p. 355 | Untitled article by J. W. Scoles

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 17, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 23.

THE LAND OF THE CZARS. NO. 5.

By J. W. Scoles

THE only thing that savors of self-government in the least degree in Russia is the right possessed by each mir, or village commune, to banish from its jurisdiction any of its inhabitants who, by bad conduct or general worthlessness, have rendered themselves subjects of dislike to society. And when we stop to consider upon what very flimsy pretexts an individual may be considered guilty of bad conduct, we see that this right upon the part of the commune is capable of being exercised to such an utter subversion of the rights of the individual that it is, in reality, no self-government at all. In addition to this, the fact that one who has served out his sentence of banishment and comes back to his original commune is liable to be refused, and that this refusal means a probable banishment for life to Siberia by administrative process, enables us to see something of the difficulties which will attend the carrying forward of the last message of warning in this part of the world.

In considering the administrative process of dealing with offenders, it will be well for us to remember that there are no penitentiaries in Russia. The penal code of the country provides that if the penalty for the crime committed is not greater than four years' imprisonment, the criminal shall serve out his sentence in one of the common prisons of European Russia, because it would not justify the expense of sending him to Siberia. If he is condemned for a longer time than this, however, he goes to Siberia at once. So we can see that prisoners sent to Siberia cannot return under any circumstances sooner than five years, and many, in fact the larger number, are transported for life.

Inasmuch as some of the special features of prison life and the exile system are to be taken up in the future, it will not be necessary to dwell longer at present upon this topic, only to remark that there are something near 20,000 persons sent to Siberia each year, and of this number more than one-half on an average are sent there by administrative process.

The "administrative process" is one of the most outrageous violations of the principles of right of which it is possible to conceive. In brief, it is simply an order from the Minister of the Interior through one of his many instruments, to the effect that the obnoxious person shall be banished without the benefit of trial, counsel, accusation, or any of the proceedings which in most civilized countries are considered the legal rights of the accused. It seems the nearest approach to the perpetuation of the principles of the Inquisition of anything we ever heard of aside from that institution itself. The following quotation from George Kennan, in the Century magazine of September, 1888, is specially interesting from the reason that all the particulars in the instances he mentions were gathered directly from parties who were acquainted with the facts in the case, and as this is only a fair sample of the treatment accorded to thousands, we give it in order that all may see the injustice that exists to-day in that country. Mr. Kennan says:—

"The person so banished may not be guilty of any crime, and may not have rendered himself amenable in any way to any law of the State; but if, in the opinion of the local authorities, his presence in a particular place is 'prejudicial to social order,' he may be arrested without a warrant, and, with the concurrence of the Minister of the Interior, may be removed forcibly to any other place within the limits of the empire, and there be put under police surveillance for a period of five years. He may, or may not, be informed of the reasons for this summary proceeding, but in either case he is perfectly helpless. He cannot examine the witnesses upon whose testimony his presence is declared to be 'prejudicial to social order.' He cannot summon friends to prove his loyalty and good character without great risk of bringing upon them the same calamity which has befallen him. He has no right to demand a trial, or even a hearing. He cannot sue out a right of habeas corpus. He cannot appeal to the public through the press. His communications with the world are so suddenly severed that sometimes even his own relatives do not know what has happened to him. He is literally and absolutely without any means whatever of self-protection.

"As an illustration of the sort of evidence upon which the presence of certain persons in the cities and provinces of European Russia is declared to be 'prejudicial to social order,' I will give a few typical cases from the great number in my note-books. Some of the readers of the Century may still remember a young naval officer named Constantine Staniukovitch, who was attached to the staff of the Grand Duke Alexis at the time of the latter's visit to the United States. From the fact that I saw in Mr. Staniukovitch's house in Tomsk a number of visiting cards of people well known in the cities of New York and San Francisco, I infer that he went a good deal into society here, and that he may still be called to mind by persons who met him. . . . In 1882 or 1883 he purchased a well-known Russian magazine in St. Petersburg called the Diello, and became its editor and proprietor. He spent a considerable part of the summer of 1884 abroad, and in the latter part of that year left his wife and children at Baden-Baden and started for St. Petersburg. At the Russian frontier station of Vizhbolof he was suddenly arrested, was taken thence to St. Petersburg under guard, and was there thrown into the fortress of Petropavlovsk. His wife, knowing nothing of this misfortune, continued to write to him at St. Petersburg without getting any answers to her letters, until finally she became alarmed, and telegraphed to the editorial department of the Diello, asking what had happened to her husband and why he did not write to her. The managing editor of the magazine replied that Mr. Staniukovitch was not there, and that they had supposed him to be still in Baden-Baden. Upon the receipt of this telegram, Mrs. Staniukovitch, thoroughly frightened, proceeded at once with her children to St. Petersburg. Nothing whatever could be learned there with regard to her husband's whereabouts. He had not been seen at the editorial rooms of the Diello, and none of his friends had heard anything of or from him in two weeks. He had suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. At last, after days of torturing anxiety, Mrs. Staniukovitch was advised to make inquiries of General Orzhefski, the Chief of Gendarmes. She did so, and found that her husband was a prisoner in one of the casemates of the Petropavlovsk fortress.

"The police, as it afterward appeared, had for some time been intercepting and reading his letters, and had ascertained that he was in correspondence with a well-known Russian revolutionist who was then living in Switzerland. The correspondence was perfectly innocent in its character, and related solely to the business of the magazine; but the fact that an editor, and a man of known liberal views, was in communication with a political refugee was regarded as sufficient evidence that his presence in St. Petersburg would be 'prejudicial to social order,' and his arrest followed. In May, 1885, he was exiled for three years by administrative process to the city of Tomsk, in Western Siberia. The publication of the magazine was of course suspended in consequence of the imprisonment and ultimate banishment of its owner, and Mr. Staniukovitch was financially ruined. If the Russian Government deals in this arbitrary way with men of rank, wealth, and high social position in the capital of the empire, it can be imagined what treatment is accorded to physicians, students, and small landed proprietors whose presence is regarded as 'prejudicial to social order' in the provinces.

"Mr. Borodin, a well-known writer for the Russian magazine Annals of the Fatherland, was banished to the province of Yakutsk on account of the 'dangerous' and 'pernicious' character of a manuscript found in his house by the police during a search. This manuscript was a copy of an article upon the economic condition of the province of Viatka, which Mr. Borodin had sent to the above-named magazine, but which up to that time had not been published. Mr. Borodin went to Eastern Siberia in a convict's gray overcoat with a yellow ace of diamonds on his back, and three or four months after his arrival in Yakutsk he had the pleasure of reading in the Annals of the Fatherland the very same article for which he had been exiled. The Minister of the Interior had sent him to Siberia merely for having in his possession a 'dangerous' and 'pernicious' manuscript, and then the St. Petersburg committee of censorship had certified that another copy of that same manuscript was perfectly harmless, and had allowed it to be published, without the change of a line, in one of the most popular and widely circulated magazines in the empire."

Further instances of the injustice suffered by other of the exiles will be given next week. J. W. SCOLES.