MR. STURMER was not a novice in politics and he was known to be a reactionary of the deepest dye. It is likely that even Rasputin’s friends would never have given a thought to the possibility of his becoming Prime Minister if Count Witte had still been in the land of the living. With the latter’s death the sort of coalition or secret society that had hoped through the occult influence of the “Prophet” to rise to power had lost its best head. There was no one to take his place, officially at least, because with the best will in the world it was impossible to suggest as a candidate for a ministerial portfolio Mr. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff. The past record of this man did not permit him to play any rôle but that of the Père Joseph of a minister who was not a Richelieu. And though the secret position of principal adviser to a personage of the importance of Rasputin had its advantages, it nevertheless precluded the possibility of becoming a candidate for the place of a statesman.
The next best thing, therefore, was to find some one who would be willing to become consciously what the “Prophet” was unconsciously, the instrument of the vile crew whose ambition was to make money by all means out of the terrible situation into which the country was plunged. These unscrupulous people all felt that they would never again in the whole course of their life have another such opportunity of becoming rich beyond the dreams of avarice, and they were not the kind of people to allow it to escape them. Every effort was therefore put forward to bring Mr. Sturmer to the notice of the Emperor, and to the attention of all those capable of suggesting to the latter the choice of this functionary to replace Mr. Goremykine, who had openly declared that he could not any longer go on fighting against the subterranean forces which were slowly but surely working against him, and making his position more unbearable every day. The candidate who would have been the most welcome to public opinion was Mr. Krivoscheine, but he was the last man whom Rasputin’s friends would have cared to put forward.
On the other hand, Mr. Sturmer, for personal reasons into which it is useless to enter here, when approached by Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, had not hesitated a single moment in promising to indorse the purposes of the small group of persons who had made up their minds to become the real rulers of the State. As soon as he had declared his willingness to join with them in the future an energetic campaign was started in his favour, not in the press nor in the Duma, nor even among the public, but in the immediate vicinity of the Sovereign, a campaign in which some of the highest authorities in the Greek Church were enrolled, and in which the Empress herself was persuaded by some of her personal friends to take part. The expected then occurred. The Czar was finally persuaded that in Mr. Sturmer he would find a faithful servant, which in a certain sense he did, and also a minister determined to govern according to the old principles of autocracy with an utter disregard for the liberal parties, as well as for the Duma. The Duma had not spared the Government during the whole summer, and its activity had been viewed with dismay by certain members. Yet the country was glad to find that at last there existed among its representatives men courageous enough to say what they thought, and to try to save Russia from the abyss into which it was felt that she was falling through the influence not so much of Rasputin himself as of those who surrounded him and who used him for their own ends.
This campaign succeeded and Mr. Sturmer was appointed. His selection caused an outcry of indignation throughout the whole country, and distressed its best friends for more than one reason. But even among the functionaries of the Ministry, which had to accept him as its chief, there were found some rebellious spirits, among whom was the then Minister of the Interior, Mr. Chvostoff, who made up their minds that it was at last high time to get rid of Rasputin in some manner or other. He was also a reactionary, like Mr. Sturmer, and even a furious one. When he was still a deputy in the Duma he had been one of the leaders of the faction of the right and before that time had made for himself the reputation of being an ultraconservative in all the different administrative posts which he had occupied. Among others, he had been Governor at Nijni Novgorod for a short period. He belonged to the number of persons who held the opinion that Rasputin ought to be removed. But whether he was really a party to the extraordinary story I am going to relate is a matter about which I shall abstain from expressing an opinion.
The fact is that about the beginning of the year 1916 people were startled by hearing of a new conspiracy against Rasputin, in which it was rumoured that the Minister of the Interior himself was a party. Things stood thus: A secret agent of the Russian police called Rgevsky, a man about as unscrupulous as Manassevitsch-Maniuloff but not so clever, who had already figured more than once in occasions when the need for a provocative agent had been felt, arrived in Christiania, in Norway, where the unfrocked monk Illiodore was living, and sought him out. His journey had been undertaken without the knowledge of the chief of the secret police, Mr. Bieletsky, but on the express orders of Mr. Chvostoff, the Minister of the Interior. Bieletsky, however, had suspected that some underhand game was going on, and had caused Rgevsky to be watched. When the latter had crossed the frontier at Torneo, he had been thoroughly searched and examined by special orders received from Petrograd, without, however, anything suspicious being found on him. When he was questioned as to the reasons for his journey abroad he had, in order to be allowed to proceed, to own that it was undertaken by command of the Minister of the Interior.
On his return from abroad Rgevsky was at once arrested under the pretext of having blackmailed another police agent. Furious at what he considered to have been a breach of faith, he contrived to apprise Rasputin of the position in which he found himself placed, and revealed to him that the object of his mission had been to see and speak with Illiodore to try to persuade the latter to organise a conspiracy with the help of the many followers he still had in Russia. The object of this plot was to be the murder of the “Prophet.” Illiodore had been considered ever since his quarrel with Rasputin one of the latter’s worst enemies, and it was felt that he would enter with alacrity into the plot which it was proposed to engineer. But to the stupefaction of the persons who had thus applied to him in the hope of finding in him the instrument which they required, Illiodore went over to the enemy. On the advice of Rgevsky he telegraphed to Rasputin, asking the latter to send some one whom he could trust to Norway, and telling him that he would deliver into the hands of that person the proofs of the plot that was being hatched against his, Rasputin’s, life.
Mr. Chvostoff, when taken to task for the affair, of course, denied it in its entirety. He declared that he had given quite different instructions to Rgevsky, and that he had sent the policeman to Norway to buy the memoirs of Illiodore, which he had heard the latter was about to publish abroad. But at the same time Chvostoff made no secret of his feelings of repugnance to Rasputin, and declared that he considered him a most dangerous and mischievous man, whose presence at Petrograd was exceedingly harmful for the prestige of the dynasty, as well as for the welfare of the State in the grave circumstances in which the country was finding itself placed.
According to Mr. Chvostoff, Rasputin was surrounded with individuals of a most suspicious character, who spent their time in concocting any amount of shady affairs and transactions, and who had organised a regular plundering of the public exchequer. He did not dare to do anything directly against the “Prophet,” but he tried to get at him through the arrest of several of his adepts and friends. He caused the houses of a considerable number of these to be thoroughly searched for compromising documents. Among other places searched was the flat of a Mr. Dobrovolsky, who held the position of a school inspector. This search gave abundant evidence by which he might have been incriminated in more than one dirty transaction. But he was not immediately arrested and contrived to make his escape. Another of the Rasputin crew, a certain Simanovitsch, was arrested at the very moment when he returned to his home in the private automobile of Mr. Sturmer, one of whose familiar friends he happened to be.
At the request of the “Prophet” an inquest into the denunciation of Rgevsky was ordered by Mr. Sturmer, and a certain Mr. Gourland, whose name had often been mentioned as that of a rising secret agent, was entrusted with it. But Manassevitsch-Maniuloff contrived to oust him and to get himself appointed in his place. At the same time it was decided to send some one to Norway to interview Illiodore, and to try thus to come to the bottom of the whole business. A certain General Spiridovitsch, who had already more than once been entrusted with missions of a delicate character which he had always accomplished to the satisfaction of those who had employed him, was selected for the task. The General had several interviews with Mr. Chvostoff, but they all came to nothing, and he did not go abroad as it had been rumoured that he would do. At last both the Minster of the Interior and the chief of the secret police, Mr. Bieletsky, had to resign their functions, and Rasputin found himself delivered from two of his most dangerous enemies.
The next question which arose was that of the appointment of Chvostoff’s successor. The post which he had vacated was such a difficult and responsible one that several persons who were sounded as to their readiness to accept it refused the offer in a most categorical manner. The story which I have just related died at last a natural death. Rgevsky disappeared, no one knew where, but the difficulties out of which it had arisen were still there. They could hardly be set aside by any minister, unless some radical measures were adopted, such as the exile of Rasputin, a thing which no one dared to propose, and which no one would have dared to enforce even if some one else had proposed it.
After the resignation, or rather the dismissal, of Mr. Chvostoff, his post was finally offered, by the advice of Rasputin and at the suggestion of Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, to Mr. Protopopoff, a rich landowner of the Government of Simbirsk, who for some time had occupied the position of vice president of the Duma of the Empire.
Just before his appointment to what is the most important and responsible function in the whole Russian Empire, there was much talk of an interview which he had had at Stockholm with Mr. Warberg, a representative of the German Government, during which the conditions at which a separate peace might come to be concluded between Russia and the Central Empires had been discussed. Later on, when this meeting, which had been arranged through the good offices of a Jew, Mr. Maliniak, became the subject of general knowledge in Stockholm, and details concerning it had found their way into the Russian press, Mr. Protopopoff was violently attacked by the liberal parties in the Duma, which accused him of treason, and refused even to listen to the clumsy explanations which he attempted to give of the affair.
It was then generally believed that the political career of this gentleman was at an end, and it was assumed that he would have to resign his vice presidency in the House. Certainly no one ever thought that he would suddenly develop into a minister. And yet, this is the very thing which happened, thanks to the Rasputin crew, which persuaded Mr. Sturmer to present Mr. Protopopoff to the Emperor as the best candidate for the place vacated by Mr. Chvostoff. In the meanwhile, Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, who had been the moving spirit in this whole intrigue, had been appointed private secretary to Mr. Sturmer, and at his instigation there began dissipation of public funds such as Russia had never seen before, and such as, let us hope, she will never see again.
There are many more things than I could possibly relate in regard to the incidents of which I have given the outline here, but these could hardly be published at present. The only thing which I can do is to try to make my readers understand the general position as it presented itself before the murder of Rasputin by quoting some speeches which were delivered in the Duma as far back as the year 1912. They were reproduced in the Russian Liberal organ, the Retsch, on the day following the assassination of the “Prophet.” The Russian censor offered no opposition to this republication.
The first of these speeches was made by Mr. Goutschkoff, one of the most enlightened men in the whole of the Russian Empire, whose liberal opinions and sound political views had won for him the respect of all parties, even those who were opposed to them. The occasion upon which it was pronounced was that of the discussion of the budget of the Holy Synod, a discussion during which for the first time the personality of Rasputin, together with his activity, was publicly denounced as one of the greatest sources of danger that had ever threatened the country as well as the dynasty.
“You all know,” said Mr. Goutschkoff in this memorable address, “what a terrible drama Russia is living through at present. With sorrow in our hearts and with terror in our souls we have followed its developments, and we are dreading its consequences. Standing in the very heart of this drama we see a mysterious, enigmatical, tragi-comical figure, who seems to have come out of the dark ages, which we believed had passed away forever, into the full light of the twentieth century. Perhaps this figure is that of a sectarian of the worst kind who is trying to popularise amongst us his mystical rites; perhaps it is that of an adventurer seeking to hide under the cloak of religious fanaticism and superstition his numerous swindles. By what means has this individual succeeded in rising to such a prominent position and in acquiring such an influence which even the dignitaries of our church, together with the highest functionaries in our State, acknowledge and which they seek to propitiate?
“If we had had to do with only this one figure which had made its way on the field of religious superstition and which has thriven, thanks to an exalted spirit of mysticism, a state of mind which, though not perhaps bordering on insanity, is yet not quite normal, then we should have said nothing. We might have regretted the fact; we might even have wept over it, but we would not have spoken about it.
“But unfortunately this figure is not standing alone. Behind it there is a whole crew, strong and varied, unscrupulous and grasping, which is taking advantage of its position and of the talents of persuasion which it may possess. Amongst this crew there are to be found journalists in want of copy, shady business men, adventurers of every kind and sort. It is they who are the moving spirits in all this sad history, it is they who inspire it, they who tell it what it is to do. They constitute a kind of commercial enterprise, and they understand how to play their game in the most clever manner.
“Before such a spectacle it is our duty to cry out as loud as we can that one ought to beware of all those people, and that the church—our church, and the country—our country, find themselves in imminent danger, because no revolution and no anti-Christian propaganda have ever done them more harm than the events which are daily taking place under our eyes for the last twelve months.”
Two years later, in 1914, a few weeks before the breaking out of the present war, another deputy, this time a clergyman, Father Filonenko, spoke about Rasputin in the Duma, and did so in the following strong terms:
“As a faithful and devoted son of our Holy Orthodox Church, I consider it my painful duty to mention once more what has already been discussed here, by so many orators better than myself, and to recur to a subject which is at present talked of at the corner of every street, in every town and in every village, no matter how distant and how far from any civilised centre in our vast Empire. We find ourselves compelled to look upon this unexplainable influence of a common adventurer, belonging to the worst type of those sectarians, whom until now we have known by the name of Khlystys, and despised accordingly. We are obliged to reckon with this influence of a man upon whom all the sane elements in our society look with contempt.”
On that same day another deputy belonging to the group of Ultra-Conservatives, Prince Mansyreff, also spoke about Rasputin, with perhaps even more energy than any one had ever done before in the Duma. Said the Prince:
“The adventure of Illiodore ended in ridicule, but we have now in his place another adventurer, with the personality of whom are connected the most nefarious and disgusting rumours, the most unnatural and contemptible crimes. It is useless to mention his name; every one knows who he is, and of whom I am talking. He has been let loose on our society to acquire some influence over it, by men even more shameless than he is himself; he has been used to terrorise all those who have dared to express their opinions against the currents which prevail at present in our administrative circles. This adventurer, whenever he travels and whenever he arrives in St. Petersburg, is met at the railway station by the highest dignitaries of the church; before him pray, as they would do to God, unfortunate hysterical ladies of the highest social circles. This individual, who only seeks the satisfaction of the lowest instinct of a low nature, has introduced himself into the very heart of our country and of our society, and we find and feel everywhere his disgusting and filthy influence.”
A few days after this memorable sitting of the Duma the Government issued instructions to the press never to mention Rasputin’s name or to speak of any subject connected with him in the newspapers. As soon as this became known the Octobrists put down on the order of the day in the Duma an interpellation on the matter, and Mr. Goutschkoff in moving it exclaimed:
“Dark and dangerous days have arrived, and the conscience of the Russian nation has been deeply moved by the events of the last few months, and is protesting against the appearance amongst us of symptoms proving that we are returning to the darkest periods of the middle ages. It has cried out that things are going wrong in our State, and that danger threatens our most holy national ideals.”
Prince Lvoff seconded the motion, and asked the Government to explain who was this “strange personality who had been taken under the special protection of the administration, who was considered as too sacred to be subjected to the criticism of the press, and who had been put upon such a pedestal that no one was allowed to touch or even to approach him.”
I would not have quoted these speeches but for the fact that they all bore on the same point, the one that I have tried to make clear to the mind of my readers. This point is that the danger which Rasputin undoubtedly personified in Russian society at large did not proceed from his own personality, but from the character of the men who surrounded him, who had made out of him their tool and who were trying through him to rule Russia and to push it into the arms of Germany. There is no doubt that Germany had been carefully following all the phases of the drama which culminated in the assassination of the “Prophet” and had been helping by her subsidies the underhand and mysterious work of men like Mr. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff and his satellites, and like Mr. Sturmer. Sturmer believed quite earnestly that he would secure immortality for his name and for his work if he contrived to conclude a peace which every one knew that Russia required, but which no one except himself and the adventurers to whom he owed his elevation thought of making except in concert with Russia’s Allies, and only after Germany had been compelled to accept the conditions of her adversaries.
The whole Rasputin affair was nothing but a German intrigue which aimed at discrediting the dynasty and perhaps even at overthrowing the sovereign from his throne.
Thanks to the infernal cunning of the people who were its leaders, the Imperial circle and even some of the Imperial family were represented as being entirely under the “Prophet’s” influence. And thanks to the solitary existence which the Emperor and Empress were leading, and to the small number of people who were allowed to see them, these rumours gained ground, for the simple reason that there existed no one capable of contradicting them or of pointing out their absurdity. Calumnies as stupid as they were degrading to the authors of them were set in circulation, and the revolutionary movement which Germany had been fomenting grew stronger and stronger every day, until it reached the lower classes. These classes by a kind of miracle were also kept very well informed as to everything that was connected with Rasputin or with the subterranean work performed by his party, a work which tended to only make the House of Romanoff unpopular, and to represent it as incapable of taking to heart the interest of the country over which it reigned.
If we consider who were the people at the side of the “Prophet,” and who inspired all his actions as well as his utterances we find police agents, adventurers who had been sometimes in prison, and sometimes in exile; functionaries eager to obtain some fat sinecure in which they might do nothing and earn a great deal; stock exchange speculators of doubtful morality and still more doubtful honesty; women of low character and army purveyors, mixed up with an innumerable number of spies. Most of these last were in the German service and were working for all that they were worth to bring about some palace conspiracy or some popular movement capable of removing from his throne a Czar whose honesty and straightforwardness of character precluded the possibility of Russia betraying the trust which her Allies had put in her.
Yet this was precisely what these people wanted, and what they had made up their minds to force through, thanks to the indignation which the various stories which were being repeated every day concerning Rasputin and the favour which he enjoyed was arousing all over Russia. The Emperor, of course, knew nothing of all this; the Empress even less. There was no one to tell them the truth, and they would have been more surprised than any one else had they suspected the ocean of lies which had been told concerning themselves, and concerning the kindness with which they had treated a man whom they considered as being half saint and half mad, but of whom they had never thought in their wildest dreams of making their chief adviser.
In this extraordinary history there is also another point which must be noticed. When the first deceptions produced by the disasters of the beginning of the campaign had thrown public opinion into a state of mind which was bordering well nigh upon despair, and before it had had time to recover from the shock of the fall of Warsaw and the line of fortresses upon which they had relied to protect the western frontier, people had begun to seek for the cause of the great disillusion they had been called upon to experience. It was very quickly discovered, partly through the revelations that had been made in the Duma, that the real reason for all the sad things which had happened lay in the systematic plundering of the public exchequer, that had been going on for such a long time and which even the experiences of the Japanese war had not cured. When the fierce battle against Germany began in grim earnest, the first thought of the Emperor had been to try to put an end to these depredations that had compromised the prestige and the good name of Russia abroad as well as at home. Great severity was shown to the many adventurers who had enriched themselves at the expense of the nation. When it had come to the fabrication of the necessary ammunition required by the army, then the help of Russia’s Allies—England and France—had been sought. Thanks to the efforts of these two Powers, something like order was re-established in the vast machine of the War Office.
The fabrication of shells of a size that could not fit any gun was stopped. The army at the front got clothes and food of which it had been in want at the beginning of the campaign. Ammunition was despatched where it was required, and not in the contrary direction as often had been the case before. The Allies helped Russia to the best of their ability, and Russia, at least the sane and honest part of Russian society, felt grateful to them for their co-operation in the work of their common defence against a foe which it had become necessary to defeat so thoroughly that civilisation could no longer be endangered by its existence and activity.
But the people who surrounded Rasputin and with whom he was working were not grateful for the labour of love which Great Britain and France had assumed. They began to complain of the so-called interference of foreign elements with the details of the Russian administration. Some went even so far as to say that Russia was becoming an English colony. All the plunderers, all the thieves who had had their own way for so many months, perceiving that they would no longer have the opportunities which they had enjoyed before to add to their ill-gotten gains, tried by all means in their power to discredit the Sovereign whose firmness they had found in their way. They joined all the pro-Germans of whom, alas, there existed but too many in the country, in an effort to bring about a peace, the shame of which would have been quite indifferent to them.
It is not at all wonderful if those shameless adventurers started the conspiracy for the success of which they required the moral influence of Rasputin and the authority of his person. It was, after all, such an easy matter to say that in such and such a case he had been acting in conformity with the Imperial will. No one could disprove the truth of the assertion, and in that way the Emperor was made responsible for all the unavowable things which were going on. He was supposed to have given his sanction to all these things simply because it had pleased, not even Rasputin himself, but individuals like Mr. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, to declare that they had been done with his knowledge and approval.
Can one feel surprised if in the presence of this artificial atmosphere, and still more artificial position, an intense feeling of disgust took hold of real patriots, and made them contemplate seriously the possibility of trying at least to unmask Rasputin and his crew and bring to the ears of the Czar all the different rumours which were in circulation concerning the “Prophet” and what was going on around him? Men of experience and of weight seriously thought how this could be done. They made no secret of the fact, unfortunately for themselves as well as for the success of their plans. What was going on very soon came to the knowledge of Manassevitsch-Maniuloff and made him more frantic than he had ever been to overthrow what he called “foreign influences” in Russia. He applied himself with renewed energy to bring about, by fair means or foul, the conclusion of a peace on which depended his whole future destiny. And he might perhaps have succeeded if circumstances had not turned against him and put an end to his machinations, at least for a time.
Mr. Sturmer was but a tool in the hands of this artful, clever private secretary whom he had been persuaded, or rather compelled, to take. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff had managed to get hold of him and to keep him securely bound to his own policy. He was the man who had contrived to put him into the position of authority which he enjoyed, and Mr. Sturmer, whatever may have been his other defects, had a grateful nature. Besides, Maniuloff amused him, and took an immense amount of trouble off his hands. He could rely on his never doing anything stupid, even when he did something very dishonest. Mr. Sturmer was absorbed in great political combinations and was looking toward a long term of office. He felt absolutely safe in the situation which he occupied, where at any moment he liked he could speak with the Czar and explain to him what he thought to be most advantageous to the interests of his party, or the events of the day as they followed in quick succession.
Alas for this security! An unexpected incident was to destroy it in the most ruthless manner. Rasputin, together with Mr. Maniuloff, went too far in the system of blackmailing which they had been practising with such skill for so many long months. For once they found their master in the person of one of the directors of a large banking establishment in Petrograd, who, upon being threatened with all kinds of unpleasantness unless he consented to pay a large sum of money, did not protest as others had done before him in similar cases, but gave it immediately, first having taken the numbers of the banknotes which he had handed over to Mr. Maniuloff. He went with these numbers to the military authorities and lodged with them a formal complaint against the blackmailers. The result was as immediate as it was unexpected. The General Staff had been waiting a long time for just such an opportunity to proceed against Rasputin and the members of his crew. That very same night, in obedience to orders received from the military commander of Petrograd, Mr. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff’s house was searched from top to bottom, and he himself conveyed to prison, without even having been allowed to acquaint his chief, Mr. Sturmer, with what had happened to him.