RUSSIAN POLICY OF TURPITUDE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 113, 10 June 1909, Page 4

RUSSIAN POLICY OF TURPITUDE

The wildest and most fantastic inventions of Eugene Sue, Alexandra Dumas, or Gaboriau have been eclipsed liy the disclosures recently made in the Pans papers with regard to ilie " Hideous" and "mysterious" operations of the Kussian police. We have here revealed " a mercenary monster" declared to be unparalleled in depravity by any of the dark and sinister figures wmcli nave recently passed over the stage of Russian history. As detailed in the European press the circumstances of this strange case are as follows : A member of the liussian .Socialist Union of that extreme class who look upon violence as tlie most powerful instrument of reform and aim at assassinating powerful members oi the bureaucracy, lias recently denounced another member as an agent-provocateur of the police. The agent provocateur is a man who incites his comrades to deeds of violence and then delivers them lUto the hands of the authorities. The treacherous spy in this instance is a civil engineer named Eugene Phillipuviten Azeff. "These fighting revolutionists, ever ready with the bomb, the pistol, and the knife," says M. Jaures in the Humanite, " have been obliged to ask themselves the terrible question—' Had not their party for seven years been a mere .puppet in the hands of the police officers of the Czar, and an involuntary instrument of the criminal coterie who create and sustain the autocracy 1"

The person who found out the machinations of Azeff is a certain Bourtseff, who at last succeeded in bringing Azeff's case before the revolutionary tnuunal. Before they could come to a decision Azvil' fled and is now believed to be in Russia. According to Bourtseff, speaking to a representative of the Humanite:

"The part played by this devil incarnate extended to every conspicuous tragedy of our revolution, and the number of his victims, young men and girls, old men and women, despatched by him to the gallows, tile knout, or to' Siberia, cannot be calculated."

Azeff was particular, says Bourtseff, in procuring tlie execution as traitors of those miserable creatures who, he thought, wore beginning to suspect his real character. Azeff kept the police busy with the contemplated crimes of his party. The,assassination of the dictator Plelive, the murder of the Czar's uncle, the Grand Duke Sergius, Gover-nor-General of Moscow, the unsuccessful assaults 011 the Grand Dukes Nicholas and Vladmir, on General Trepoff, and on the Czar himself, were engineered by Azeff, says his accuser Bourtseff, and of course made known beforehand to the police. The same witness affirmed that "the greatest agent provocateur of iiis age" "was set to work for the death of Alexis, because the court faction to which the Grand Duke belonged were plotting ww dethronement of the Czar as a man "too weak" and "too liberal" in dealing witli the revolutionary crisis. According to i the Intransigeant (Paris) every liussian revolutionist in the French capital de-, clares that Azeff cannot escape tlie fate of Gapon, who played the sj'.me role with |>rief success. Says a Russian "'student' and of course a .Socialist, interviewed by a French journalist: "The wretched spy (Azeff) received annually 100,000 francs from the Russian Government. He was a short, fat man, with long unkempt hair. He associated with us, and we believed in him. From the first day he came among us this wonderful plotter, i fchis genial schemer, sold his brethren, and betrayed women into the nands of goalers and hangmen. He incited us to acts of violence, in the interest of tlie Government."

The Vienna press are inclined to look upon the "revelations" of the Paris papers as little more .nan canards, and the Neue Freie Presse remarks: "The 'revelations' concerning. the agent provocateur Azelf have produced a profound sensation even in Russia, but their indirect consequences are most to be regretted. N(H less than seven Russian newspapers which printed these Paris revelations have been suspended and fined from 300 to 1000 roubles. Yet these papers did not print the items as true or even probable. . . . Indeed the greatest caution ought to be observed in Accepting these reports of the Parisian papers. Tlie Russian police have too many sins already upon their conscience to warrant our further loading them with imputations of this terrible character. It is to be wished ra the interests of pure history that people would leave off perplexing themselves with these dark and enigmatic tales of tile Russian revolution."