Gogo! lifted one corner of the curtain and showed us Russian officialdom in all its ugliness: but Gogo! cannot help conciliating one with his laughter; his enormous comic talent gets the upper hand of his indignation. Moreover, in the fetters of the Russian censorship he could scarcely touch upon the melancholy side of that foul underworld, in which the destinies of the miserable Russian people are forged.
There, somewhere in grimy offices which we make haste to pass through, shabby men write and write on grey paper, and copy on to stamped paper-and persons, families, whole villages are outraged, terrified, ruined. A father is sent into exile, a mother to prison, a son for a soldier-and all this breaks like a thunderclap upon them, unexpected, for the most part undeserved. And for the sake of what? For the sake of money. A contribution . . . or an inquiry will be held into the dead body of some drunkard, burnt up by spirits and frozen to death. And the head-man collects and the village elder collects, the peasants bring their last kopeck. The police-commissary must live; the police-captain must live and keep his wife, too; the councillor must live and educate his children, for the councillor is an exemplary father.
Officialdom reigns supreme in the north-eastern provinces of Russia and in Siberia. There it has flourished unhindered, without looking back . . . it is a fearful long way, and everyone shares in the profits, stealing becomes res publica. Even the Imperial power, which strikes like grape-shot, cannot breach these boggy trenches that are dug in mud, that suck you down and are hidden under the snow. All t�e measures of government are enfeebled, all its intentions are distorted ; it is deceived,
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fooled, betrayed, sold, and all under cover of loyal servility .md with the observance of all the official forms.
Speransky1 tried to improve the lot of the Siberian people. He introduced everywhere the collegiate principle, as though it made any difference whether the officials stole individually or in gangs. He discharged the old rogues by hundreds and engaged new ones by hundreds. At first he inspired such terror in the rural police that they actually bribed the peasants not to lodge petitions against them. Three years later the officials were making their fortunes by the new forms as well as they had done by the old.
Another eccentric was General Velyaminov. For two years he struggled at Tobolsk trying to check abuses, but, seeing his lack of success, threw it all up and quite gave up attending to business.
Others, more judicious, did not make the attempt, but got rich themselves and let others get rich.
'I shall eradicate bribe-taking,' said Senyavin, the Governor of Moscow, to a grey-haired peasant who had lodged a complaint against some obvious injustice. The old man smiled.
'What are you laughing at?' asked Senyavin.
'Why, you must forgive me, sir,' answered the peasant; 'it put me in mind of one fine young fellow who boasted he would lift the Tsar-pushka,2 and he really did try, but he did not lift it for all that.'
Senyavin, who told the story himself, belonged to that class of unpractical men in the Russian service who imagine that rhetorical sallies on the subject of honesty, and the despotic persecution of two or three rogues who happen to be there, can remedy so universal a disease as Russian bribe-taking, which grows freely under the shadow of the censorship.
There are only two remedies for it: publicity, and an entirely different organisation of the whole machinery, the re-introduction of the popular principle of the arbitration courts, verbal proceedings, sworn witnesses, and all that the Petersburg administration detests.
1 Speransky, Mikhail Mikhaylovich ( 1 772- 1 839), a leading statesman of the early period of the reign of Alexander I, banished in 1 8 1 2 on a trumped-up charge of treason. recalled by Nicholas. He was responsible for the codification of Russian laws. ( Tr. ) 2 A cannon, cast in the seventeenth century, which weighs forty tons.
It is in the Kremlin at Moscow and is said to be the biggest in the world.
It has never been fired. (R.)
Prison and Exile
1 8 7
Peste!, the Governor-General o f Western Siberia, father o f the celebrated Peste! put to death by Nicholas, was a real Roman proconsul and one of the most violent. He carried on an open system of plunder in the whole region which was cut off from Russia by his spies. Not a single letter crossed the border without the seal being broken, and woe to the man who should dare to write anything about his government. He kept merchants of the first guild for a year at a time in prison in chains; he tortured them. He sent officials to the borders of Eastern Siberia and left them there for two or three years.
For a long time the people bore it; at last a working man of Tobolsk made up his mind to bring the condition of affairs to the knowledge of the Tsar. Afraid of the ordinary routes, he went to Kyakhta and from there made his way with a caravan of tea across the Siberian frontier. He found an opportunity at Tsarskoye Selo of gi ving Alexander his petition, beseeching him to read it. Alexander was amazed by the terrible things he read in it. He sent for the man, and after a long talk with him was convinced of the melancholy truth of his report. Mortified and somewhat embarrassed, he said to him:
'You go home now, my friend; the thing shall be inquired into.'
'Your Majesty,' answered the man, 'I shall not go home now.
Better command me to be put in prison. My conversation with Your Majesty will not remain a secret and I shall be killed.'
Alexander shuddered and said, turning to Miloradovich, who was at that time Governor-General in Petersburg:
'You will answer to me for him.'
'In that case,' observed Miloradovich, 'allow me to take him into my own house.'
And the man actually remained there until the case was ended.
Peste! almost always lived in Petersburg. You may remember that the proconsuls as a rule lived in Rome. By means of his presence and connections, and still more by the division of the spoils, he anticipated all sorts of unpleasant rumours and scandals.a The Imperial Council took advantagP of Alexander's 3 This gave Count Rostopchin occasion for a biting jest at Pestel's expense.
They were both dininp; with the Tsar. The Tsar, who was standing at the window, asked: '\\'hat's that on the church, the black thing on the cross?' 'I can't make out,' observed Count Rostopchin. 'You must ask han Borisovich, he has wonderful eyes, for he can see from here what is being done in Siberia.'
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temporary absence at Verona or Aachen1 to come to the inte!ligent and just decision that since the matter in a denunciation related to Siberia the case should be passed to Peste! to deal with, seeing that he was on the spot. Miloradovich, Mordvinov, and 1'....-o others were opposed to this decision, and the case was brought before the Senate.
The Senate, with that outrageous injustice with which it constantly judges cases relating to higher officials, exculpated Peste! but exiled Treskin, the civilian governor of Tobolsk, deprived him of his rank and privileges as a member of the gentry and relegated him to somewhere or other. Peste! was only dismissed from the service.