A SPY'S REMORSE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1523, 20 August 1912, Page 7

A SPY'S REMORSE.

AZEFF REDISCOVERED.

ASSASSIN TELLS STORY OF HIS CRIMES. TRACKED DOWN IN GERMANYBy Teleeraph—Press Aeaoeiation-CopyriEht (Bee. August 19, 9.20 p.m.) Paris, August 19. Tho "Matin" prints M. Bourtzeff's account of his meeting with Azeff, tho notorious Russian ngont-provocateur, at Frankfurt last Thursday. M. Bourtzeff, who had previously unmasked Azeff, ha<l mudo a long attempt to rediscover him, and finally tracked him down and forced him to grant an interview under a promiso not to betray him, Azeff stated that he had been living alone for three years. He had been obliged to betray some revolutionary plots to tho Russian police, but the blind conndenco of tho police enabled him to carry out assassinations, including those of tho Russian Minister for tho Interior, M. de Plehve, the Grand Duke ..Serge, and Admiral Dubassolf. He felt the greatest remorse for revealing tho name of the woman Rasputina to General Gerasimoff in 1908. She and nvo others had been hanged. Azeff stated that he ciosired to bo tried by tho revolutionaries, and was willing to commit suicide if found guilty. • AN INFAMOUS DOUBLE-DEALER. '■ THE UNMASKING OP AZEFF. The peculiar character of the Russian revolutionary movement was revealed in its true light in 1903 by tho Azeff case, whioh, for weeks, almost monopolisod the news despatches from Russia. Yeygeni (Eugene) Azeff, an agent of the Russian secret police, was no less a itrson than tho head of the fighting organisation of tho social revolutionists. Azeff, the , agent of the Russian autocracy. (one and tho same person), was the 'leadel' of the executive committee of tho terrorists. Azeff, tho all-powerful leader of the Russian bomb-throwing organisation, was an agent-provocateur of the Russian Government. Ho entered the various secret committees and organisations of the revolutionists with tho knowledge of the secret police, who paid part of the expenses of t!ie plots laid by him against both sides, the government officials as well as tho plotters, who in most cases acted 'as his tools. In this way tho Russian Government, became itself ono with tho bomb-throwers mid provoked the young Russian idealists to the crimes, for which they were then, ehot or hanged by courtmartial or even without trial of any kind. Hβ journeyed through Russia <md went abroad, organised secret societies in various places, superintended the preparations of explosives in the chemical laboratories of the revolutionists and tho smuggling of weapons and explosives into Russia. Ho wrote and distributed revolutionary leaflets and pamphlets and successfully evaded tho vigilance of Customs officials. In short, he was indefatigable in promoting revolutionary activity, and the plots he organised usually ended with the cirest of most of tho plotters. I Some timo ago thb Bureau of Information of the Russian Government declared: "Several foreign, and later also Russian, papers have announced that in tho period 1902-1905 agents of the Russian police were concerned in some acts of terror that included the assassinations of the Grand Duke Serge Alexandroyich, the ministers of tho interior, Sipyagin and Plehve, the .Governor of Ufa, ljogdanovich, and of lotllers,"and iin 1907 in' tho attempted as-: sassination of tho Tsar. These statements are absolutely without foundation." The six St. Petersburg dailies which quoted theso announcements from the foreign press concerning some terrorist provocation were heavily lined. In spite of the strenuous efforts of the Russian' Government to suppress the news, it became widely known, a few days later, that the engineer Yevno (Yovgeni) Azeff had been exposed by members of the revolutionary party, which announced: "The central committee of the srcial revolutionary party hereby notifies the comrades that the engineer '/evgein Fihpovich Azeff, 38 years of age, known in the 'party as 'the stout one, 'Ivan Nikolayevich,-' 'Vallentin Kuzmich,' a member of tho social revolutionary party since its foundation, repeatedly elected as one of its leaders, a member of the 'fighting organisation' of the central union, has been exposed in his affiliations with the Russian secret police, and is, therefore, declared to be an agent-provocawur. Azeff, who disappeared before the party had passed final judgment in his Ciso, is now recognised as'very dangerous for the party." ..,> «. u Azeff's association with the secret Dolioe was clearly established, thanks Wgely to the help of the ex-chief of police. Councillor of State Aleksei Aleksevevich Lopukhin, who was at the head of the Department of Police from 1902 Popular clamour forced the Government to remit the fine of tho six newspapers, and a- 'mass of details concennng the Azeff case was soon published by the Russian press.