring down the body of Rasputin under the pretext that he was too drunk to walk. They felt sure of the success of their scheme because Rasputin had consented to come alone. Purishkevich expected to leave the next morning for the front in his sanitary train. Many members of the Duma had often expressed a desire to inspect this train and he had arranged for them to come just before he left so as to avert suspicion. Everything turned out quite differently from the way in which they had planned. When the fatal evening of December seventeenth (old style), 1916, came, it was bitterly cold, the air was crisp and frosty and the sky was a beautiful deep blue such as one often sees in Petrograd. Purishkevich and the other plotters were gathered much before the appointed time in one of the back parlours of the dimly lit palace. In the room there stood a table with wine and cakes. Part of the cakes were all right and these were covered with white icing, but the pink cakes were poisoned and were mixed in with the ordinary ones. Rasputin lived quite near, on Gorokhovaia Street, but he was late and there was nearly an hour of anxiety, for Purishkevich had to leave the next morning for the front, and if the monk did not turn up another such opportunity could not be found for a long time. At last they heard the heavy footsteps of Rasputin in the hall, which he had entered from the garden, through which he had come. The Prince rushed to meet him and the phonograph was set working. Purishkevich waited hidden behind a column of the staircase near the room where the monk was to meet his end. Rasputin hurriedly threw his beautiful sable coat on a chair and walked up the stairs. He was dressed in a dark velvet costume consisting of a noddevka (coat) and the sharavari (trousers or Russian bloomers), with high, varnished boots and a silk Russian shirt. His beard was nicely clipped and perfumed with the best of scents and he was far from being the dirty, smelly muzhik so often described. His first words were: "Where is she?" To this the Prince answered that his wife was coming in a few minutes as soon as she could leave her guests in the next room, and asked Rasputin to sit down and have a little wine with pastry. Then took place the famous scene of the pink cakes. At first he refused to take anything, angry at the idea that the Princess was making him wait; but soon, seeing that the others were having wine and pastry, he began to drink lavishly and eat cakes, swallowing them one after the other and always saying, "Where is she?" As the pink cakes began to disappear into the mouth of the monk, to the utter astonishment of the plotters the poison did not seem to produce the desired effect and the rascal continued eating and drinking copiously. They could not get over it and did not know whether they had simply mixed the poison badly or whether it was bad. (Maklakov had furnished the stuff, I was told recently in Paris, and it was no good—it was his only chance to act properly instead of talking uselessly, but he made of it a ridiculous failure). The Prince came out of the room several times under the pretext of hurrying his wife but really to consult his friends what was to be done next. Under the influence of the liquor Rasputin was getting not only impatient but also angry and he soon got up ready to go away. He felt that something was wrong and repeated several times that they were making fun of him. Purishkevich urged the Prince not to lose any time. The hour of vengeance and justice had come. (Here Purishkevich stopped in his story to re-light his cigar. I was so thrilled I could not keep quiet. I jumped up. His nervousness had affected me, I put my back flat to the cold wall and gazed at him for I felt like a man who does not know whether he is dreaming or not. The cell was full of smoke from his cigar and I felt an awful oppression.) "Well, what happened next, Vladimir Mitrofanovitch?" I asked anxiously. He continued. The Prince pulled a small Browning revolver out and walked straight up to Rasputin and fired several times but his hand trembled and the young nobleman showed great signs of emotion while he was firing. The monk staggered and fell with a loud crash to the floor on his back where he lay with his eyes wide open but giving no sign of life. He seemed dead all right enough when Purishkevich came up to him and stood inspecting his body. In the meantime the nerves of the young Prince had absolutely given way and he threw himself on a sofa. Suddenly one arm of the monk moved, he blinked several times and began slowly to rise and stood leaning with one hand on the table where the wine bottles and the remaining pink cakes were still standing. He began to look around slowly and when his eyes met Purishkevich's he made an effort to move and to speak, his eyebrows contracted and a look of hatred flashed through his glassy eyes which he kept fixed steadily on Purishkevich. Then he spoke, and his voice sounded hollow and dead as though it came from a tomb. He told Purishkevich that he had not finished with him and that this would cost him dearer than he thought. "You have made a great mistake," he said as he moved slowly toward the doorway with heavy tread. In the meantime the Prince had not got his emotion under control and was lying prostrate on the divan and Purishkevich could neither calm him nor make him see that there was no time to lose and that something had to be done instantly before everything was lost. As he spoke he heard Rasputin rattle down the staircase and knew that in a few seconds he would be in the yard which led into the street where there was a policeman standing, and it would be enough for the gorodovoi to give one signal with his whistle to get all the policemen standing along the Nevsky Prospect. Purishkevich felt that he had to act. Pulling his revolver out he ran after the monk who had already crossed three fourths of the yard, and, as the latter turned to see who was after him, fired at such close range that the bullet which struck Rasputin's head disfigured his face and he fell, this time never to rise again. "So at last Rasputin was dead," continued Purishkevich, "but the revolver shots we were so anxious not to let anybody hear had echoed through the deserted street." Something had to be done about the gorodovoi whose attention must have been attracted by the noise. After a moment of hesitation the slayer of Rasputin ran into the street where he found himself face to face with the policeman and the following conversation took place. Purishkevich: Do you know who I am? POLICEMAN: Yes, Vladimir Mitrofanovitch—who does not know? Purishkevich: Are you a patriot? Policeman: Why, yes. Purishkevich: Do you love your emperor and your country? Policeman: Certainly I do. Purishkevich: Well I, Purishkevich, have just killed Rasputin to save our country. If you are a patriot you will not betray me. If you are an enemy to your fatherland you will give the alarm. The poor soldier was so amazed that he lost his speech. Then his hand slowly rose, not to seize the whistle hanging around his neck, but to give the military salute to the man who had delivered Russia. There he stood, silent and rigid, as though the Czar himself was passing—the solemn and respectful witness of the first step toward the liberation of Russia. The next thing to be done was to hide the traces of blood in the yard because there was quite a pool when Purishkevich and the others took the body of the rascal to the motor. So the poor watch dog, which, during all the tragedy had been faithfully doing his duty and barking from his kennel, was killed and put on the place where Rasputin had fallen and it was decided to satisfy the curiosity of the servants and others by saying that the dog had gone mad and, getting loose from his chain was going to bite Purishkevich when the latter pulled his revolver and killed him. Then Purishkevich finished the description of the tragedy by telling me how he and the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich had transported the remains in their car and threw them into the water, but in the hurry, did not notice that one boot got stuck in the railing of the bridge and this "unfortunate boot" made it possible for the police to trace the place and find the body. When I asked Purishkevich what the Grand Duke was doing during this ghastly enterprise which came so near being a complete failure, he answered with energy: "My first condition when we planned this thing was to keep the Grand Duke from participation in the killing itself. I did not want royal hands to be stained by the blood of traitors and I am happy to think that they were not." The big clock of the Fortress slowly struck three. The hours had flown like minutes. Purishkevich looked at me and asked: "You are not sleepy? As for myself I am so nervous that I can hardly sleep a wink, so don't mind me if you are happy enough to be able to do so. Well," he continued, "I have had the greatest moral satisfaction in having done my duty as a patriot to the bitter end. I gave a last chance to the Emperor to save our country but again and again his lack of will power brought about his ruin." Nicholas II almost danced a jig when he heard about Rasputin's death. He was never so gay as on that day. Then was the time when he should have removed the Empress and sent her to some convent, and rebecome the Emperor of his people, throwing aside all the pro-Germans who had made a wall around him and used Rasputin as their principal agent. Much has been written and said about the life and rôle of Rasputin. It is difficult to find two opinions alike. Some make of him not only the dark devil of Czarism but almost the head agent of the German General Staff, attributing to him and to his "gang" many secret machinations, even including the bringing through of a separate peace with the Huns. Others, on the contrary, simply considered him a vulgar instrument in the hands of the tricky and debauched Anna Virubova who wanted to keep her influence at court, but she was also very closely connected with the so-called German party of the Baltic Provinces—"quasi Russians," who think and usually act in German. They were the real agents of the German penetration and these same "Baltic citizens"—who flatter the Allies and talk of "Independence"—really dream day and night of making Russia a slave to their personal interests. If these people, now hiding behind the torn flag of unfortunate Russia, are doing everything they can to throw a powerless Russia into the hands of the same Huns who imported Lenine, it is quite natural that they should have made use of Rasputin, Virubova and Company as they were anxious to paralyze the Empire in its struggles against Germany. Concerning Rasputin himself, it is evident that through his greed for money he had become a German agent and played a big rôle in the secret pourparlers organized by Protopopov and his followers for a separate peace. Lately evidence has been found in Paris of all the machinations of Protopopov and his traitor friends who worked in France and in Switzerland. The time is very near when all is to be published and the world will know the real Russians from those who have played a double game. These low creatures are just as despicable as Rasputin and have no moral right to participate in the regeneration of Russia. #### CHAPTER XI #### WE ARE DISCOVERED HE Bolsheviki had signed the disgraceful Peace of Brest-Litovsk and the danger of a German advance on Petrograd had vanished. Little by little life in the city became more or less calm. The local soviet again set to work and we were on the eve of seeing the Independent Commune of Petrograd proclaimed with the most rabid Bolsheviki at the head like Zinoviev, Kamenev, Uritsky, Parvus, and Zorin; (the real names of these men are: Apfelbaum, Rosenfeld, Radomilsky, Goldsand and Gumberg). We knew perfectly well that as we had not been able to make use of the general panic to escape, we had little to expect from these men who could only starve us to death in the Fortress or have us shot at the first opportunity. I realized perfectly well that personally I had no chance to get out alive unless I did something in a hurry. Every time Purishkevich met me during the day or came into my cell he had but one sentence on his lips: "I cannot stand such inactivity any longer. Big events are developing outside. If I stay here I shall go mad. It is better to risk an escape. After all, it is better to be shot down than suffer like this—yet there is little chance or hope of succeeding." He urged me to join him and, as the same idea had been in my mind for a long time, I soon consented. We decided to escape, but it is much easier to say than to do in the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, from which no one had ever succeeded in getting away. Purishkevich was getting very nervous and wanted to attempt it as soon as possible, but I convinced him that it was impossible to do it successfully without careful preparation. We certainly could not attempt this daring dash for liberty without the assistance of outsiders and some of the guards. Therefore, we needed money, revolvers, and accomplices—three most difficult things to get. Furthermore, another thing worried me. It was Titov. He had been so wonderful to me that I did not want to create trouble for him and perhaps expose him to great responsibility, for the Bolsheviki might, after our escape, concentrate all their anger and vengeance on the head of this man who had shown to many of us so much sympathy. Purishkevich and I discussed various schemes for several days before making a definite plan. He insisted on including in the plot a young officer called Baron Bode (a Baltic Russian) who had been arrested with him, tried and condemned to the same penalty. I was against it because I did not think he was a reliable man. Purishkevich, on the contrary, had absolute faith in him and seemed quite sure he would be very useful not only in preparing our escape but especially afterward during the first days of our liberty. He turned out later to be a traitor. He bought his freedom from the Bolsheviki by betraying us. I had no one outside of our dreary walls to help me except my cook, Daria. Purishkevich, on the contrary, had many devoted people belonging to his political organization working outside, and soon he had a large sum of money in his hands. He got it through a guard, the same Radionov who saved us before. Purishkevich had great influence over some of the guards. He knew how to talk to them and he had converted some of them from Bolshevism to milder ideas. In any case Radionov had consented to share our fate and leave the Fortress with us. The plan of escape was simple enough. To get out of the Fortress it was necessary to pass four posts, each one more dangerous than the preceding one—the guard of the corridor, the sentinel of the gate, the guard of the big yard of the prison, and the sentinel of the bridge leading to the small door of the Fortress. Two of the posts could be eliminated by deception or persuasion; the other two had to be done away with by violence. The most difficult place to cross was the inside gate which separated the Bastillon from the rest of the Fortress, for it was locked and the enormous key which opened it was always fastened by a chain to the belt of the guard who had at night a sentry box in which he sat down and often fell asleep, but he was so near the house of the guard, to which he was attached by an alarm bell, that it was impossible for us to get out unless we got his keys, as the slightest noise or sound of struggle would give the alarm. Therefore, the only thing to do was to strangle him noiselessly. The last post was on the bridge outside of the Fortress leading to the small entrance which gave on a deserted part of Petrograd, and was one of the most difficult places to cross, as only motors with ammunition and trucks passed on special permit; but, to reach it, quite a stretch of ground had to be crossed, immediately outside the wall, along which there was a large avenue with several half-built houses. Therefore, if the sentinel resisted he could be shot down and if the noise of the shots attracted people it would take at least five minutes for help to come, which would give us just enough time to run across the avenue and then through the yards of the buildings to any of the three streets in each of which a motor was to await us for further flight. Radionov and others had gotten passes for us in case the sentinel in the big yard of the fortress should stop us and we were to go one at a time. The escape was to take place the day he was on duty and he took it upon himself to hold the other guard in conversation while we were leaving the Bastillon, the inside doors of which he was going to leave open. Once free we were to meet somewhere to work out a plan for further action. Baron Bode offered to arrange a hiding place on the property of one of his friends some forty, miles from Petrograd. He assured us that it was surrounded with woods, where, in case of the appearance of the Bolsheviki we might hide very easily. I was to disguise myself as a soldier and was going to America through Siberia and Vladivostok as soon as possible. Everything was ready and the day was fixed. One problem still preoccupied me. It was Titov. Purishkevich had received revolvers for us which he kept hidden in the reservoir of the lavatory. He was equally anxious not to harm Titov by our flight and told me he would try to persuade the sailor to take a big sum of money which would enable him to disappear also and live somewhere quietly far from the Petrograd Bolsheviki. I was against offering him money because I knew that it would be useless. He was too honest and too great an idealist to be bribed, and as it turned out I was quite right. The following night Titov came into my cell and told me with a smile that Purishkevich had tried to give him a big handful of banknotes and he added: "You cannot do anything with me on such a basis. I have been offered colossal sums by different people since I have been in the Fortress." I did not think that Purishkevich had been at all prudent for he had not told Titov our plan and only tried to buy his sympathy. I tried to be a diplomat and expressed my indignation, adding that the deputy was getting so nervous that he might do something at any moment that would compromise us all. I talked a long time about everything except what I wanted and in the middle of a long description of the New York houses I suddenly said to him: "What a pity I shall never again myself see or be able to show you America—the home of ideals and liberty—for now, through the lack of judgment of Purishkevich, I am doomed to perish." This sentence astonished him and he looked at me silently as though he was making a decision which was causing him a tremendous struggle. Then he said slowly: "If you ask me to help you, it is quite a different thing. You have promised to take me with you to America. I do not want any money from you. America is my dream. Your further presence in the Fortress can only bring you to a tragic and sad end. You have always been most friendly to me and I want to save you. Take me with you." I knew Titov had always showed me a lot of sympathy but I did not expect such a proof of devotion. I was so touched that I could hardly speak for emotion and had to make an effort to answer this kind-hearted sailor. I assured him I would not leave for the States without him. After his declaration there was nothing to do but take the last daring step and disclose all our plans. He promised to assist us by getting all kinds of Bolshevist documents and papers without which it would be impossible to circulate after our escape. He told me he expected to take a few days leave at the time of our escape because the man who would replace him was a drunkard who always played cards late at night and certainly would be absent or drunk the night we had chosen. Titov made one condition—that none of my comrades were to know anything about his assisting me and I was to join him in a different place after I separated from Purishkevich and Bode. Only four days separated us from the decisive moment of our dash for liberty. I got frightfully restless. I could not sleep. My nerves were so tense that I suffered agony every moment of the day and the night. My rheumatism, the result of the dampness, began to tell on me badly. Though I had made my decision and nothing could change me, I had, at the same time, a queer feeling of despair and apprehension that fate would go against us. Purishkevich was so excited at the idea of beginning his political struggle again that he had no time to think about anything else. As for Bode, the placid Baltic baron, he looked at it all like a pleasure party which was sure to succeed and bragged so much about his skill in strangling people and shooting down any one he pleased, that somehow it made me suspicious. Two days later, late in the afternoon, Titov came in. He was so pale and disturbed and upset me by these words: "You are discovered! There must be a traitor around." He explained to me he had just come from Smolny and there was no time to lose. Every proof must be at once removed for at any minute the agents of the Extraordinary Inquisitory or the Chrezvychaika of Derzhinsky might walk in, and then we were lost. Money, revolvers, documents, maps, and wigs had to be removed and Titov did it at once. He said that when he went to Smolny that afternoon some of his friends told him the Bolshevist detectives had laid hands on a big Purishkevich-Kalpaschnikoff plot for escaping from the Fortress. The proofs were already in the hands of Derzhinsky, the renowned president of the Extraordinary Commission organized to struggle against the counter revolutionists and enemies of the Bolsheviki. They knew the details, not only of the plan we had worked out, but also their statements about the sums of money Purishkevitch had received were so precise that there could be no doubt about the treachery of Bode. This Baltic baron, who had the confidence of Purishkevich, had sold us to the Bolsheviki and he very soon received his reward for the Bolsheviki liberated him very soon after we were discovered. (Later Purishkevich learned that it was Bode who informed on him when he was arrested the first time.) Titov realized that there was no use asking for leave. The only thing to do was to help us get out of this awful situation for it was evident that Derzhinsky, a bloodthirsty Bolshevik, who often killed people without any kind of reason, would not hesitate to have us shot on the slightest pretext—and here he might find real evidence. Titov removed everything in time but it was a close shave, for half an hour later two body guards, each of ten men, came to fetch Purishkevich and me. They belonged to the Derzhinsky Chrezvychaika and looked frightfully rough. We were not allowed to touch any of the things lying around in our cells except our coats, which were care- fully searched before we were allowed to put them on. Our new guards refused to answer any questions. Purishkevich left first and all I knew of his departure was the signature of the chief of the body guard in the register of the Fortress: "One person received by the Extraordinary Commission." One could feel spring in the air but mountains of dirty gray snow were lying all over the streets which had not been repaved, were full of holes, and looked more like country paths than city streets. We walked along the quay of the Neva, crossed the Palace Bridge, and at last arrived at the Shpalernaia, opposite the Palace of Justice which had been burned during the first days of the Revolution. Behind the Palace was the *Predvorilka*, or prison where criminals awaited trial, in which we found ourselves a few minutes later. It still bore the traces of the revolutionary fire and was a most dreary-looking place, and at the sight of it, as I did not know what was going to happen, I was nearly regretting "the dear old Fortress." I was locked into a very small and most dirty cell on the fourth floor. It was very stuffy and near an enormous place with huge iron bars which looked more like a cage for lions than anything else. It was full of curious, dirty, and dishevelled-looking individuals, who quarrelled, swore, and often fought. Every time it got too hot the Red Guard sentinels standing outside pointed their guns at the howling mob and yelled: "If you don't stop we shall shoot." These creatures turned out to be burglars whom the Bolsheviki had arrested and even they thought this way of acting was a little too much as they had them shot later. Every night the Derzhinsky Commission identified several and took them out behind the wall of this unalluring prison where they were shot. I had certainly got into a nasty place for it was all in the hands of the Red Guards. Another thing which helped to make me frightfully disheartened was the awful heat. I had been transferred from the cold, damp Fortress to a place where the hot water heating was boiling day and night and could not be regulated. The heat was so excessive that I had to remain in my underclothes. I was searched very carefully by members of the Derzhinsky Commission. One of these men was a former factory door keeper and the other was an exchauffeur of a military truck. They were quite talkative and asked me what I had done with my revolver and false passports. They were very astonished not to find anything on me. They seemed so sure of finding the evidence of which they had been told, that it even puzzled them. One of them who had probably known or visited some of my chauffeurs repeated several times: "But, Andrei Ivanovitch, you could not have thrown away any thing as you came, for special orders were given to follow your every movement. The commission even thought you would never reach this place alive, because they expected you surely to make an attempt to throw away some of your papers or weapons while crossing the bridge of the Neva and at your first movement the two revolvers behind you would have gone off." At this speech I felt my energy and hope come back for it gave me a last card to play. I calmly informed them that if it pleased the commission or some of my enemies to invent curious tales as a pretext to shoot me, it was a waste of time because I had never even dreamed about such an impossible thing as an escape from the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, therefore, it would be more simple, as long as I was their prisoner, to shoot me without straining their brains to invent legal reasons. The chauffeur promised, before leaving me, to transmit my words to Comrade Derzhinsky who, he said, was sure that our inquiry would be a simple formality before Purishkevich and I were shot. It seemed that Purishkevich had been transferred to Kresty, another big prison, and he would be the first to appear before the Chrezvychaika. The chauffeur thought I also would be summoned soon to justify myself. By the time the two members of the commission left me it was late in the evening and I had missed both the meagre dinner of the Fortress and that of my new prison, and I was very hungry. The awful noises in the "lion cage" near me got louder and louder and prevented me from sleeping. Toward ten o'clock I heard several names called out and then the heavy gate swung shut with a crash. As all the burglars in the cage were to be "destroyed" I decided it must be the "portion of the day" being taken out to be shot by the Chrezvychaika. Soon afterward the door of my cell opened and I saw the same Red Guards who had brought me from the Fortress appear again. A member of the Derzhinsky Commission accompanied them. He ordered me to follow him, and this time I was placed in a sanitary car (an American Jeffery) which tore off at great speed with me, the commissioner, and all my guards, bumping over the innumerable ruts in the city streets. We all sat on the floor of the car. It was very stuffy. The only light came from flickering oil lamps by whose dim reflection I saw big patches of blood on the floor. I asked my neighbour, a gloomy-looking Red Guard, if this car had been used recently to transport wounded. "What wounded?" he asked in astonishment. "This car," he continued, "is used by the Chrezvychaika to bring the ones who are to be shot. Afterward when we bring back the bodies to the graveyard they make a mess sometimes in the car." Then, looking at the stain, he added calmly: "I must really remind the comrades in our garage to wash all this off; otherwise it will soon begin to smell bad." I turned toward the commissioner and said to him: "So you are taking me to be shot?" He looked at me with disgust, yawned like a man tired after a long day's work, and said: "Probably. At any rate, we are taking you to be identified and questioned by the commission—usually Derzhinsky does not keep people long before sending them to the other world. You don't suppose that we drag people around at this time of night for the pleasure of locomotion, unless it was to get rid of them? Another car has gone for Purishkevich. You can't expect Comrade Derzhinsky to stand very long tricks like the ones you wanted to organize in the Fortress." After a little silence, he added: "The enemies of the people won't keep quiet until they are all destroyed." Then followed a deep silence only broken by the noisy spitting of one of the Reds. This silence seemed to me so queer, that I felt as if I wanted to stop the car and have time to think over once more my life, and many other things. A feeling of astonishment dominated me more than fear. Yet I should not have been surprised for what had happened in the course of the day was quite natural and I ought not only to have been expecting it but to have predicted everything and yet a sentiment of anger began to prevail and I had but one idea in my mind: "What an idiot I am to have got stupidly trapped by the Germans. I must get out of this somehow." Soon the truck stopped, the door opened, and we were in the yard of the famous Commission of the Gurokhovaia. As I stepped out in the dark I distinctly saw next to our truck a Ford car. It was one of the ambulances I had brought with me from America. I could see written in red letters on the side the name of the generous donor: "Miss Anne Thomson of Philadelphia." Like a dream there flashed through my brain the picture of my last visit to America—my lecture tour—the generosity of the innumerable kind-hearted people who contributed to the buying of these motor cars which were now being used to drive to the place of execution the ones who had striven and struggled for the honour and liberty of their country. The vision of the American girl who was so courageously waiting for me to come back stood before me. Then the queer idea of hoping to be taken to my execution in one of my own cars came to me—this succeeded by another desire—to live to tell the American people some day about the suffering and torture of many brave men and women who died for the great All this lasted but a few seconds for we were already walking up a staircase. When we came to the first floor I saw two rapid-fire guns on each side of the landing covering the entrance. There were two guards lying on their coats near the guns which were ready for action. We passed through a long corridor and came to a big room which I recognized to be the dining room of the Governor's House. The big oak table was still in the middle of the room, but the chairs looked very dirty and the whole impression was dreary. The commissioner told me to sit down at the big table and he and the guards took their seats around me. We all sat silent. This was the waiting room leading to the office of Derzhinsky, who I could hear talking very loud with another man. Presently I recognized Purishkevich's piercing voice and heard him shout: "You are all German agents!" People kept on running in and out and the minutes passed very slowly. I expected to see Purishkevich come out soon but nothing happened and I got frightfully nervous. We had waited nearly an hour when I lost my patience and addressed the commissioner who had brought me in the hope of getting some information from him. His answer was as little encouraging as the first time I spoke to him. He seemed to think that everything depended on what happened at the inquiry of Purishkevich. He even thought that if enough evidence could be got from him about the instigator of the plot Derzhinsky might "stamp out" the plotters without any other formalities. If not, he would probably hear what I had to say. He was right. Purishkevich was led out by another door and I did not see him. Then a small man with a disagreeable pock-marked face (it turned out to be Peters) came out and said something to my commissioner. I understood from the few words I could catch of their conversation that Derzhinsky, who had come the day before from Moscow to look into our "plot," was called back in a hurry by telephone and expected to start immediately. I was ordered to get up and follow my guards. They took me down into the same yard through which I had come an hour before. The gray dawn was beginning to break, sleet was falling, the two cars were still standing in the same place, and both chauffeurs were leaning over the motor of our car probably trying to fix something in it. On the other side of the yard which looked very gloomy and dirty under the lead-coloured sky of Petrograd, were still lying, near a pile of firewood, the bodies of two men and a woman. One man had fallen face down and a long thin stream of blood had worked its way from his mouth toward the gutter. This horrible scene gave a vivid picture of the Chrezvychaika murderers. The death of these three unfortunate beings was, I learned, the result of an "Inquiry" of Derzhinsky which took place half an hour before Purishkevich and I were brought in. No one could give me any reason for their execution. One Red Guard shrugged his shoulders when I asked and calmly said: "We bring so many of them to be shot every night that even the commission often gets mixed, but it does not matter, these people are all enemies of the Bolshevist Comrades which is already sufficient reason for our lawful vengeance." Everyone agreed, and the Red Guards went to fetch the bodies which they dragged by the legs and flung into the car and then we all climbed in. It was a ghastly scene. We were packed in; the Red Guards sat on the floor around the mutilated bodies, all except the one who had spoken to me, who sat on them. The younger man who might have been a lad of twenty, had a bullet in the throat, but his face seemed calm and serene and bore no trace of suffering. He was cleanly dressed in a military overcoat and must have been an officer. The other man's body lay nearer to me. He was much older and the expression which was frozen on his face was terrible and difficult to describe. It expressed fear, desperation, and great suffering. I have seen thousands of soldiers killed at the front but I have never seen the face of a dead man so awful. Its image remained in my mind many days afterward—it was so horrible, with the blood coming out of his mouth. As for the woman who was quite young, she had received all the bullets in the stomach and probably had suffered much before dying because she was all bent forward. We all sat silent while our motor tore through the deserted streets of Petrograd. One man yawned and lighted a cigarette saying that he was very tired, to which another added that it was not astonishing. Then, lifting the hand of the older man, the guard put his hand into the side pocket and not finding anything in it said: "It's a pity—nothing—these bourgeois usually have knicknacks on them, but this one is probably poor. The bourgeoisie are nearly all poor now." "They have deserved it," continued the commissioner. "They have sucked enough of the blood of the people. They must all be destroyed and we must take everything they have." "It is not right to take what does not belong to us and instead of giving it for the welfare of our country, take it like robbers for our own use," suddenly struck in an older guard with grayish hair. "Comrade, you are an idiot or a completely uneducated man who does not realize that we are fighting for the true cause," the commissioner said angrily. "Uneducated?" the old man repeated slowly, "but you can yourself hardly read and write. We are all dark people and a few are leading us by the nose. These people assure us they are right. God knows. All I can say is, I have suffered before and I am still suffering. I have also sons and it is heartbreaking to see lads slaughtered like the one lying here. If we kill all the educated men, who will defend us and help us bring up our children? We are cultivating only scoundrels and thieves." "Isn't he sentimental?" remarked the commissioner, "perhaps he would pay a 'Pop' to pray for the soul of the enemies of the proletariat." "You can laugh at me as much as you like, my friend," answered the old man, "but what will happen to us if we destroy religion, family, and honesty? Poor Russia!—if this continues we shall drown our liberty in blood." #### CHAPTER XII # Angels of Our Captivity and Comrade Derzhinsky OON the motor stopped and the doors were thrown open. Again the heavy barred gate of the Predvorilka slowly opened. Again I was marched through the long dirty corridor and passed near the "human cage" where the burglars were snoring noisily and incarcerated in the same gloomy cell I had left a few hours before. The strain had been so great and I was so tired that it was not long before I fell into a deep sleep. It was not until very much later—after my release—that I found out Purishkevich had not been shot. It was by a mere chance that we were saved. The absence of revolvers and other weapons which the Bolsheviki expected to find on me through the treachery of Baron Bode made Derzhinsky hesitate, and Purishkevich, when he was called in, instead of justifying himself began a long discussion with Derzhinsky in which he said many disagreeable things and accused the Soviet Government of being composed of a gang of unlawful oppressors. Then there came the hurried message over the telephone and Derzhinsky had to leave instantly for Moscow, and so the inquiry about Purishkevich and Kal- paschnikoff was only put off. But we were not saved yet. I learned also afterward that the Political Red Cross had done everything it could for us on the fatal day of the "Inquiry." In some way they had heard rumours of what had happened and one of the men who had helped Derzhinsky when he was imprisoned by the Provisional Government called him up and asked if something could not be done in our favour, but Derzhinsky, who usually was very amiable with the Political Red Cross, answered coldly and did not even try to hide the fact that he and the Chrezvychaika were only too glad to have the necessary evidence to shoot us both. Before I describe the last dreary weeks of my captivity I must say a few words about the Russian Political Red Cross which for many years had done so much to alleviate the sufferings of our political prisoners. It was especially organized to assist prisoners and provide them with everything they needed in the way of food, money, and clothing. During the old régime it was most useful to all the revolutionists for it gave them necessities and as many prominent lawyers took part in the relief work it was able to defend many of the big political cases. After the downfall of Czarism the Political Red Cross continued its work, first among the former ministers and officials who were imprisoned by the people and then among the Bolshevist leaders who at one time were arrested by the Provisional Government. Trotsky, Derzhinsky, Kamenev, Uritsky, Antonov and many others had received assistance from the patronesses of the Political Red Cross. When the Bolsheviki overthrew the Provisional Government the only bourgeois who could approach them were the ladies of this organization. They even got permission to telephone directly to Smolny if they needed anything. Mme. Kouzmina-Karavaieva, Mme. Arrestova, and Mme. Bagdanovich were much respected by the Bolsheviki and often succeeded in obtaining things for the prisoners about which others could hardly dream and certainly dared not ask. They saved many lives by their courage and energy in feeding and helping the political prisoners, who after the Bolshevist coup d'état, numbered about three thousand. Mme. Anastazie Kouzmina-Karavaieva showed more heroism, devotion, and perseverance in the difficult task than any one I have ever seen. I cannot find sufficiently strong words to praise her work and it will always be with a feeling of great emotion that I shall remember everything she did to save me and many others. In several cases she obtained the release of people who had been condemned to death. There was one case especially I remember. Four absolutely innocent officers had been condemned to death. She went to the Chrezvychaika and, after a long discussion with them, one of the members of the Commission admitted she was right but said it was too late as the ones for whom she was interceding had been taken in an ambulance to the place of execution just before she came. She was not discouraged but forced her way in to Uritsky, who was then in charge of the Petrograd Chrezvychaika and made him give her a motor and one of his assistants and she tore off in pursuit of the "death car" and arrived just in time to stop the Red Guards who were already lining up their victims in a row. She also raised money and organized in the Narodni Dom, a kitchen which served several hundred hot dinners every day and her volunteer assistants distributed them through all the prisons of Petrograd. Many of the unfortunate officers in the Kresty and other military prisons had no families in town and no way of communicating with them. There again she rendered great service by putting herself in touch with their relations. It was very difficult for Mme. Kouzmina-Karavaieva to do anything for me. I was again completely isolated. The days passed, each more dreary than the other. With Purishkevich it was not so difficult for he had become so nervous and ill in his new prison and he was having such hallucinations that Mme. Kouzmina-Karavaieva had little trouble in proving that he was a sick man who, from the strain, might at any moment become raving mad. Therefore, the Bolsheviki, by releasing him, would risk but little, and also he had only a few months left of the eleven months of prison to which he had been condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal and so the Bolsheviki toward Easter, 1918, took the first opportunity to let him out for good. His son became ill with typhoid fever and Purishkevich was released "on parole" for fifteen days. Just at this time the Petrograd Commune was making a desperate effort to liberate itself from the influence of Moscow and Trotsky, and was urging the "bourgeois" to resume work throughout the city administration, so when Purishkevich came back on the fifteenth day, after formalities which lasted several hours or days (I really do not remember) he was released on two conditions: First: Not to mix in politics. Second: To remain in town. which I did willingly. Among the many emigrants questioned in my presence was Trotsky. The next day the English police came and took him off the boat. It was a beautiful spring morning, the sea was calm and when a big launch full of armed sailors came alongside we all rushed on deck to see what was going to happen. A few minutes later Trotsky and several others were brought out. He protested and kicked but was carried down by big strapping seamen who did their work calmly and methodically. As the boat moved away Trotsky shook his fist at the English officers and cursed England. It was so easy for Trotsky, who is a rascal but a very clever one, to have me shot at anytime if he was thirsty for vengeance that it seemed to me strange that the Bolshevist leader, after the Brest-Litovsk peace and the tremendous things which were happening in quick succession, should devote so much time to my case when he had so many really important problems to solve. While I was suffering all the tortures of hell in April and May and living under the worst of conditions without even the attendance of a doctor, which the Bolsheviki refused though I was very sick, Raymond Robins was making reassuring statements. My brother went to him to find out what had happened to me and Colonel Robins told him he had done everything he possibly could for me and it was useless, he thought, to worry about my health because I had been transferred from the Fortress to a hospital where I was getting the best of care! The dirtiest of criminal prisons, the nightmare of the old régime which was one of the first things to be attacked and half destroyed by the revolutionary crowd was a nice kind of hospital! In a telegram dated Moscow, May 9, 1918, and addressed to the Secretary of State, Washington, American Consul General Poole, says: Robins says that Kalpaschnikoff released some weeks ago . . after spending some time in hospital. Nearly five months had passed since the day I had been arrested and dragged into the Fortress and I had lived through many emotions of hope and despair. Only one statement had been made public by my persecutors: "Arrested, placed in solitary confinement, still alive." Nothing either lawful or unlawful had been undertaken to give me a chance of defending myself. Only innumerable threats and tricks to make me confess what I had not done. Even the man who had tried to kill Lenine had been released and yet a Chinese wall was built around me—I was only a pretext and a victim, as I soon found out. One afternoon—it was the eighteenth of April, 1918—the door opened and there stood in front of me Derzhinsky himself, the Robespierre of the Russian Revolution! He was dressed in a dark green velvet suit with a belt in which there were two revolvers. He had a folio with papers under his arm, his face had a harsh expression, and his big gray-blue eyes moved restlessly as he inspected a piece of paper on which the names of the prisoners were written. Suddenly he lifted his eyes and said slowly while he looked at me searchingly from head to foot: "So, you are Kalpaschnikoff!—the famous Kalpaschnikoff!" These words made me indescribably angry. I felt like strangling him. While he was talking I remembered that Purishkevich and many others had said that this cruel man did not like people who cringed in front of him, so I decided to take an insolent tone and have it out with him to the bitter end. Even before I opened my mouth I began to get so excited that I had to make an effort to speak slowly and distinctly. In an indignant tone I began the following dialogue, no word of which I shall ever forget: I: I don't know what makes you think that I am famous, but I would like to know why you keep me in jail for months without giving me a chance to justify myself or even proving your own charges against me. You must do something. If I am a criminal, to your mind—shoot me; if not—release me, but you must do something. Derzhinsky: Do something? I: Certainly, and not look as though you had forgotten me on purpose. DERZHINSKY: Comrade, what you say is not just and you have no reason to complain. I: Why? DERZHINSKY: The Council of the Commissioners has given its most serious attention to your case. Endless reports and serious inquiries have been made. Don't you realize, my dear man, that yours is the biggest international case we have ever had to handle? You were associated with all the enemies of the proletariat who will not recognize our Soviet Government. I: But I worked in relief work with the Americans. Derzhinsky: All the foreigners and Americans were against us except Raymond Robins. Do you know him well? I: I should think I do. DERZHINSKY: What do you think of him? I: He had no business to mix in politics instead of doing the relief work for which he was sent. Derzhinsky: But he was the only true and faithful friend we had among the foreigners and he was the only one who understood our aims and fully sympathized with us and was ready to support our government, and we value him greatly. The complete contempt which the other Americans and foreigners showed us exasperated us and caused big complications which nearly brought a great crisis. I: This crisis, which I understand was the reason for my arrest, occurred four months ago and I am still in prison. DERZHINSKY: You are right. Our relations are getting much better. Raymond Robins expects to leave soon for America to explain to the American people that it is useless to fight us any longer and I personally think there is no reason why we should not release you. I: But, as you see, I am still in prison. DERZHINSKY: Well, I mean to say that if you were put at the disposal of my Commission for Inquiry I would release you but as your case is an international one, your fate depends upon the Council of the Commissioners. If you wish I will speak to the Comrades of the Government and ask them what they are planning to do about you further. I: I am frightfully tired of this uncertainty. Derzhinsky: Why did you get mixed up with the foreigners? I: But are you not a foreigner yourself? DERZHINSKY: What? I: But you are a Pole and it makes me mad. I would not mind half as much to be persecuted or hanged by a real Russian—some of my own people. Why did you not go to Poland and get busy over Bolshevism out there and leave us real Russians to settle our quarrels of the Revolution ourselves? DERZHINSKY: Your question interests me and I will answer you precisely. Poles like me—small oppressed employees—are the best workmen for Bolshevism and we volunteered to organize it in your country first, and then later, when the Allies have been stupid enough to supply Poland with money and everything it needs, we can swallow the country in a week, it is such a wonderful field for our propaganda. #### CHAPTER XIII #### DARIA GETS BUSY WAS again alone in my dirty cell, cut off from the world. Derzhinsky's visit seemed to me like a bad dream for he had promised to inquire about me in Moscow, and yet the days passed one after the other in the same uncertainty and nothing happened. Only my moral and physical suffering increased. The last of the officers arrested when the Bolsheviki came into power had been released, yet nothing was done about my case. In my despair I imagined that my Russian friends had abandoned me and I began to wish to be transferred to Moscow, where at least I would have a chance of being shot quickly. I prayed for an end, good or bad, whatever it would be. In America my friends were working hard and trying everything they could through the State Department. In Russia the Political Red Cross, Miss Smirnova and Doctor Manukhin were trying to get me released. Ways had been found to approach big Bolsheviki like Lunacharsky and Gorky and interest them in my case, yet all these efforts gave no results. A Chinese wall had been built around me which nothing could penetrate. Only a miracle could save me—and this miracle occurred. What the American officials, the Norwegian, Danish, and Swiss legations had been unable to do for my liberation was done by a simple peasant woman, my cook, Daria. Daria saved me by a mere chance and I owe my life to a pair of yellow shoes bought on Fourteenth Street in New York for \\$6.50. They were my last American present to Daria and were stolen most shamelessly by a Red Guard, to her utter despair, as the reader may remember, the night of my arrest. After my incarceration Daria faithfully guarded my flat and tried to prevent any new attempt to pillage it. She fretted over the captivity and sufferings of her "master" but the remembrance of the theft of her yellow shoes had left a very sore place in her heart, for she had always considered these gorgeous souvenirs too beautiful to be worn and had kept them on her dressing table. It was certainly too much for her to lose her "master" and the wonderful boots, and she never missed an opportunity of expressing her indignation to the Bolsheviki and their friends! One day while Daria was busy scrubbing the kitchen and getting ready to give a bath to my dog, a beautiful white Spitz, she heard the telephone ring in the dining room. When she took up the receiver an unknown voice asked for Daria Efimova. She answered that she was Daria. The voice continued, saying that the headquarters of the Soviet Police wanted to speak to her, then without giving the man at the other end of the telephone time to say anything else, she began to abuse him and accuse the Bolsheviki of being a gang of robbers who ought to give her back the things they stole while they were arresting her master. She must have used very strong language because the voice answered in a very angry tone as follows: "You had better be careful what you say. I am Uritsky, the Commissioner of Justice, and if you insult me I shall have you arrested." Daria continued: "I am not afraid of you. I am a poor woman, but for me you are murderers and burglars who have stolen my yellow shoes—my beautiful yellow shoes." "What shoes?" answered Uritsky, with astonishment. Daria continued, getting more and more excited: "You all have no conscience, just because some fool invented some stupid stories about my good master; here in front of me your Red Guards arrested him, raided the flat, and stuck in their pockets the present he brought me from America." "What!" shouted Uritsky. "Yes, the beautiful yellow shoes," wailed Daria. Suddenly she heard the Bolshevik laugh and, changing his tone, he added: "Daria, don't be so angry and don't weep over your things." She answered that she did not find it at all funny to hear people joking over her misfortunes. Then Uritsky tried to console her and promised to find all her things and to search especially for the yellow shoes. The real object for his calling her up, however, was to ask about a young officer, called Nazarov, whose flat was on the same floor with mine. He had just been arrested for having raided a private house to get money for the party called "Direct Anarchists." As Daria had had little to do in my absence, she had cleaned his room and served him tea, and so Uritsky wanted her to testify and give him information about the people who visited him in order that he might trace his accomplice on whom he could not lay his hand. When Daria found out that she had to go to the Chrezvychaika, which was very far from my apartment, she refused blankly, declaring to Uritsky that she was going to wash her master's dog and could not run so far on foot. To her great astonishment Uritsky informed her that he would not keep her long and, not to waste any time, he was sending his private car for her. It would fetch her and bring her back. Then a very curious thing happened. While the wife of Colonel Hariman and Baroness Knering, who had been raided by the unscrupulous young officer, were wading painfully through the muddy streets of Petrograd to reach the Chrezvychaika on foot, a beautiful Packard car was seen motoring up to the front door of my flat at Kirochnaia, No. 11. The car stopped and the assistant chauffeur jumped out with the rapidity of a well-trained court servant and announced that the car of the Commissioner of Justice was waiting for Daria Efimova. My cook took her rôle seriously. With a silk handkerchief on her head and my dog in her arms, she sailed down the staircase and gravely stepped into the limousine. The chauffeur shut the door most respectfully. This incident created such a stir in the house that many people ran out to see what was the matter as they thought she had been arrested. Daria had informed the porter before she left that she had gone to call on the Bolsheviki. When she reached the Chrezvychaika, which was on Gurokhovaia Street, she was shown into the same big room (the ex-dining room of the Governor General) in which I had waited so long the night Purishkevich and I were brought to Derzhinsky. She, however, had but a few minutes to wait. Soon Uritsky opened the door of his office and asked her to come in. Daria, who had decided to take my fate in her hands, walked in, bowed in the old fashioned manner, and greeted Uritsky with the respectful words: "Good morning, Barin (master)." This ceremony astonished Uritsky, but made him smile agreeably as he nodded to her. Then Daria looking at him very hard continued: "You look like a good Barin. You do not look wicked at all, and now that I have seen you, I really do not understand why people are not ashamed to call you a filthy old Jew ready to strangle everyone." Uritsky was quite overpowered. He pulled up a chair, made her sit down, and began in a sweet tone: "Now that you are in good temper, I want you to be a good woman and tell me everything you know about the officer Nazarov, who lived in your house. When you served him tea you must have seen his friends and I want you to see if you can recognize any of them among the photographs I am going to show you. Nazarov, with your permission, wrote several letters on your master's typewriter and it was one of these anonymous letters which enabled us to arrest him. Do you know to whom the others were addressed?" Then Uritsky went on to tell Daria that if she told him everything she knew, he would assist her to recover her stolen things and would himself search for the yellow shoes. She assured him that she could not read or write (which was not the truth) but would gladly relate what she knew or had herself seen. When Nazarov was brought in to be questioned in her presence, she jumped to her feet and, before Uritsky could say a word, gave him a piece of her mind. She told him what she thought of his disgraceful conduct. "It might be pardoned," she said, "in a simple peasant or Bolshevik to steal, but for an officer, it was a shame to do such things." She added that she did not consider him a real barin but one of those half-educated creatures for whom, afterward, the good gentlemen suffer, and that her master would never have tried to steal—that he would have preferred to die of hunger or have his hands cut off rather than touch what did not belong to him. "My master," she said, "who has never done any harm except helping the poor people, is in prison on unjust accusations and rascals like you are running loose committing all kinds of crime." Then she turned to Uritsky and said: "You, who are a good barin, ought to understand the difference between such scamps and nice people like my master." Daria proved to be a most skilful diplomat because she had the "wonderful common sense" combined with the profound religious belief that good must sooner or later conquer evil, which has always made the strength of the Russian peasant. Sometimes he falls into bad hands, gets badly advised and does the most queer and awful things, but sooner or later he comes back to his "common sense." While Daria was giving her testimony, she told Uritsky that I had known Nazarov and helped him on several occasions, so he decided to have me brought to the Chrezvychaika to testify and make a written statement; also he simply wanted to have a look at me and hear what I personally had to say. One morning while I was trying to swallow my horrible greasy soup, I was told to get ready to be taken in the afternoon to the Chrezvychaika of Uritsky. It was so hot in my cell that, as previously mentioned, I had to remain in my underclothes. After the cold of the fortress this change of temperature was one of the things which undermined my health. When the Reds came to fetch me and I walked, with revolvers and rifles all around me, out into the street, I realized how weak I was and for the first time my feet refused to obey. One of the Red Guards took me by the arm and tried to help me along but soon found that it was a difficult task. He stopped after several steps and, turning to the others, told them I was as weak as a rat and therefore there was no danger of my attempting to escape; so they hailed three cabs and we all got in and drove to the Chrezvychaika. I was brought into the presence of Uritsky who was busy talking on the telephone. He was a medium-sized man, with red eyes, a badly shaved chin, and rather untidy but wearing good clothes. His eyes were steel-gray and very restless and his voice was husky and most disagreeable. He looked at me silently and then putting some paper on the table, asked me to write a statement about Nazarov, the anarchist officer. While I was doing it, the telephone rang again and I heard Uritsky answer in an angry tone: "I told you to shoot them and not to annoy me any more about these men." (A few minutes later Blagonravov, former Chief of the Bolshevist Police and now Assistant Commissioner of Justice of the Petrograd Commune, came in. He did not recognize me. I had changed so much. He was astonished to see me still a prisoner and plainly said that at the time the Bolsheviki arrested me it was for the definite purpose of creating a scandal with the American Embassy and the principal objective was not me but Ambassador Francis, whose "golden silence" Smolny wanted to break.) I expressed my indignation at having been used as a mere scape-goat and retained uselessly. "You are quite right," replied Uritsky, "I was present at the sitting of the Commissioners which ordered your arrest, but there must be someone especially keen to have you kept in prison because the definite inquiry in Moscow concerning your case is held back on purpose. I inquired about you recently and no one knows anything definite. I asked for the documents of your case and they don't know where they are, but you are still filed as the hostage of the Americans at the disposition of the Council. I shall try again and if I can get you transferred to my Chrezvychaika as an important witness in the Nazarov case I shall look into your case also. I shall certainly try to do something for you. I have promised to do so for Comrade Efimova." "My cook!" I exclaimed. "Yes, Daria," he answered, "she is your best lawyer." This ended our interview and I was taken back to the prison to continue my life of suffering. It lasted only ten days, but how long those days and hours were! Even the minutes seemed as though they would never pass. At last the day of delivery came. After several interviews with Daria, Consul Imbrie, and several other people, the doors of my jail were flung open, but before I was released I had to undergo a last and cruel test. On the third of May, 1918, in the evening, the inspector of the prison came and read me a paper stating that I had been transferred to the jurisdiction of the Petrograd Chrezvychaika and that Uritsky had given orders for me to be brought next morning for the inquiry, which was to begin at once. For a third and last time I found myself sitting in the dining room of the former governor waiting to be called by Uritsky. I was accompanied by two Red Guards. The delay was extremely painful. The time seemed endless. I was very nervous and was always looking at the door of Uritsky's office, hoping to see him appear. Nothing happened for a long time. One of my guards, a chap of about twenty, remarked several times that he was awfully hungry. The other man, who was older, smoked the whole time and never said a word, but kept looking at his wrist watch and then at the big clock on the wall. Around us everybody was hustling. People came in and out the whole time. Several prisoners were led through. Weapons of all kinds, sacks of flour, and boxes with valuables were brought through by Red Guards of the Uritsky Batallion, coming back from raids. All these goods were deposited in a big room opening out of the one where we were and I could see mountains of all kinds of things as the door opened. "All this has been confiscated from the bourgeois," remarked the hungry Red Guard. "What nice Easter presents it will make for us." "Why for us?" burst out suddenly the silent one. "Are you not well fed? It ought to be given to the really hungry ones." A few minutes later the big clock struck twelve and both guards jumped up and declared they would not wait any longer for their food and, therefore, would deliver me to someone else in the building. They began to look for the Commandant of the Chrezvychaika. It lasted quite a while and they walked me up and down staircases and through dirty corridors until at last we found him sitting in the kitchen enjoying mutton chops, peas, and white bread. A bottle of brandy stood on the floor next to his chair. He was having quite a feast and it was certainly a good proof that there was plenty of food for the people of the Chrezvychaika while the inhabitants of Petrograd were dying of hunger. The Red Guards left me there and tore off to have their dinner. A few minutes later I was taken into the office of the inspector, searched very carefully and marched into room Forty-two. It was an enormous, filthy looking place, more like a stable than anything else, into which all the people arrested were crowded without distinction of rank or crime, to wait until their turn came to be sorted and transferred elsewhere. There were counter revolutionists, bankers, speculators, criminals, motor thieves, counterfeiters, and simple tramps. It was a varied collection of scoundrels and rare and curious types. and a bank clerk—had only sardines, bread, and ham. Pieces of bread, heads of smoked fish, and papers were scattered all around, and along the walls there were small hospital beds of the field type with very greasy-looking mattresses. When I walked in all this queer crowd jumped up, flocked around me and pressed me with questions about the reason for my arrest and the latest events outside. Their disappointment was great when I declared I knew less than any one of them as I had been in captivity five months and my presence there was only the result of a mistake or rather the impatience of the Red Guards who had brought me for an inquiry. "That happens quite often," said a voice from behind the crowd and a medium-sized man stepped out and introduced himself as the Starosta, or chief of "Room Commune." He then said that I might have to wait several days before Uritsky chose to see me and advised me to make myself comfortable in the "Commune." He offered to let me choose one of the small beds saying that in his opinion they all had insects in the mattresses, but that some had less bugs than others. He wrote my name down, offered me some smoked herring and told me that the Starosta appointed two comrades every day to clean and sweep up each morning and that each week the "Room Commune" elected the Starosta. I looked around for a place to sit down and saw at one of the tables a vacant seat near an old man who had the shoulder straps of a Russian engineer. As I sat down beside him I heard one of the comrades, who was buttering a piece of white bread with a fork, remark: "The bourgeois always flock together." The engineer himself had been arrested by his own workmen because he had made a report to the Bolshevist inspector that the expenses of the factory were already higher than the income and for this reason it would be impossible to give another increase of salary to the men. I sat with the engineer until about four o'clock when a man came in and called out: "Comrade Kalpaschnikoff with coat and things to the office." I was not long in getting there. Soon I was seated opposite Uritsky, who seemed frightfully tired and was leaning back in his arm chair with his eyes closed. He yawned and said to me in a sleepy voice: "Well, what have you to say?" I explained, protested, and justified myself but he did not listen at all. Suddenly he opened his eyes, put his glasses on, blew his nose, and, pressing a button, said: "That is enough. This old stuff does not interest me at all. Wait a minute." Then in a loud voice he called to a man who was in the next room: "Comrade Petrov, give me the file of Kalpaschnikoff, Andrew, son of Ivan." Then turning to a soldier who had come in answer to the bell he continued: "Comrade Ivanuk, bring two glasses of hot tea." A big cardboard file marked with my name in large letters was brought in by a dishevelled-looking man with long hair and wearing a black Russian shirt. Uritsky took the file, opened it, and said: "Now look yourself. There is the testimony you wrote the other day about Nazarov and a telegram from Moscow authorizing me to have you put at my disposal in connection with the case of this young anarchist officer—and nothing else, you understand! Well, I, Uritsky, who am sitting in this chair, in my capacity as Commissioner of the Petrograd Commune and President of the Chrezvychaika, am going to release you entirely without caring whether certain high officials like it or not. It does not mean that by this act I recognize our error; no, but much time has passed, and it is too late. I, myself, voted for your arrest and that of those foreigners who would not recognize the Bolshevist Government. Your arrest was to be the first step in this direction and if the Government had listened to me, all the Americans with whom you worked would have been arrested and shot. To be just to you I ought to find them all and have them all put into prison but they have nearly all left, so it is impossible. Therefore, what is the use of keeping you? Things have changed so much that it is even useless to talk about you any more." Uritsky paused and I answered that I was delighted to think I might recover my liberty, but that I would not at any cost or price give my signature recognizing the Bolsheviki and promising not to make propaganda against them with weapon or tongue. (The greater part of the people that the Bolsheviki released were obliged to sign this kind of a document.) "I don't want anything. We have no charges against you. You can simply walk out." "But when?" I asked with a sigh, for I expected to have to go through the formality of being taken back to the prison. "Immediately," continued Uritsky, "when I do something I do it properly. If I shoot properly, I release properly also. You are free!" Then calling Petrov again, he said: "Take this man through the front door and get him a cab to go home for he cannot walk." I don't know how I left or how I got into a carriage and drove along the Nevsky Prospect to my flat. I had a strange feeling that all this was too good to be true and I only began to realize that I was free when I found myself in my own apartment with Daria waiting upon me and doing everything she possibly could to express her joy. #### CHAPTER XIV #### LIBERATED BUT NOT FREE WAS liberated. It is impossible for me to express how happy I was and yet, after the first few hours of delight had passed, I realized how difficult it would be for me to come back to the everyday conditions of life. The smallest things affected me strangely. I, who had endured every kind of privation and slept peacefully after many nerve-racking incidents, got insomnia. My bed with its comfortable pillows seemed too soft and my apartment unbearably silent after the noise of the prison. At last toward morning, worn out with fatigue, sleep would overpower me, but it was not for long. At about five o'clock I used to jump up, startled, imagining in my dream that I had missed the hot-watery morning tea of the Fortress. I certainly was going through a general reaction which was causing a serious breakdown of my nervous system. I could hardly walk and had to stay the greater part of the day in bed. Only cases of extreme necessity made me leave my room and go out. It was three weeks before I could really do anything and make any plans for the future. I had but one desire, which was to go to America and join my bride to be, but I soon found out that that was precisely the most difficult thing to do. Strict orders had been given by the Chrezvychaika not to issue a foreign passport to me and I was closely watched. I began to think that perhaps I had been liberated "on trial"—to see what I would do next—and that the Bolsheviki hoped to find among the people I visited after my release some new victim for a conspiracy. I had, therefore, to be most careful in everything I did and said. The chauffeur who brought Daria back from her visit to Uritsky at the Chrezvychaika turned out to be a very good man. He called on me and after I had entertained him as best I could, Daria took him into the kitchen and gave him tea with jam. After that he came quite often bringing the latest news of the Chrezvychaika. He soon became my "information bureau" and I knew everything that was going on in the camp of the Bolsheviki. It was he who warned me when my life was again in danger and he even helped me to escape from Petrograd. A few days after my release Major Wardwell, the assistant of Raymond Robins, came to Petrograd from Moscow, whither the American Red Cross Headquarters had been transferred. He expressed a desire to see me and I was advised by my friends to meet him and be most amiable. Our interview was most cordial. He smiled graciously and I did the same thing. Though I did not mention Raymond Robins, Major Wardwell talked a great deal about him and laid particular stress upon the fact that Robins had done every earthly thing possible to have me released. I nodded gracefully and tried to look pleasant. It appeared that no one could think Raymond Robins was against me except through a complete misunderstanding. The Major promised to help me to get back to the United States through Archangel. I decided, when I walked out of the building of the National City Bank where the interview took place, to be even more on the lookout than I had been before. plenty of all the things which could scarcely be bought for their weight in gold in the town. One of my friends, a prominent engineer, had a big job at the Zentroboss, and when I went to see him I was much interested in seeing how the Bolsheviki managed the place. There were two men at each desk. One was well dressed and looked like a gentleman while the other was in dirty soldier-clothes and looked very much the way "Bolshevist Comrades" are pictured over here. My friend introduced me to the comrade sitting next to him and afterward taking me aside added: "He is my 'lightning rod'. I had the good luck to strike a good-natured one. They are put here by the Bolshevist party to spy on us, and in anything that might arouse suspicion in our work we make these comrades sign the order. They think themselves very important and we get on very well." I also saw another friend in the building, a former officer, who had made a splendid record at the front and was now working with the Bolsheviki. He had six children and was forced to take up the job when his family was practically dying of hunger. He was the first to call my attention to the fact that I could not remain like this in town as I had refused to take up service with the Bolsheviki. He had received private information about the advance of the Czecho-Slovaks along the Volga and that reprisals would soon begin. The German Information Bureau was already making lists for the Chrezvychaika of Uritsky, and my friend thought they would consider me a good candidate to be grabbed. This same officer later provided me with documents which in my flight from Petrograd saved my life more than once. Though I tried very hard I could not get a passport to leave the country without the knowledge of the Bolshevist officials. Major Webster, whom I had met before when I After Major Webster left I had a long talk with Ilovaisky, who told me all his political aims and tried to prove what great services he had rendered to the cause of American-Bolshevist friendship. He pulled out from his pocketbook several letters and showed me the headings and signatures. These mysterious documents bore different signatures, including those of Trotsky and Derzhinsky, and spoke of the great services Ilovaisky had rendered in settling the misunderstanding between the Bolsheviki and the Americans and recognized his valuable services in the effort of creating strong bonds of friendship between the real American people and the Bolshevist proletarians of Russia. "I am the only one who has understood the situation properly," he continued. "I urged the American Red Cross Mission to cooperate with the Moscow Government. There is so much business to be done in our country, so many concessions that the Bolsheviki will grant so easily, that it would be a shame not to attract American capital. We are working on this with Robins." Then he talked about the general political situation and asked me what I thought of the campaign he was making in the papers in favour of Raymond Robins and added that he thought Robins was the only man who, by his influence in both countries, could bring the Soviet Government and the American people closer together. "Everyone over here who appreciates the 'real situation'," he continued, "understands that Raymond Robins must be ambassador and not 'Old Francis.' The Soviet has no confidence in the diplomacy of Vologda and Archangel, and the propaganda I am making is not confined to Russia. I am sending as much as I can to England." I was amazed and could not help thinking that Raymond Robins, Chairman of the American Red Cross Mission to Russia, had chosen three curious interpreters in Alexander Gumberg—a brother of Zorin, the Bolshevist Minister; Boris Reinstein, who later became secretary to Lenine; and Captain Ilovaisky, who, under cover of American relief work, openly worked against the American Ambassador, Government, and the people, and, by his insinuations in print and by open speech, made it clear in Russia that only bad Americans struggled against Lenine and Trotsky, and that the "real Americans" approved of their murders and their violations of the sacred principles of right and justice on which civilization has built its ideals for centuries. Since I left Russia Captain Ilovaisky has made himself notorious in Copenhagen and unfortunately again while working with the American Red Cross, which had its office in the American Legation. While I was in Paris in November, 1919, I called on Mr. Anatole Chamansky, Secretary General (recognized by Geneva) of the Russian Red Cross, and he told me the following story: When Chamansky finally left Petrograd, where he had stayed and worked as long as he could with the Danish Red Cross, he went to Copenhagen, and, as he was the recognized head of the Russian Red Cross, began to work there though the Bolsheviki had their representative in Copenhagen also. Chamansky had known of the questionable activities of Ilovaisky while attached to the American Red Cross Mission to Russia and so, when he found Ilovaisky again in the American Red Cross in Copenhagen and learned that he was on very friendly terms with the Bolshe- vist representatives of the Russian Red Cross, he decided to see what was going on. He soon found that Bolshevist propaganda was being distributed in the camps of the Russian war prisoners both in Denmark and in Germany. He traced the matter and found that Captain Ilovaisky had signed a contract with the Bolsheviki who had promised him a large sum of money for his work. When Chamansky told the American Legation, the Counsellor would not believe him. However, they soon were obliged to do so, for he succeeded in getting the document taken out of the office of the American Red Cross for a few hours and had it photographed before it was returned. Then he went with the photograph to the American Legation and showed it to them and told them just where they could find the original. Mr. Chamansky's story did not astonish me at all because I knew that Copenhagen was, and is, the great centre of the Bolshevist propaganda and German spies. Parvus is the leader of the Bolshevist propaganda and William Spiro, also a friend of Ilovaisky, is perhaps the "best" German spy. He has cost the Allies and the Russians by his treachery more than any man I know. Spiro lived in Copenhagen and called himself the representative of the "Volga Insurance Company," and used to go very often to London in 1916. He had several flats there and spent a lot of money. His work consisted in insuring boats which were bound, with war materials, food, and other necessities, for the north of Russia. He had a motor in London and made many myster- ious expeditions out of town to see the boats off. In reality, however, he went to find out what route they took so that he could notify a German submarine either to sink them or to take them safely into a German port. After the Revolution, Spiro appeared in Russia under the flag of a Social Revolutionalist and became Assistant Minister of Post and Telegraph under Skobelev of the Provisional Government. He stayed in this job until the Bolsheviki took the power. Then he became an Extreme Socialist and took an active part in the Soviet Government, which appointed him Commissioner of the Black Sea Fleet. While in Odessa he robbed and murdered, devoting himself particularly to any bourgeois known to be anti-German. Spiro was transferred later to the Bolshevist front, but there he began to graft so shamelessly (three or four million rubles at a time) that Lenine had him arrested and put in prison. When he was released, four months later, he fled to Sweden and then to Copenhagen, where I believe he is still living. To come back, however, to the strenuous life of Petrograd. The news began to circulate in town that the Czecho-Slovaks were advancing rapidly on the Volga and it was not safe for me to remain any longer in my flat, especially at night, which was the usual time for wholesale arrests. I slept every night in a different place, beginning with flats of friends and finishing with barns in back yards and in tea houses. Life was intolerable. It was a question of days, for I would surely fall sooner or later into the hands of the Red Terror. The news and various rumours which Daria collected were also not very reassuring. Everything was ready for my flight. The chauffeur, Galkin, had promised to take me to the train and Daria was preparing me some food for my journey. It was Saturday, September first, 1918. A few days before Uritsky had been killed by an Extreme Socialist and it was a big calamity for the bourgeoisie for it gave the Bolsheviki a pretext for continuing their Red Terror and shedding new Daria and I sat in the kitchen planning what would be the best way for me to leave the house without arousing suspicion. Soon we heard the little girl scrambling up the back staircase. She brought us a package which contained a ticket and a reserve berth in an international sleeping car. Both were made out for the use of the Third Red International Battalion. We had about an hour left before attempting the escape. Daria served me hot coffee for the last time and we both sat down in the dining room. I was very depressed; I had the feeling that something awful was going to happen and expressed to Daria the dread that something might happen to her after my departure. She, on the contrary, was very placid and assured me that the Bolsheviki would not do anything to a simple peasant woman like herself. Then, looking at the St. Nicholas, in front of which was the trembling flame of an oil-burner, she added, making the sign of the Cross in my direction: "He will protect you. I shall continue to pray." dress if the porter turned up. He looked for a pencil and scribbled slowly. The time seemed to me very long, but it was perhaps only another minute when the train, with a couple of jerks, began to move. This time I was really off. #### CHAPTER XV #### In the Hands of the Germans HE train began to move rapidly. I sat in my section of the international car gazing through the window and the saddest pictures of the last six months came back to my memory. I had the whole compartment to myself and when the porter had taken my ticket and the two Red Guards had verified my papers and handed them respectfully back to me I felt I had made the first big step toward salvation. I still had far to go and a lot to do before reaching America, but I had begun to move on. I was glad of it. Yet a feeling of great depression and dread haunted me for I felt sure that the chauffeur, Galkin, had not needlessly advised me to leave Petrograd in a hurry and that something dreadful was going to happen in my flat. Therefore, I was anxious about the fate of Daria. I learned from friends who joined me a month later in Kiev that my premonition was correct. The afternoon of my flight my office on Konuchennaia Street was raided by the Red Guards just at the time at which I usually went there to sign papers and attend to other business. Late the next night my flat was again invaded by agents of the Chrezvy- chaika, who were astonished not to find me there. Daria opened the door and led them all round, even into the cellar; they searched and searched while she calmly looked on, beaming with delight. The commissioner soon noticed her good spirits and told her that he did not see anything funny for her in their not being able to find me; he insisted that she knew where I was and, therefore, he would be obliged to force her to speak. She looked at him with a smile and said: "What can you do to me, if I persist in hiding my master?" "Arrest you as a counter revolutionist," answered the commissioner. Daria laughed heartily and continued: "I am not afraid of you. I am a simple peasant; you have no right to do anything to me. I shall nevertheless give you the necessary information. Mr. Kalpaschnikoff is in Finland on his way to America; he has gone to fetch me another pair of yellow shoes to replace the ones you stole the first time you grabbed him. It is too late—you cannot catch him any more." The next thing I learned was that she and the porter of the house had been arrested—he, for having let me escape, and she, as my accomplice. She was taken to the same Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul where she remained a month and, by the information I received, was afterward transferred by the Bolsheviki to another place—probably to be released—but that is all I have been able to find out. From Kiev I sent letters, money, and instructions to different friends asking them to do everything humanly possible to obtain her release. I learned that an influential Bolshevik had been approached concerning the matter and that he had promised to secure her release; this is all I know but I trust she has obtained her liberty somehow or other. The Chrezvychaika meant all right enough to settle its accounts with me, and felt sure of catching me. It published in the papers my name seventh on a list of eighty-four hostages shot (because of the advance of the Czecho-Slovaks), at two o'clock on the night I was supposed to be rearrested. The first day of my journey passed quietly. Once or twice soldiers came in to search the baggage of the passengers for prohibited things like gold, rubber, silk, and imperial money but this disturbed me very little because I had nothing with me and every time I showed them my certificate of the International Battalion they respectfully retired. The first difficulties began the next morning at Vitebsk where the documents of the passengers are verified. While I was busy buying a bottle of milk and some bread a few minutes after the train pulled into the station, I saw Red Guards coming in every direction and we were ordered back into our cars. Then there began a regular inquiry and a good many people, who from the Bolshevist point of view could not show sufficient reasons for having left Petrograd, were arrested. When my turn came I walked up to the Chief of the Commissioners, who was undoubtedly a factory workman, and told him I was an official; he looked at me and at the document I presented and then muttered: "If this is all you have I shall have to arrest you; so many bourgeois now get documents from different Bolshevist officers and even serve several days just to hide behind the power of the Bolshevist seal that I recognize only the comrades who belong to our party." The train was held up at least two hours. At last we started to move on toward the Ukrainian-German- I had no papers and my only hope was to get by hook or by crook a permit for the German station for a day and thus break through the Bolshevist line, so I drove into town and went to explore the German border. I walked toward the German gate which many considered the "door of delivery," and during several hours watched most amusing and appalling things. Here and there on the other side of the barbed wire fence there stood dishevelled German soldiers nearly all of whom were men of advanced age; they had bottles of bad German brandy, bread, sweets, and all kinds of rubbish which they were offering to everyone on the other side of the fence for very high prices. They shook their bottles at the people, explaining as well as they could the quality and advantages of their merchandise, like little pawnbrokers. The officers stood near them smoking cigarettes and did not seem to mind or notice anything. Here and there a very suspicious and dirty-looking Jew was whispering over the railing with a soldier about buying a pass to get in and out of the German gate. It was a real "stock exchange," and gescheft was being made all around. one and they only wanted to do their duty as "Customhouse Citizens," so they gravely and most cautiously made the ladies walk up to them one by one, unbutton their shirt waist, and then the guard, looking modestly aside, stuck his hand between her clothing and her body and searched all around for contraband. This was done most gravely and quietly; one of the men even remarked that they hoped to have women replace them before long. These examinations gave very large results, piles of money and jewellery grew fast on the table of the head inspector as the unhappy victims passed. two young girls of Petrograd society who had joined this company in order to get to their parents in Kiev. They told me that all the "artists" were registered very carefully and were treated much better than any one else for the encouragement of art. They said it was easy enough to join a company but to get the certificate of an "artist" was quite a job as they had to perform in Bolshevist theatres more than one month and sing about forty times in shows before they got the desired document. When I went back to my hotel after watching all these curious things, I learned that the local Soviet met in this hotel also. I decided to get over the frontier at the earliest possible moment and so the next morning I went to the Soviet and asked for a "pass for the day" on the strength of my Bolshevist document. I explained to a sleepy-looking comrade that, before buying provisions here for my battalion, I had to find out what could be had on the Ukrainian border; my reason seemed to him quite natural and he gave me what I wanted. Armed with my new paper I was soon in front of the big building of the Ukrainian-German Frontier Administration. The Germans had built a lot of barracks and the whole place produced more the impression of an armed camp than anything else for there were German sentinels, officers, and armoured cars all around, but not a Ukrainian of the new "Independent State" could be seen anywhere. I soon realized that I was in the middle of the second-class troops of the German Army and for someone like myself, who had gone through the whole war and participated in the brilliant dashes of the Siberian troops when they smashed the Germans near Warsaw, it was most painful. I walked into the building discouraged, depressed, and very nervous. did not think it was necessary to ask for German protection." Nicholaiev leaned over and whispered something to the German officers, one fat Hun took out a bundle of papers which seemed to be lists of names and began to look through them very attentively. Suddenly he said: "Is your Christian name Andrew?" I could not deny it. Then, with a satisfied smile, he added: "You are the man—the spy of the Allies—we cannot let you run loose like this. Don't forget that here it is German soil, rule, and treatment. You have served with those pigs of Americans and I arrest you." Was I going to be sent back to the Bolsheviki! The idea did not please me. I soon, however, found out that it was not their scheme for I was marched off by two German soldiers to a building—a former girls' school—called "Arrest House" which was under the control of the German police of Kiev. I had far more chance of being sent to a German concentration camp than anywhere else and this was the awful nightmare I had always dreaded at the front. I had often vowed never to fall into the hands of the Germans alive, yet here I was a German prisoner—helpless and unable to do anything. My jail-keeper was a fat old German soldier called Guido Wegel, who did not care about anything except money and his native village to which he was eager to return, but in the meantime his only idea and interest, as with all the other Germans, was in commercial I reached Kiev, the "Mother of the Russian Cities," on the 23rd of September, 1918. I had visited many times before this wonderful city which is picturesquely situated on the Dnieper River and had always felt happy in this beautiful and jolly place, but now my impressions were most gloomy for I found it a German-Ukrainian Capitol. The people in the streets all walked silently, like obedient school-boys. At the corner of each street stood German soldiers with helmets and rifles. Everywhere one could feel the oppression of the heavy hand of German militarism. The whole "Ukrainian State" was a comedy played by a few Russian traitors and some German generals. The city was overcrowded. Hundreds of people who had fled from Bolshevist Russia were there; the first night I could not find a room and after a long hunt I was very happy to be allowed to pass the night on a table in a small restaurant. The second night I slept on the table and only on the third night was I able to find a friend who provided me a very primitive bed in his dining room. America was my destination, but I soon realized that it was useless for me to try to get out of this wasps' nest for the moment and I began to look around, for if I could not move on, my desire was to get to the bottom of the Pan-German plot in Russia and find out what disaster awaited my country as a result of the German's dual flirtation with the Communist Bolsheviki and the big landowners of Ukrainia. I refused to participate in any kind of government work with Hetman Skoropatsky, the overseer of German interests, but through my numerous friends who were serving in Kiev I got a truthful picture of the government work and the intrigues of the political parties. I tried to find the real Ukrainian National Party which did not exist but was only a bluff. I lived through the German occupation and its downfall—saw the Pettlura tragedy and the first results of the devilish scheme of the Germans in Ukrainia. What did Germany do? With Hun cannon she #### CHAPTER XVI #### What the Fortress Has Taught me 275 damp old Fortress has given me more than rheumatism. It has brought me nearer to the Russian people in all the phases of their suffering and revolt during the most turbulent and bloody period of their "sickness." I have come to understand, from a Russian point of view, many things I never realized before; my brain has been enlightened and my patriotism augmented. I should say more: I have come out of the Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul proud of being a Russian of the great and blind Russia of yesterday and of the still greater but self-conscious Russia of to-morrow. diplomacy. Then I was striving for ideals—as I understood them—but these ideals were created without consulting the millions whose happiness they were supposed to make. I was too far from their desires and unsatisfied needs. My eyes were opened only when, in my distress, abandoned by my class, I turned toward my brothers of the earth—the simple peasants, the soldiers and sailors—and, looking very deep into their souls, I began to discover the moral treasures of my race and to understand the errors of the educated minority who wanted to handle many millions of men regardless of their vital desires and interests for the sake of satisfying their political aims and international agreements most of which were made regardless of the every-day practical needs of the Russian nation. The Russian peasant who has become Bolshevised and who has killed and murdered, in whose hands the reign of terror has flooded Russia with blood, and who seems to be executing the orders of Lenine and Trotsky blindly, is not so bad as he appears, for he is only a blind instrument in treacherous hands and has been skilfully taught to think that without the crimes he commits, it is impossible to save his country and preserve his land and his liberty. He has been completely misled and misunderstood, yet the Russian Revolution has produced types not only worthy of pity but also of admiration. I have tried to lift the dark veil from a very small portion of Russian life; and I have spoken but little about the activities of the so-called Bolshevist party in the 277 Revolution, yet my reader has seen pass before his eyes many noble characters nearly all of whom were simple peasants. The sailors wanted to kill me at first because they had been taught it was the right thing to do—that I was bad for the country—but when they came to know me they formed their own opinion and before long became my staunchest friends. I cannot remember without emotion Daria, Titov, Radionov, and many others. terms are understood here, and it is quite certain that he will never become one. He merely turned to the Bolsheviki because he was worn out by the war. The Allies expected him to continue to suffer and fight without giving him anything or even promising him anything which he, in his simple mind, found worth fighting for. The Allies kept repeating: "Fight, suffer, be silent, remain in the trenches as long as it is necessary to crush German militarism—perhaps it will take a month, perhaps three years—but if you don't carry out the bloody contract signed by the old régime, you will all be traitors." Then they continued: "Why do you want anything else? You cannot do anything until the Constitutional Assembly solves all your problems at home. A constitutional assembly must not only represent the citizens of a free land but also their vital interests." When the Constitutional Assembly of free Russia did meet it was composed of 85 per cent. East-siders from New York City and Socialists who hurried from all parts of the world, and 15 per cent. Old Régimers, who, under the flag of faithfulness to the Allies, were dreaming of restoring the old methods of governing the nation. Words, words, but nothing practical to satisfy needs based on instincts of self-preservation and hunger; so the Russian people, in their anger, lost for the time their better instincts and turned toward the Bolsheviki who said to them: "In the name of Communism, take the land and kill the bourgeoisie." The peasants understood only the words: "Take the land," and they all Bolshevised. I saw at home on my own estate, farmers take a piece of paper from their pocket and spell by syllables Bol-she-vik, and then declare, in a tone of great satisfaction: "We belong to the new party, because it gives us the land." Many of the older men added with a sigh: "We would have preferred to buy it from the owners without foreign interference (they called any one who came from a distance foreign)—but we are ignorant and do not know what to do. We must take what is given—if only we could read and write and so, ourselves, be able to solve these complicated problems." To pay for the land and thereby become the rightful owners and to be "educated citizens" was and is the principal ambition of the Russian peasant. This is the problem of the Revolution which must be solved, without which nothing can be done in Russia. It is the key to the whole Russian situation. The leaders who will promise to give their attention to this most important question will be able to hold the former empire in their hands as the Bolsheviki have done and will bring back peace to a regenerated Russia. The thing which struck me the most in my prison experience was the tremendous desire of the Bolshevist sailors and soldiers to acquire personal knowledge. In the damp corridors of the Fortress, and later in the restaurants, on the benches of the public gardens and the dirty barns where I had to hide, I saw the same sight, men spelling out the words of a newspaper and teaching their ignorant comrades to read. Before the Revolution hardly 20 per cent. could read and write, while 80 per cent. were absolutely ignorant. Now I am sure, in the whole of Russia, you will hardly find 20 per cent. who cannot read. Bolshevism in Russia, as a political party, did not exist; it only came in as one of the forms of anarchy; but the Allies, by their selfish and greedy political aims in Russia, have contributed, as well as the Germans, to the solidifying of these accidentally Bolshevised individuals until such a strong movement has been developed that they can now defy the world. Two things must be remembered: the Allies, at the beginning of the war, put the principal burden of the struggle against Germany on the shoulders of Russia; then when the Revolution began to appear in the former empire, the French and the English, instead of waiting for it to develop naturally after the big offensive, aided and encouraged it, expecting to use it for their own ends. When, however, events proved that it was not easy to "use" a national sickness, they remembered their personal and financial interests and thought more of their money and of acquiring the Russian markets than of the people's welfare. Lithuania, and the Baltic Provinces, now claiming independence, are not nations but merely outskirts of "Great Russia" and have no more right to independence than have California and Texas. Therefore, by encouraging their secession, the Allies have caused the flag of a very powerful and far-reaching national movement to be unfurled. All this was done by the Allies to control the wealth of Russia, cut her forests, pump out her oil, and export her raw materials under the pretext of helping these Russian states to become independent and fight Bolshevism. They have tried to suppress both Russia and Bolshevism instead of which they have lighted the torch of patriotism throughout Russia. People in America seem astonished that the Allied intervention failed so completely and cannot understand why Kolchak and Denekin, strongly supported by the Allies, should, after so many months of successful effort, have collapsed so quickly. Denekin occupied in a few weeks a territory inhabited by nearly thirty millions in the richest part of Russia; then suddenly everything fell through, and the Red Army, defying the world, continued to advance on all fronts in its victorious drives. It may seem to those who only look upon the surface that the Bolsheviki as a political party are winning. It is not so. Can any one be stupid enough to presume, even for a minute, that this new invincible spirit of the Red Army was born of the principles of Bolshevism or Communism? Most certainly not—something else is stimulating the soldiers and causing them to defend the land they are cultivating. Just after the Armistice the Bolsheviki were losing ground every day because, though they had encouraged the peasants to take the land by force, they were unable to satisfy them and make them individual landowners, for in the soviet system, the land belongs to the Government Commune. The situation was most critical for the Bolsheviki, whole regiments were deserting, entire villages arrested their Red Guards and joined the anti-Bolshevist troops because they were tired of the Bolshevist autocracy and wanted only to get their land, cultivate it and pay for it. General Denekin owed his rapid successes in the summer of 1919 and his victorious advance on Kiev, not to his weapons, but to a skilful propaganda and his famous proclamation in which he said: In my advance to Moscow every man found on the land will be allowed to remain and keep the product of his work. In many cases the farmers met the volunteer troops with these proclamations in their hands. They were so proud of having what they thought were receipts granting them the right to buy the land. Kolchak's troops took the province of Perm in the same easy way and so opened the doors of Russia to the Siberian Army. Kolchak reopened the government banks and the peasants came in hundreds to pay for the land with all the interest since March, 1917. They were all eager to get the "lawful document of possession." This miraculous piece of paper would have meant peace, happiness and many millions of devoted anti-Bolsheviks. But they did not get it. The answer was always the same: "After Moscow is taken the Constitutional Assembly will decide—such is the will of the Allies and the condition of their support." The farmers could not forget that Moscow had always been the stronghold of the big landowners of the old régime and they began to hesitate. They did not hesitate long because the Bolsheviki were on the spot to whisper to them: "The Allies are supporting Kolchak, Denekin, and Yudenitch, who will not give you the land. Look at the French foreigners coming to take your land in the South. Look at the English foreigners cutting your wood in the North and pumping your oil in the self-named 'Republic of Georgia.'" In answer, a human wave of peasants rose from the Caucasus to Bessarabia, and from Vladivostok to the Polish border. Soon the higher classes began to join the peasants; the hatred for foreigners was so cleverly fomented that a tremendous national movement has been rapidly developed to avenge the insulted "Great Russia" and preserve her unity; the nation is being reborn and is conscious of its strength. The greedy politicians of London and Paris have been so blinded by their personal aims in Russia that they have let slip from their hands the "evolution" of the Russian Revolution, thus the Bolshevist murderers of yesterday are cooperating with the glorious patriots and leaders of the salvation and regeneration of the "Great Russia" of to-morrow. Russia must 285 save herself. She will do it; but the mistakes of Europe will bring to Europe much suffering and blood. They tried to kill the goose that laid the golden egg—the food of Europe; now these wise statesmen have suddenly discovered that Europe cannot live without the "golden egg" and they are frantically trying to open trade with Russia under any pretext or excuse regardless of the effect upon Russia. begun. Then the Bolsheviki, to save themselves at least for a time, were obliged to let the wave of patriotism rise; though they know it will eventually wash them out they are helpless and can do nothing except follow the current. The Soviet Government, by restoring the discipline in the new armies, is digging its own grave. have permitted such sacrilege and have gone to see such spectacles of sin. He goes on to say that they must all pray together for the pardon of their great sins and God will punish the most unworthy. In the end he calls to all the Believers and all Russians not to forget that they belong to the Saintly Orthodox Church and asks them if they can stand coolly by and see foreigners spitting at their Cross and the Poles destroying their churches. He tells them to unite and not let their religion be insulted and to reconquer the respect owed to their faith. The strength of great, intangible Russia has always been patriotism and religion. Now that they have been restored, the crisis in the Russian "sickness" is passing and the convalescence has begun. While there may be some setbacks I consider Russia already saved. The greatest revolution history has ever known is coming to a successful conclusion. THE END ![](https://samisdat.in/user/pages/03.books/1920%20-%20A%20Prisoner%20of%20Trotskys/read/_page_301_Picture_0.jpeg?g-16018011) THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N .Y. --- ## Navigation - Parent: [A Prisoner of Trotsky's (1920) by Andrew Kalpaschnikoff](https://samisdat.in/books/a-prisoner-of-trotskys-1920.md)