THE RUSSIAN NIHILISTS.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1936, 8 May 1880, Page 4

THE RUSSIAN NIHILISTS.

A correspondent of the “ Cologne Gazette ” writes:—‘lt is well known that Vera Sassulieh and tho murderers of General Mesenzaff have escaped from Russia into foreign countries ; but the persons who carried out other celebrated homicidal enterprises are in all probability still sojourning upon their native soil, whore, if they only behave with sufficient caution, they are fur less exposed to discovery than they would be in Germany or France, countries in which any one not thoroughly versed in tho national language invariably attracts attention, and in which a handful of bank notes does not exorcise the magical influence with which it is gifted in Russia. It is by no means necessary that a Nihilist should bury himself in the interior of tho country to evade detection, for ho can reside with much greater safety to himself in St. Petersburg or Moscow than in an obscure village of some remote province. In tbe now capital, for instance, many thousands of persons of both sexes arc resident who possess no permit or pass, as prescribed by law, and got on perfectly well without any justificatory document whatsoever. There are people in this town who havo lived hero for dozens of years without permits, although everybody is required upon changing his or her lodgings to produce an ofiLid passport at the district police office, and to have it stamped by tho competent authority, and although houseowners, dvorniks (porters), and police officials expose themselves to heavy penalties if any one for whom they can be held responsible be found not to possess a pass. Do you wish to know how this is managed ?_ It is simple enough. All you have to do is to make the acquaintance of tho police official in whose beat your domicile is situate, to ask him to lunch, and slip a bank note of from ten to twenty-five roubles under his napkin. That piece of paper will serve you in every respect as efficiently as an Imperial passport. Tho dvornik of course gets his percentage on the transaction ; and by making your arrangements in this wise, you run not tho slightest risk of being interfered with. Let us put the case that a Nihilist has committed an over act of treason. Under such circumstances — especially if his signalement bo in tho possession of tho authorities —ho cannot venture, immediately after his criminal performance, tointroduce himself to the notioe| of any police officer ; but there is no occasion that he should do so, for other ways and means, in plenty, are available to him for avoiding the eyes of his pursuers. Bach successive Nihlistio murder or arson is the signal for an outbreak of feverish activity amongst the Russian police, which, however, subsides within a voryfow weeks. Daring the interval no hotel proprietor or lodginghouse keeper will admit into his establishment any applicant for accommodation who cannot " legitimise ” him or her self by the production of his pass ; The only house-holders who exact no exhibition of justificatory documents from their visitors are the keepers of brothels, to which tolerated institutions the Nihilist malefactor at once repairs after making his coup. During tho period prescribed by prudence he spends his days with his fellow-conspirators, who have squared the police in their dwelling, and hia nights in the so-called “ house of accommodation.” A year may elapse before he shall have exhausted the number of his nocturnal refuges. Long ere he can achieve so gigantic an enterprise as this, however, the police have settled down into their normal quiescence, and he has been enabled to hire a lodging by putting in practice the simple expedient above alluded to—namely, bribing a gorodovoi and a dvornik.

“ Venality and dishonesty cannot be eradicated from the Russian nature ; its roots have struck too deeply in that congenial soil. Since the conclusion of the war with Turkey dozens upon dozens of officers and employes have been broken and severely punished for fraud and peculation; yet scarcely a week passes by without an announcement in the papers to the effect that such or such a colonel, captain, or lieutenant has been arraigned before a Court martial for making away with Government funds entrusted to him. No sort of ‘ concession’ can be obtained in Hussia without bribing the officials. If a pot-houso keeper wishes to open a skittle alloy, and makes application in due form for permission to do so, ho may be quite certain that, after waiting many months for an answer to his petition, it will bo finally rejected if he have omitted to devote a certain sum to the customary palm greasing operation. Anybody desiring to publish a newspaper, to obtain a license for the sale of wines or chemical drugs, or to open any sort of a retail establishment, must keep his hands busy with the transfer of his ready cash from his own pockets to those of the state officials, or his aspirations will be inevitably frustrated. The man whose purse is well lined, and who knows how to make his money chink opportunely in the hearing of the Czar’s functionaries, is absolutely secure here, whilst the honest dullard is sure to get caught in the cogwheels of the administrative machine and badly crushed by them. The Nihilists are only too well versed in the ‘ customs of the country,’ wherefore capital in their hands is a far more dangerous weapon than either dagger or revolver. When they shall have spent their capital there will be no further need to dread their implements of assassination ; they will speedily subside from their self-arrogated lofty station as political martyrs to the miserable position of pitiful bankrupt conspirators, whom the arm of justice will descend upon without the least moroy. “ The powers and prestige of the Nihilists have suffered considerably by their recent failures, and by the wholo-hog measures of the several military Governors Genera! to whom the Czar has committed the task of suppressing the insurrectionary movement. Their ranks have been thinned by innumerable arrests, and moreover a split has occurred in their controlling organisation. Their own loaders are beginning to perceive that nothing of any great importance can be brought about in Russia by mere brute force, and that Nihilism is practically a lost cause. Even before Solovieff attempted the Czar’s life disputes had broken out between the leading social-revolutionists, some of whom were resolved to put the Emperor out of the way, whilst others wished his life to be spared. The former faction acted on its own responsibility when it commissioned Solovieff to carry ou t its programme; for the • Semliai Wolja”the organ of the moderate party, repudiated any connexion with the men of April 14th. During the summer the agitation was, comparatively speaking, in abeyance. The Nihilistic gentlemen retired to their summer residences, and only a few subordinate agents continued the propaganda work amongst the peasantry. Their success, too, was but small; for the Russian peasant, although he detests his social superiors, and is easily excited to fury against the officials, who render his very existence a burden to him, can never be persuaded to conspire against his Emperor. So it came to pass that some of the Nihilistic agents got heartily thrashed by the moujiks, whilst others were unceremoniously laid hold of and handed over to the authorities. Since April 14th the Nihilists have been undermining their own ground, for no decent Russian feels any sympathy or compassion for regicides. The Russian people is strongly addicted to coquetting with socialistic ideas ; but its eyes have been opened to a great many fallacies within the last twelve months. The moderate mal-contents feel that they have been pushed backwards, step by step, by the Intransigents, and that, day by day, they have lost ground, so they have turned upon their more uncompromising accomplices. At present a broach divides those two [factions, whoso mutual attitude is almost hostile. The moderates have come to the conclusion that they have been betrayed into conniving at enterprises of which they disapprove, and the Radicals look down with utter scorn upon their former confederates. This split up in the conspirators’ camp has shorn the real revolutionary party of more than half its original members. But is the danger thereby diminished ? Certainly not—or, more correctly, not yet; for the Radicals have contrived to get possession of all the funds gathered together by the associations in their entirety ; and, as long as their money shall last, so long may their infernal machines be dreaded, the influence of ready cash in Russia being enormous. For these Radicals—the men who arranged and sanctioned the Moscow outrage—there is no turning back. Their only prospect is an alternative of gallows or suicide. Of this they are well aware. They know what destiny awaits them, and are therefore resolved to fight to the end, exhausting every resource at their disposal, and to finish by selling their lives as dearly as possible. They are, indeed, desperate and terrible ruffians, who will not shrink from incendiarism on a vast scale, or from wholesale murder when driven into a corner.”